M.
McADOO, WILLIAM GIBBS.
See (in this Volume) NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1900-1909.
McANENY, GEORGE: President of the Borough of Manhattan.
See (in this Volume) NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1909.
McCALL, JOHN A.: President of New York Life Insurance Company.
See (in this Volume) INSURANCE, LIFE.
McCLELLAN, GEORGE B.: Mayor of New York.
See (in this Volume) NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1901-1903, and 1905.
McCURDY, RICHARD A.: President of Mutual Life Insurance Company.
See (in this Volume) INSURANCE, LIFE.
MACDONALD COLLEGE, The Founding of.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: CANADA: A. D. 1907.
MACEDONIA: The recent use of the Name.
As employed very commonly at the present time, the name Macedonia simply signifies that part of the small remainder of the Turkish Empire in Europe which coincides nearly with the original Macedonia of ancient history. It is applied to the three Turkish vilayets or provinces of Salonika, Monastir and Kossovo, which have been the scene for years of conditions of strife and misery that are worse, perhaps, than can be found elsewhere in the world. Whether the wretched inhabitants have suffered more from their political masters, the Turks, than from their Bulgarian and Greek neighbors, who covet the ground they occupy, seems to be much of a question. For some account of the Macedonian troubles of late years.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY.
MCKENNA, REGINALD: First Lord of the British Admiralty. Speech on the Navy Estimates, 1909.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR: NAVAL.
MACKENZIE BASIN, Report on the.
See (in this Volume) CANADA: A. D. 1909.
MCKINLEY, WILLIAM: President of the United States. His assassination.
See (in this Volume) BUFFALO: A. D. 1901, and UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901 (SEPTEMBER).
MCKINLEY, WILLIAM: Last public utterance.
See (in this Volume) TARIFFS: UNITED STATES.
MACLAURIN, RICHARD C.: President of Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1909.
MACLEAN, Kaid Sir Harry: Capture by Raisuli and ransom.
See (in this Volume) MOROCCO: A. D. 1904-1909.
MACVEAGH, FRANKLIN: Secretary of the Treasury.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909 (MARCH).
MACVEAGH, FRANKLIN: On the corruptions in the United States Customs Service.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909 (OCTOBER-NOVEMBER).
MADAGASCAR: Agreement of England and France concerning matters in.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1904 (APRIL).
MADRIZ, Dr.: President of Nicaragua.
See (in this Volume) CENTRAL AMERICA: A. D. 1909.
MAGHRABI, AMINA HAFIZ.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: EGYPT.
MAGHREB EL-AKSA.
See (in this Volume) MOROCCO.
MAGOON, CHARLES E.: Governor of the Panama Canal Zone.
See (in this Volume) PUBLIC HEALTH: PANAMA CANAL.
MAGOON, CHARLES E.: Provisional Governor of Cuba.
See (in this Volume) CUBA: A. D. 1906 (AUGUST-OCTOBER), and 1906-1909.
MAHDI, THE MOORISH: BU HAMARA.
See (in this Volume) MOROCCO: A. D. 1903-1904.
MAHDI, A New: His summary destruction.
See (in this Volume) AFRICA: A. D. 1903 (SUDAN).
MAHMUD SHEVKET PASHA: Commander of the Turkish Constitutional Forces.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1909 (JANUARY-MAY).
MAHOMET and MAHOMETAN.
See (in this Volume) MOHAMMED and MOHAMMEDAN.
MAKAROFF, Admiral.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (FEBRUARY-AUGUST).
MALARIA.
See (in this Volume) PUBLIC HEALTH: MALARIA.
MALAY PENINSULA: A. D. 1909. Cession of Three States to Great Britain.
See (in this Volume) SIAM: A. D. 1909.
MANCHURIA: A. D. 1901-1904. Persistent occupation by the Russians. Remonstrances by the Japanese.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1901.
MANCHURIA: A. D. 1903. Treaty opening two new Ports to Foreign Trade.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1903 (MAY-OCTOBER).
MANCHURIA: A. D. 1904. The Russo-Japanese War.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (FEBRUARY-JULY), and after.
MANCHURIA: A. D. 1905. Treaty between China and Japan.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1905 (DECEMBER).
MANCHURIA: A. D. 1908-1909. The question of Municipalities on the line of the Chinese Eastern Railway. New Russo-Chinese Agreement.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1909 (MAY).
MANICKTOLLAH GARDEN, The.
See (in this Volume) INDIA: A. D. 1907-1908.
MANIKALAND.
See (in this Volume) AFRICA.
MANILLA: A. D. 1900-1902. The Stamping Out of the Bubonic Plague.
See (in this Volume) PUBLIC HEALTH.
MANITOBA: A. D. 1901-1902. Census. Increased Representation in Parliament.
See (in this Volume) CANADA: A. D. 1901-1902.
MANNESMANN CONCESSION, The.
See (in this Volume) MOROCCO: A. D. 1909.
MANUEL II.: King of Portugal.
See (in this Volume) PORTUGAL.
MARCONI, Guglielmo.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE, RECENT: ELECTRICAL. See, also, NOBEL PRIZES.
MARISCAL, Ignacio: Honorary President of Second International Conference of American Republics.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
MARRAKESH (Morocco City), Events at.
See (in this Volume) MOROCCO: A. D. 1907-1909.
{419}
MARRIAGE WITH A DECEASED WIFE’S SISTER: English Act to legalize it.
See (in this Volume) ENGLAND: A. D. 1907 (AUGUST).
MARSEILLES: A. D. 1902. Strikes of Dock Laborers, Sailors, and Stokers.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: FRANCE: A. D. 1902.
MARTENS, Frederick de.
See (in this Volume) NOBEL PRIZES.
MARTINIQUE: Volcanic Explosion of Mont Pelée.
See (in this Volume) VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS: WEST INDIES.
MARYLAND: A. D. 1909. Defeat of Disfranchising Amendment to the Constitution.
See (in this Volume) ELECTIVE FRANCHISE; UNITED STATES.
MASCHINE, Colonel: Leader of the Assassins of King Alexander, at Belgrade.
See (in this Volume) BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: SERVIA.
MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1909. Seeking a Leader for an Educational Revolution.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909.
MASSACRES: In Asia Minor.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1909 (APRIL-DECEMBER).
MASSACRES: Of "Bloody Sunday" in St. Petersburg.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1904-1905.
MASSACRES: Of Jews at Kishineff.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1903 (APRIL).
MATOS, Manuel A.
See (in this Volume) VENEZUELA: A. D. 1902-1904.
MATSUKATA, Count.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1903 (JUNE).
MATTER, New Theory of.
(See in this Volume) SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: PHYSICAL.
MAURA, Señor: Prime Minister of Spain.
See (in this Volume) SPAIN: A. D. 1901-1904, and 1907-1909.
"MAURETANIA," The Turbine Steamship.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: TURBINE ENGINE.
MAURETANIE, French.
See (in this Volume) MOROCCO: A. D. 1909.
MAY LAWS, The.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: PRUSSIA: A. D. 1904.
MECCA: Railway from Damascus.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS (TURKEY, ASIATIC: A. D. 1908).
MEDJLISS MEJLIS: The Persian Parliament or National Assembly.
See (in this Volume) CONSTITUTION OF PERSIA. Also PERSIA: A. D. 1905-1907.
MELILLA: Spanish hostilities with Moors.
See (in this Volume) MOROCCO: A. D. 1909.
MENDEL, GREGOR, and his Law of Variation in Species.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE AND INVENTION: BIOLOGICAL.
MENELEK: Emperor of Ethiopia.
See (in this Volume) ABYSSINIA: A. D. 1902.
MERRY DEL VAL, CARDINAL.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1905-1906.
MERSINA: Moslem attack on Armenians.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1909 (JANUARY-MAY).
MESSINA: Its destruction by Earthquake.
See (in this Volume) EARTHQUAKES: ITALY.
METCALF, VICTOR H.: Secretary of Commerce and Labor, and Secretary of the Navy.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1905, and 1905-1909.
METCHNIKOFF, PROFESSOR ELIE.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: OPSONINS. See, also, NOBEL PRIZES.
MEXICO: A. D. 1901-1902. Invitation and entertainment of Second International Conference of American Republics.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
MEXICO: A. D. 1902 (May). Arbitration of the Pious Fund Question, between the United States and Mexico.
From 1868 until 1902 a claim of the United States against Mexico had been in dispute. It related to the right of the Catholic missions in that part of old California which now forms the American State of California to a portion of the income from a certain fund which pious people of Spain and Mexico, more than two centuries ago, had established for the support of Catholic missions among the California Indians. In 1767 the Jesuits who held the fund were driven from the country and the Spanish Government assumed the trust, which in turn devolved on Mexico when that colony acquired independence. When upper California was ceded to this country Mexico ceased to pay to the missions there the portion of the income due them. Their claim was finally taken up by the American Government, to be pressed against, the Mexican, and, after years of diplomatic controversy, was referred, May 22d, 1902, to the Hague Tribunal for arbitration. This has the distinction of being the first controversy submitted to that permanent tribunal. The decision of the Tribunal was rendered on the 14th of October, 1902, in favor of the California claim, requiring Mexico to pay $1,420,682 (Mexican currency) of past dues, and $43,051 annually thereafter.
MEXICO: A. D. 1903. New Legislative Palace, and other Government Buildings.
"The cities and towns of Mexico are improving at a surprising rate, and the capital city especially is just now in the midst of the greatest building boom that has ever, perhaps, been known in any Latin-American city except Buenos Ayres. The interesting monthly publication entitled Modern Mexico informs us that the federal government alone is entering upon an investment approximating $50,000,000 in new buildings in the City of Mexico.
"The greatest of these buildings is the so-called Legislative Palace, corresponding to our Capitol building at Washington. The foundations of this building are now being laid, and it will cost, perhaps, $20,000,000. The City of Mexico has adopted the wise European plan of carefully regulating the height of new buildings, and preventing the construction of anything that would be inartistic or out of keeping with the harmony of the city’s architecture. Next to the Legislative Palace, perhaps the most imposing of the new Mexican buildings will be the National Pantheon, which is to cost more than $5,000,000, and is to be at once a memorial to Mexico’s eminent men and a place for their entombment. Several of the executive departments are to be housed in the buildings now approaching completion."
_American Review of Reviews, October, 1903._
MEXICO: A. D. 1903. Agreement for Settlement of Claims against Venezuela.
See (in this Volume) VENEZUELA: A. D. 1902-1904.
{420}
MEXICO: A. D. 1904-1905. Arbitration Treaty with the United States. Reelection of President Diaz for a Seventh Term. Extension of the Term. Currency Reform. End of the Free Zone.
"Mexico was one of the countries with which the United States government negotiated an arbitration treaty early in the year [1905], a treaty which was dropped, like its fellows, by the Washington administration, because of the Senate amendments. … Though the tentative arbitration treaty between the United States and Mexico … fell through, another very practical and useful arbitration convention was concluded between the two nations during the year. This was the convention agreed to in principle during the Pan-American Conference in the city of Mexico in the winter of 1901-1902, which provides for the settlement by arbitration of all international questions growing out of pecuniary claims. The representatives of several of the nations taking part in that conference affixed their signatures to this preliminary compact, and it has since become operative among a number of them. It was ratified by the Mexican Senate during its spring sessions. As pecuniary claims have in point of fact been one of the most fruitful sources of difficulty between the United States and the other nations of the western hemisphere, the conclusion of an agreement, in a binding form, to dispose by arbitration of any such cases as may arise in the future, is a distinct gain for the cause of the rational adjustment of international controversies, and is a guarantee, not indeed absolute, but most substantial, of lasting peace among the nations of this continent. …
"There were no striking developments in the political situation in Mexico. On December 1 of the previous year (1904) President Diaz had entered on his sixth consecutive term and his seventh term in all. By a constitutional amendment, a regular vice-president of the republic, for the first time since the early days of Mexico’s history, took the oath of office at the same time as the president, on December 1, 1904. The gentleman previously elected, and now occupying the position of vice-president, is the Honorable Ramon Corral, formerly governor of the state of Sonora. By virtue of another constitutional amendment, the present and future presidential terms will be six years, instead of four as formerly. …
"A measure of vital importance to the economic well-being of the nation was promulgated on March 25, 1905. This was the decree for the reform of the currency, issued by the Executive under an enabling Act of Congress, approved on December 9, 1904. The new monetary system, due to the initiative of the very able finance minister Señor José Yves Limantour, went into effect on the first of May, but the free coinage of silver ceased on April 16. Broadly speaking, the new system gives Mexico a fifty-cent dollar. It declares that the theoretical unit of the monetary system of the United Mexican States is represented by seventy-five centigrams of pure gold, and is denominated a peso. …
"On July 1 that time-honored institution known as the Free Zone ceased to exist."
_F. R. Guernsey, The Year in Mexico (Atlantic Monthly, February, 1906)._
MEXICO: A. D. 1906. Celebration of the Centenary of Benito Juarez. His relation to the Secularizing Movement a generation ago. Present Pacific Relations between Church and State.
"Though Juarez is generally credited with the paternity of the laws generically known as the Reform Laws, and although he undoubtedly was the life and soul of the secularizing movement of his day, it is worthy of note that he had no formal
## participation in the chief measures framed against the Church.
… He was not a signatory of the Constitution of 1857, which first attacked the existence of the religious orders; the law for the confiscation of church property was framed by Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, the Finance Minister of President Comoufort (1856); and the constitutional amendments which definitely established the separation of Church and State, instituted civil marriage, placed monastic communities outside the pale of the law, and forbade open-air religious services, were not enacted until 1873 and 1874, after the death of Juarez, and during the presidency of Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada.
"March 21, 1906, was, by a decree of Congress, observed as a general holiday in Mexico. Pilgrimages to the tomb of Juarez took place in the morning; commemorative tablets were unveiled in the afternoon, and at night General Diaz, surrounded by his cabinet, presided in the Arbeu Theatre at an apotheosis of Juarez, during which the career and character of the reforming president were extolled in an eloquent oration by Honorable Justo Sierra, Minister of Public Instruction. On the stage with the President during these exercises were the son and other surviving descendants of Juarez, who are numerous.
"Curiously enough, a question involving the interpretation of the Reform Laws arose soon after the celebration of the Juarez centenary. The ministers of all denominations in Mexico had been accustomed to conduct a service at the graveside in connection with the burial of the dead. It was generally held that this practice did not conflict with Article 5 of the Law of December 14, 1874, forbidding all forms of religious service other than those held inside the churches. But in May, 1906, the Interior Department issued a circular declaring open-air burial services conducted in the cemeteries to be illegal. This rule has led to the erection of mortuary chapels in the cemeteries which previously were unprovided with them, and the burial services are held inside these chapels.
"While this episode shows that there is no intention on the part of the governmental authorities of Mexico to relax one iota of the laws which curtailed the power of the Church, it is worthy of note that there is no serious religious conflict in Mexico at the present time; and, under laws which are probably as restrictive as those recently enacted in France, which have so agitated that country, Church and State in the Mexican Republic move smoothly in their separate orbits, with conciliatory if not cordial sentiments toward each other."
_F. R. Guernsey, The Year in Mexico (Atlantic Monthly, March, 1907)._
MEXICO: A. D. 1906. Joint Action with the United States in Central American Mediation.
See (in this Volume) CENTRAL AMERICA.
{421}
MEXICO: A. D. 1906.
## Participation in Third International Conference
of American Republics.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
MEXICO: A. D. 1906. Nationalizing the Railway System.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: MEXICO.
MEXICO: A. D. 1909. Extended Governmental Control of Railways.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: MEXICO.
MEXICO: A. D. 1909. The Last Year of the Sixth Consecutive Term of Porfirio Diaz in the Presidency. His long practical Autocracy, and its effects on the Nation. A Mexican View.
Since Napoleon remodeled a French republic into an empire there has been nothing of its kind in political workmanship to equal the masterpiece of practical autocracy which Porfirio Diaz has erected in Mexico, on a basis of nominal democracy, within the last 30 years. He has not throned or crowned himself, as Napoleon did, which saves his work from the vulgarity that the Corsican could not resist; but he has exercised more than the sovereignty that imperial seats and trappings could invest him with.
On the 1st of December, 1909, Diaz entered the last year of his sixth consecutive term in the presidency—his seventh term in all—the previous term of four years having now been lengthened to six. Since 1884 he has held the reins of Government by what seems to have become sheer mastery, whatever of free popular election there may have been at the outset of his official career. If internal and external peace, general good order, rapid progress on all lines of material advancement, great gains in public education and a general uplift of the country in its standing before the world were sufficient fruits of his government to test its quality by, then Mexico might well be satisfied with it and with him; for the beneficence of his autocracy on this side of its working appears to be beyond dispute. But Mexico appears to have begun to feel the cost in public character and spirit which paternalized government must always exact for the superficial benefits it bestows, and the country is said to be filled with more than discontent.
A notable Mexican writer, Rafael de Zayes Enriquez, who is described as a lifelong friend and supporter of Diaz, has been bold enough to give voice to the existing feeling in a recent book. The long administration of the masterful president is recounted and studied with honest friendliness, for the open purpose of addressing plain truths to the man whose life and work are discussed. "You have disarmed the judiciary and the Legislature," he is told, "until they are impotent, and in reality nothing more than branches of the executive." "Imitating the high example, almost everyone in Mexico who has any power abuses it, and the cowed public submits." "Everyone is permitted to despise the public and to treat it tyrannically." And the honest friend who thus commands the attention of Diaz to the evil workings of his dictatorship, appeals for the ending of it—for the restoration of a nullified constitution, for free elections, for independent legislatures and courts; for the averting of otherwise inevitable storms of revolution, and for the saving of himself from a verdict of history, that "he created a nation, but destroyed a people."
On the other hand there are foreign observers in Mexico who believe that Diaz holds the peace and prosperity of the country in his hand. A Press correspondent wrote not long since: "He, Diaz, alone saved us from a disastrous panic last fall, the effects of which would have reached beyond our boundaries. The Government compelled the Banco Nacional to advance ready money to every institution that was in need and intrinsically sound. The bank was likewise compelled to sell exchange at a loss, so that the failure to keep silver at a parity was less apparent. The Government stood this loss. About January first one of the largest mercantile houses in Mexico, with many branches, was in serious difficulty. Its chief went straight to President Diaz, and said that he must have a million dollars or fail. Recognizing that the failure of this house would precipitate a panic, the Government let him have the money. … In my opinion, the most serious menace to the prosperity of Mexico is the fear that President Diaz is not as strong physically as is popularly believed. … The least of the evils which might come from his death, should it occur soon, would be increase in business stagnation and in popular unrest. Many politicians seem ready to avail themselves of the present wide-spread dislike of foreigners. The ferment of anti-foreign leaven is working among the masses."
Whatever may be the kind and quality of the domination he has exercised for twenty-five years, Mexico must inevitably be put to a crucial test when he drops the helm of state.
MEXICO: A. D. 1909. Meeting of President Diaz with President Taft.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER).
MEXICO: A. D. 1909 (FEBRUARY).
## Participation in a North American Conference on the
Conservation of Natural Resources.
See (in this Volume) CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: NORTH AMERICA.
MEYER, GEORGE VON L.: Postmaster-General.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1905-1909; SECRETARY OF THE NAVY. UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909 (MARCH).
MICHELSEN, PROFESSOR ALBERT A.: Inventor of the Interferometer.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT. See, also, NOBEL PRIZES.
MICHELSEN, M.: Premier of Norway.
See (in this Volume) NORWAY: A. D. 1902-1905.
MICHIGAN: A. D. 1909. Legislation giving Home Rule to Cities.
See (in this Volume) MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: MICHIGAN.
MIDHAT PASHA.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1908 (JULY-DECEMBER).
MIGNOT, Bishop.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1905-1906.
MIGUEL, Dom: Pretender to the Crown of Portugal.
See (in this Volume) PORTUGAL: A. D. 1909.
MIGUELISTAS.
See (in this Volume) CUBA: A. D. 1906-1909.
MILIOUKOV, PROFESSOR PAUL.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1905-1907.
MILLERAND, M.: Minister of Public Works, Posts, and Telegraphs in the Briand Cabinet.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1909 (JULY).
MILNER, Alfred, Lord: In South Africa.
See (in this Volume) SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1901-1902, and after.
MILWAUKEE REFRIGERATOR TRANSIT CASE.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1906.
{422}
MIN, General: Assassination of.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1906.
MINDANAO, Conditions in.
See (in this Volume) PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1901-1902.
MINE OWNERS’ ASSOCIATION, WESTERN.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1899-1907.
MINERS AND MINING.
See (in this Volume) LABOR.
MINING, Wasteful.
See (in this Volume) CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES.
MINNESOTA: A. D. 1908. Organization of Coöperative Stores.
See (in this Volume) LABOR REMUNERATION: COOPERATIVE ORGANIZATION.
MINTO, Gilbert John Murray K. Elliott, Earl of: Governor-General of Canada.
See (in this Volume) CANADA: A. D. 1904.
MINTO, Gilbert John Murray K. Elliott, Earl of: Viceroy of India. His initiation of the Reform in Indian Government by the Indian Councils Bill.
See (in this Volume) INDIA: A. D. 1908-1909.
MIRSKY, Prince Svyatopolk.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1904-1905.
MISSIONS, Christian: At Large: Notable Movements of 1910.
"The year 1910 will be notable in the annals of foreign missions. The Laymen’s Missionary Movement, now holding meetings in this city, plans an educative campaign covering over seventy centres and culminating next May in a national congress in Chicago. The Student Volunteer Movement, which enrols in its mission study classes over 25,000 collegians, and which has sent over 4,000 workers to the foreign field, has just closed a conference at Rochester, where were assembled nearly 3,000 college men and women. In this month also is the gathering of medical missionaries at Battle Creek, Michigan. Next June the important World Missionary Conference takes place in Edinburgh. In October the country’s oldest foreign missionary organization, the American Board, celebrates its centennial in connection with the National Congregational Council at Boston."
_New York Evening Post, January 10, 1910._
MISSIONS, Christian: China: A. D. 1906-1907.
"In view of the recent remarkable awakening in China, and the strong desire on the part of the Chinese for a knowledge of Western civilisation and science, an influential Committee, ‘The China Missions Emergency Committee,’ was appointed last year, including in its membership an equal number of prominent representatives of the Anglican Church as well as of the Free Churches of Great Britain, to consider in what ways it might assist the missionary societies and their representatives in China in adjusting and extending their existing operations, so that the momentous demands now made upon them by the surprising changes of thought and policy that have so suddenly emerged, may be adequately met. …
"It appointed as its representatives the Reverend Lord William and Lady Florence Gascoyne-Cecil, of Hatfield; Sir Alexander R. Simpson, of Edinburgh; Professor Alexander Macalister, of Cambridge; and Mr. Francis William Fox, of London, to attend the Missionary Conference held at Shanghai from April 26th to May 7th last, and also to pay a series of visits to missionaries and mission stations, for the purpose of learning from the most experienced missionaries what measures should be adopted to meet the new demands that had arisen."
"We found everywhere throughout the Chinese Empire that greater religious liberty is enjoyed than is the case in many other parts of the world, and that, so long as the laws of the country are observed, there is, theoretically, no interference with the conscientious opinions of individuals, with, however, the exceptions that Chinese officials are required occasionally to perform certain ceremonies of an idolatrous character. …
"In the year 1906, as before stated, there were approximately 3,750 Foreign Protestant Missionaries residing in China. Of these, 1,950 were British, 1,457 American, and some 343 Continental and Independent Workers.
The number of Bible Women: In 1876, 90; in 1889, 180; in 1906, 894.
Number of Boys’ and Girls’ Day Schools: In 1878, 289; in 1906, 385.
Number of Scholars in Day Schools: In 1876, 4,909; in 1889, 16,836; in 1906, 42,546.
Number of Intermediate, High Schools and Colleges: In 1906, 389.
Number of Students in Colleges, etc. (male and female): In 1906, 15,137.
Total number of Scholars and Students: In 1906, 57,683.
"By the commencement of 1908 it is estimated that the total number of Foreign Protestant Missionaries in China will be at least 4,000. The number of Mission Stations (including the sub or smaller ones) is about 5,750. The ordained Chinese Pastors and other Chinese Preachers are now about 6,000. The number of recognized Protestant Church (full) Members and Catechumens is estimated as 250,000, which, with the addition of children and others not regarded as in full connection, represents a total of about 1,000,000 persons who are more or less closely connected with the Protestant Christian Churches of China."
_F. W. Fox, A. Macalister, and A. R. Simpson, Christian Missions in China (Contemporary Review, February, 1908)._
See, also, (in this Volume) EDUCATION: CHINA.
MISSIONS, Christian: India and Korea: American Mission Schools.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: INDIA, AND KOREA.
MISSIONS, Christian: Japan.
"Viscount Aoki, a former Minister for Foreign Affairs, is a Christian, and so is Viscount Okabé, Minister of Justice in the present Cabinet. There are 10 Christian members of the Imperial Diet, all men of high character and enjoying the respect of their fellow-countrymen, for there is no constituency in Japan which would elect a Christian qua Christian. It is perhaps among the commercial class that Christianity is gaining most ground, and at Osaka, the great industrial city of Japan, there are churches with Japanese ministers, supported entirely by Japanese congregations, who have at heart to remove the popular reproach that Christianity is a foreign creed which cannot live without foreign subsidies. Missionary activity has always had a free field in Japan, and its philanthropic aspects have never received wider recognition than of recent years. The Emperor himself has frequently marked by handsome contributions his personal interest in orphanages and hospitals conducted under missionary auspices. But if Christianity should ever become the national faith of Japan it will probably be in some new national form impressed upon it by Japanese teachers rather than in any sectarian form borrowed from the West. {423} What is meanwhile unquestionably increasing very steadily is the influence of Christian ethics. … To quote a missionary: ‘If there are less than 200,000 professing Christians in Japan, there are more than a million educated Japanese who think in terms of Christian ethics, and who try to live up to them more truly than many millions of professing Christians in the West.’"
_Correspondent of The Times, London._
In April, 1907, a great international mission conference was assembled at Tokyo, Japan, of which _The Outlook_ gave the following account the next month:
"Over six hundred delegates, representing organizations in twenty-five countries, assembled last month in Tokyo. They constituted the seventh Conference of the World’s Student Christian Federation. The body represented is a federation of various national associations of Christian students. Some of them are Young Men’s Christian Associations, organized in the colleges; some of them are student organizations, not affiliated with the Young Men’s Christian Association. The delegates received many messages of greeting from officials of high station; among these were messages from Viscount Hayashi, the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs; Marquis Ito, who sent a letter from Korea accompanied with a gift of five thousand dollars; Count Okuma, Elder Statesman; the President of the United States, the King of England, and the King of Norway.
"The meetings were thronged by ten thousand students, mainly Japanese and Chinese. The Conference was of course distinctively Christian in character; it had a definite purpose of proclaiming a Christian message: it advocated ethical and intellectual progress by means of the Christian religion; it assembled in a non-Christian land; yet its existence, so far from arousing resentment or opposition, evoked rather the warmest expression of appreciation and even gratitude. That it stimulated emulation is not surprising. A Buddhist Conference, for example, was summoned in the same city at the same time; but at that Conference resolutions expressing its ‘profound respect’ to the gathering of Christians were passed, and a deputation to convey these resolutions was chosen. Similarly, a Conference of Shinto priests sent a letter to the Christian Conference expressing their sense of the honor which the Federation had shown to Japan by convening in Tokyo, and, in lieu of a reception which could not be arranged for lack of time, presented material ‘mementoes and tokens of esteem,’ in order, to use their own words, ‘to express our deep appreciation of your coming, and to commemorate this bright event in Japan’s history.’ The press of Japan was emphatic in its expression of good will."
MISSIONS, Christian: Turkey and the Near East: American Mission Schools.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: TURKEY.
MISSOURI: A. D. 1906-1909. Successful Prosecution of the Waters-Pierce and Standard Oil Companies.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1904-1909.
MISSOURI RIVER RATE CASE.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1908-1909.
MISTRAL, Frederic.
See (in this Volume) NOBEL PRIZES.
MITCHELL, JOHN: President of the United Mine Workers of America.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1902-1903.
MITCHELL, JOHN: Resignation on account of ill health.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909.
MITCHELL, JOHN: Chairman of Trades Agreements Department of National Civic Federation.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1908.
MITCHELL, JOHN: Sentence for alleged Violation of an Injunction.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1908-1909.
MITCHELL, John H.: United States Senator, involved in Land Frauds.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1903-1906.
MODERATE-REPUBLICANS.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE. A. D. 1909 (JANUARY).
MODERNISM, Papal Encyclical against.
See (in this Volume) PAPACY: A. D. 1907. Also, TYRREL, FATHER GEORGE.
MODUS VIVENDI: On American Fishing in Newfoundland waters.
See (in this Volume) NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1905-1909.
MOHAMMED ALI: Lately deposed Shah of Persia.
See (in this Volume) PERSIA: A. D. 1907 (JANUARY-SEPTEMBER).
MOHAMMEDAN CONFERENCE.
See (in this Volume) INDIA: A. D. 1907 (DECEMBER).
MOHAMMEDANS OF INDIA: Their present Feeling.
See (in this Volume) INDIA: A. D. 1907-1909, and 1908-1909.
MOHAMID EL AMIN, a new Mahdi.
See (in this Volume) AFRICA: A. D. 1903 (SUDAN).
MOHAMMID RESCHAD EFFENDI: Made Sultan of Turkey as Mohammid V.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1909 (JANUARY-MAY).
MOHONK (LAKE) PEACE CONFERENCE.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1909.
MOISSAN, H.
See (in this Volume) NOBEL PRIZES.
MOLTKE, COUNT KUNO VON: His Libel Suit against Maximilien Harden.
See (in this Volume) GERMANY: A. D. 1907-1908.
MOMMSEN, THEODOR.
See (in this Volume) NOBEL PRIZES.
MONASTIR: Beginnings of the Turkish Revolution.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1908 (JULY-DECEMBER).
MONETA, ERNESTO T.
See (in this Volume) NOBEL PRIZES.
MONEY. See (in this Volume) Finance and
MONO-RAIL SYSTEM.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE AND INVENTION: RAILWAYS.
MONOPOLIES.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL.
MONROE DOCTRINE: Interpreted relatively to German Claims and Complaints against Venezuela. Its Recognition by Germany.
See (in this Volume) VENEZUELA: A. D. 1901, and UNITED STATES: A. D. 1902-1903.
MONROE DOCTRINE: Impliedly recognized by the Hague Tribunal.
See (in this Volume) VENEZUELA: A. D. 1902-1904.
MONROE DOCTRINE: In the case of San Domingo.
See (in this Volume) SAN DOMINGO: A. D. 1904-1905.
MONROE DOCTRINE: Stated as an All-America Doctrine by Secretary Root, at the Third International Conference of American Republics, at Rio de Janeiro, in 1906.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
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MONROE PALACE, The.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS: THIRD INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE.
MONTAGUE, A. J.: Delegate to Third International Conference of American Republics.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
MONTENEGRO.
See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES.
MONTES, I.: President of Bolivia.
See (in this Volume) ACRE DISPUTES.
MONT PELÉE, Volcanic explosion of.
See (in this Volume) VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS: WEST INDIES.
MONTT, Pedro: President of Chile.
See (in this Volume) CHILE: A. D. 1906.
MOODY, William H.: Secretary of the Navy, Attorney-General and Justice of the Supreme Court.
See (in this Volume)
UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1905, and 1905-1909.
MOOR, F. R.: Premier of Natal. At the Imperial Conference of 1907.
See (in this Volume) BRITISH EMPIRE: A. D. 1907.
MORALES, President Carlos F.
See (in this Volume) SAN DOMINGO: A. D. 1904-1907.
MORENGA, Chief of Hereros.
See (in this Volume) AFRICA: GERMAN COLONIES.
MORET Y PRENDERGAST: Premier of Spain.
See (in this Volume) SPAIN: A. D. 1907-1909.
MORGAN, J. Pierpont: His Intervention in the Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902.
See (in this Volume) labor organization: united states: A. D. 1902-1903.
MORGAN, J. Pierpont: His organization of the International Mercantile Marine Company.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL: INTERNATIONAL.
MORGAN, J. Pierpont: Enlarged Control of Banking Interests.
See (in this Volume) FINANCE AND TRADE: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909-1910.
MORLEY, John, Viscount: Secretary of State for India.
See (in this Volume) ENGLAND: A. D. 1905-1906.
MORLEY, John, Viscount: On the Indian Councils Bill.
See (in this Volume) INDIA: A. D. 1908-1909.
MOROCCO (Maghreb el-Aksa): The Name.
Maroc or Morocco, the name given by Europeans to the empire of the Moorish Sultan as a whole, is not so applied by the natives of the country. According to them, the Maroc or country of Marrakech, the Marruecos of the Spaniards, is only one of three States submissive to the authority of the Sultan-Shereef. At the north the kingdom of Fez, at the southwest the oasis of Tafilet, make up his real empire. Beyond these, vast territories occupied by numerous independent tribes, stretch over the space that is marked on our maps with the name Morocco. Its inhabitants have no common name for it as a whole. Their country, indicated in a general manner, with no precise delimitation, is the Maghreb el-Aksa,—that is to say, "The Extreme West."
_Élisée Reclus, Nouvelle Geographic Universelle, Volume 11, page 653._
MOROCCO: A. D. 1896-1906. The Creeping of the French Algerian Boundary into Moroccan Territory. A Justification of the Encroachment.
"Something has happened during the two weeks preceding the Conference at Algeciras [see EUROPE: A. D. 1904-1906], which may or may not be brought to the attention of the international diplomats. France from the start has refused to submit her doings along the Algerian frontier to the discussion of the conference. That concerns herself and Morocco alone. What has been happening would in any case put the conference in face of an accomplished fact. Some time ago M. Jonnart, Governor-General of Algiers, was informed that emissaries from Fez were notifying the frontier tribes, whose submission to France dates only from the last few years, that Germany would help the Sultan very shortly to force the French to evacuate their tribal territories. … M. Jonnart at once set out on a long and ceremonious visit to the tribes along the extreme southern frontier. He was accompanied by General Lyautey, the ‘pacificating’ general, who has been M. Jaurès’ bugbear in this Moroccan affair. The Governor-General returned to Algiers Friday last, just in time to have his news ready for the conference. He has reason to be satisfied. Except for a vague idea that the Moroccan territory along the Algerian frontier is a ‘hled-es-siba’—a country where the Sultan has difficulty in collecting his taxes—the foreign press has not kept pace with what has been going on for the last ten years. In one word, during that time France has brought under her domination a stretch of territory of some thousands of square miles. It is true that this territory is sparsely settled by wilfully independent tribes, who so far alternately aided in the Algerian harvests and raided the French outposts. This situation quite justifies the action of the French troops, which has consisted in throwing forward the unbroken line of outposts that enclose and keep in order the French dominion, and not in any military conquest of volatile tribes. M. Jaurès always fell foul of the latter policy, which he ascribed to the military; but it would be as useless as it is absurd. What General Lyautey has been doing all these years, without Germany or any other friend of the Sultan giving sign of life, is not only reasonable: it is better—it has proved effective. And M. Jonnart’s tour has secured the formal submission of these tribes whose territory geographers have all along made a part of Tafilalt--the southeasternmost of the four ancient kingdoms which, together, make up the empire of Morocco. The boundary between Morocco and French territory in Algiers has never been settled since the original treaty of 1845. That drew a line from the coast southward about a hundred miles to Teniet-es-Sassi, four degrees of longitude west from Paris, and then stopped. Whatever was to the south—then a No Man’s Land, so far as France was concerned—was to be divided amicably along as natural a line as possible, leaving the east to France as a sphere of influence (the word had not yet been invented). During these sixty years the frontier line has remained about the same on the maps. But France has steadily prolonged her settled domination southward, gaining over a Mohammedan population by serving their material interests without offence to their religion. The railway now reaches Beni Ounif, only a short distance from Fighig, whose Amel is among those notified that Morocco with German help will soon send the French over the desert and far away. At Beni Ounif, besides the Grand Hotel for tourists, there are extensive counting houses for the trade of all the Hinterland, with an appropriate banking system, and everything to draw the Moroccan tribes. There is no doubt that this territory has always been nominally a part of Morocco. … And now M. Jonnart has visited officially the great Zaouia, or religious centre of Kenadsa, still farther to the west."
_Paris Special Correspondence New York Evening Post, February 3, 1906._
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MOROCCO: A. D. 1903. State of Affairs in the Moorish Sultanate. Abd el Aziz, the young Sultan. His expensive tastes. His enjoyment of the Playthings of Civilization and Science.
"Regarded as a Moorish ruler and leader, the late Sultan, Mulai Hassan, was a strong man, almost, perhaps, a great man. The loss of Morocco is that apparently she cannot produce his like in the present generation. She was richer a few years ago; and that is part of her decadence. Mulai Hassan had a companion of his right hand: Ba Hamed, the Grand Wazeer. In them Morocco could boast the possession of two strong men; crude, narrow of vision, even brutal and merciless, if judged by European standards, yet genuinely strong men. The greater of them died, and his subordinate successfully hid the fact (though the Court was journeying at the time) from all Morocco, masquerading as one in close attendance upon a Sultan whose corpse, as a fact, was tied in its litter, until city walls were reached, preparations made, and the succession of the youth Abd el Aziz assured. Be it remembered that Ba Hamed, the survivor, was a strong man in his own right. Young Abd el Aziz [who succeeded his father in 1894] was docile perforce, and Ba Hamed ruled, without pity, with greed, and quite unhampered by what Europe calls honour or justice. …
"Rather more than two years ago [1901], when already the country was perturbed by news of the French advance upon and occupation of Igli, the Moorish town which was regarded as the depot and junction via which the caravan traffic of the desert filtered through Morocco to the coast; at this critical juncture, in the thick of conflicting intrigues, poisonings, and official treachery, Ba Hamed, the greatly feared, greatly hated, and rigidly obeyed Wazeer, died at Marrakish, leaving many scheming heirs-presumptive to his office, but no single successor to the mantle of his authority, the inherent masterfulness of his personality.
"Still youthful Abd el Aziz IV. stretched forth both hands and personally took up the fallen reins of government with a great flourish of trumpets and display of energy. … Optimistic Europeans, naturally gratified by the active good sense with which Abd el Aziz checked his Filali tribesmen’s turbulent resentment of contact with the French in Igli and its oasis, freely predicted a new lease of life for the Moorish Empire. They credited the new broom with powers which, in view of its origin and environment, had been little short of miraculous. And they omitted reflection regarding the hand which moved the new broom. This was a power behind the Parasol, a latent intelligence, not wholly Moorish, capricious, feminine, subtle, unstable, and somewhat vitiated from long repression in an unwholesome atmosphere. The late Mulai Hassan’s Circassian wife, young Abd el Aziz’s mother, Lalla R’kia, had also found a dangerous emancipation in the death of Ba Hamed. …
"Casually observant Nazarenes saw rich, cruel officials swept from their high estate by wholesale, and predicted the birth of probity at Court. Notorious gainers by oppression were loaded with chains in Kasbah dungeons; the young Sultan’s brother, the One-Eyed, whom cautious Ba Hamed had kept secure in Tetuan prison, was established on parole at Mcquinez, and ‘Here’s positive purity of administration!’ cried the surface-reading hopeful in Christian-ridden Tangier.
"Of a sudden, all movement ceased. The young Sultan was lost sight of—behind the curtain. … It is not given to us to know anything of pale Lalla R’kia’s attitude during this breathing space. … (Lalla R’kia died last year.)
"Speaking metaphorically, his Shareefian Majesty Abd el Aziz reappeared on the arm of a commercial agent, a French Israelite, with a genius for the ‘placing’ of imported commodities. Allah’s Chosen had been initiated into the select manias of Europe, and become addicted to golfing, the use of the camera, the bicycle, and other less pretty pastimes from the West. …
"Commercial agents continued to press upon the young Sultan the latest and most expensive of electrical and other toys, and those far-seeing gentlemen, the newspaper correspondents, bade Europe take note of the remarkable enlightenment and progressive wisdom of the ruler of Morocco, as evidenced by his interest in motor cars and Broadwood pianos. And the friends of these optimistic gentry criticised the present writer as a croaker and a bird of ill-omen when he published in _The Fortnightly Review_ for July, 1901, the following extract from a letter sent him by a Moorish friend:
"‘To sum all up, my friend, I grieve because I find the affairs of my native land in parlous order, demanding as never before in the history of Morocco the guidance of a strong, clear mind, a veritable Sultan. That my country’s affairs most urgently need. They have a governing power composed of half a dozen corrupt creatures, of a corrupt, short-sighted, cruel, and desperately greedy Wazeer, whose rightful Lord is occupied exclusively in—Bah! We have spoken of those whose graves will be defiled, and of the trumpery gauds from Paris bazaars. And this, while the turbulent Sus is aflame, the far south-east a mine charged by French aggression, waiting only the match of knowledge of our Lord’s indifference; the country between Tafilalt and Fas is openly given over to brigandage and anarchy, and even Al Ksar, Arzila, and the Gharb, Tangiers outskirts, are full of unrest and disorder, crimes and indifference to crimes.’"
_A. J. Dawson, Morocco, the Moors, and the Powers (Fortnightly Review, February, 1903)._
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"I have not seen the Sultan face to face, but I have conversed with nearly all the leading Europeans who have been with him either at Marrakesh or Fez, and from what they have told me I have been forced to conclude that Mulai Abd-el-Aziz is a charming, kindly, headstrong man, suffering badly from youth, who delights in reforms for the sake of their novelty and lacks the brain power that distinguished his father, Mulai el Hassan, and his grandfather, Mulai Mohammed. While he stayed in his southern capital he was comparatively free from the attacks of commercial attaches and other rogues, whose designs upon his treasury should have been obvious, though he was guilty of many extravagances, including displays of fireworks that made his envoy to England speak slightingly of the special display arranged in his honour at the Crystal Palace. In Fez the agents surrounded him like summer flies. He has twelve motor cars and no roads to ride them over; he paid between three and four thousand pounds for a yacht, sixty feet long, that was to be used on the Sebu river, which is no more than thirty feet wide; in spite of the Koran’s prohibition, he has purchased a crown at a price I am afraid to name. He has put some of his soldiers into European uniforms and boots, only to find that they run away from Bu Hamara as readily as they did when dressed in native garments. He has developed an enthusiasm for photography—I have seen some of his work—and in addition to cameras with cases of pure gold, he has one apartment of his palace loaded from floor to ceiling with dark plates, and he was persuaded to order ten thousand francs’ worth of printing paper. He has a menagerie in the grounds of the palace at Fez, and on a day when it was reported that the lion sent from England had quarrelled with and killed the lion sent from Berlin, one of the European visitors to the court suggested to him that a contest between the victorious lion and the Bengal tiger would afford good sport. ‘No,’ said Abd-el-Aziz, ‘the lion cost me three thousand pounds!’ All Europe knows that the Sultan is poor."
_S. L. Bensusan, Britain, France, and the Moorish Empire (Contemporary Review, November, 1903)._
MOROCCO: A. D. 1903-1904. Appearance of the Mahdi, Bu Hamara, as a leader of Insurrection.
In 1903 there appeared in Morocco one of the prophetic pretenders called Mahdis, of whom so many have arisen in the Moslem world, to take advantage of occasions of religious excitement, and to lead a rising of wild tribes. This Moorish Mahdi, known as Bu Hamara, was helped to a leadership of insurrection by an incident which greatly stirred the religious temper of tribes wherever known. An English missionary was killed at Fez, and the murderer, flying to a sanctuary of special sanctity, was pursued thereto by the Sultan’s guards, and slain within the sacred bounds. Against this sacrilege, committed to satisfy hated Christians, Bu Hamara roused the country, preaching extermination of all Christians within it. The insecure throne of Abd el Aziz was made more insecure, English influence in Morocco was shaken, the French frontiers east and south were endangered, and Bu Hamara’s revolt appears to have had much to do with the producing of all that followed,—in the Anglo-French Agreement of 1904, the Algeciras Conference, the dethronement of Abd el Aziz, etc.
MOROCCO: A. D. 1904. Declarations of England and France concerning Morocco in the Agreements of the Entente of 1904. Explanatory Despatch.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1904 (APRIL).
MOROCCO: A. D. 1904-1909. Exploits of El Raisuli. The Kidnapping and Ransoming of Messrs. Perdicaris and Varley. The Capture and Ransom of Kaid Sir Harry MacLean. Present Respectability of Raisuli as a Moroccan Governor.
One of the chiefs in that mountainous strip of northern Morocco, nearly parallel to the Mediterranean, which is called "The Riff," has played a startlingly troublesome part in recent Moroccan history. His name is Mulai Ahmed ben Mohammed, but he is commonly designated in all news-mentions of his doings by the title he bears,—El Raisuli, chieftain of a clan. The first exploit which made this title familiar to all the world was in May, 1904, when he kidnapped, from their residence near Tangier, a naturalized American and an Englishman, Mr. Ion Perdicaris and his stepson, Mr. Varley, carrying them into the mountains and holding them captive until he had extorted a ransom of $70,000, despite the utmost efforts of France, Great Britain, and the United States, with the aid of the Sultan, to obtain their release on less humiliating terms. This success failed, however, to satisfy the audacious brigand, and in July, 1907, he laid hands on another important hostage, this time a British officer, Sir Harry MacLean, who had been long in the service of the Sultan of Morocco, as military adviser, with the title of Kaid. Kaid MacLean ventured to visit the brigand in his mountain retreat for some negotiation, and was detained in pawn. Raisuli held this notable captive until the following February, and released him then on receipt of $25,000, cash down, with a pledge of $75,000 more at the end of three years, if he gave no fresh trouble within that time. Meanwhile, he and twenty-eight of his family were to be under British protection. Before this transaction was closed a new Sultan had won the Moroccan throne (as will be explained below) and he thought it wiser to employ the energies of Raisuli officially than to try to maintain a contest of authority with so unmanageable a subject. Accordingly, in February, 1909, Raisuli was appointed governor of twelve tribes in Northern Morocco, and is now one of the most respectable representatives of government in the last of the Barbary States.
MOROCCO: A. D. 1905-1906. German hostility to the Anglo-French Agreement. The Kaiser’s speech at Tangier. The International Conference at Algeciras. The resulting Act.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1905-1906.
MOROCCO: A. D. 1907-1909. Mob-murder of Dr. Mauchamp at Morocco City. Conflict with Tribesmen at Casablanca. Bombardment by French and Spanish Ships. Campaign against the Tribes. Dethronement of Sultan Abd el Aziz by his brother Mulai Hafid. Fresh friction between France and Germany. Its Pacific Settlement by Arbitration at The Hague.
Organization of police forces for the service which France and Spain were commissioned by the Powers at the Algeciras Conference to perform in Morocco was retarded, necessarily, by the prevailing anarchy in the Empire, and fresh causes of disorder occurred before the means for prompt treatment of them were prepared. In the spring of 1907 a French citizen, Dr. Mauchamp, at Marrakesh (Morocco City), undertook to install at his house the apparatus for wireless telegraphy. His Moorish neighbors suspected some diabolical intention, when he raised the necessary mast on his house, and proceeded with fanatic enterprise to kill the man of too much science and to demolish the house. The French Government demanded punishment of the outrage, with indemnity to the family of the victim, and put a force in motion, under General Liautey, which occupied the city of Ujda, not far from the Algerian frontier, to hold it until the demands of justice were complied with. None of the Powers signatory to the Algeciras Conference raised objections to this proceeding.
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A more serious intervention was occasioned in July, 1907, when the French took control of the collection of customs at the ports, as directed by the Algeciras agreement. At Casablanca, on the Atlantic coast, the tribesmen attacked a number of European laborers, employed there in quarries, and killed eight. All the foreign residents of the region were in danger, and French and Spanish war-ships were hurried to the scene. The local Moorish official confessed his inability to protect the threatened foreigners, who had taken refuge in the French, Spanish, and British consulates, with hostile tribes swarming around the town, and he asked for help. Marines were landed on the 4th of August and were attacked. "A sanguinary battle followed between the Arabs and the European soldiery, the French cruiser opening fire and shelling the Moorish batteries. Scenes of great disorder and violence followed upon the firing, a raging mob of Moors attacking and pillaging the entire city. The Jews particularly were massacred by hundreds. Another French warship soon appeared upon the scene, accompanied by a Spanish cruiser, and troops were landed to the number of 4000. General Drude, the French commander, was chosen to head the allied troops, Spanish and French, and reinforcements were hurried from France." A number of encounters followed. "The most serious were the attacks, on August 28, and September 2, upon Casablanca and its outskirts, both resulting from a reconnaissance in force by the French Algerian irregular cavalry and the famous Foreign Legion. Seven or eight thousand Moors attacked the Europeans, sweeping down from the hills with all the ferocity and courage traditional in their race. By the aid of machine guns and the batteries from their warships the French succeeded in repelling the tribesmen with considerable loss of life."
Justification of the bombardment of Casablanca was somewhat questioned at the time, and with good reason if the following account of the circumstances, by an eye-witness, a Scotch missionary, are to be believed. His statement was published in the Glasgow _Herald_, and is given here as summarized in _The Outlook_, of September 21, 1907.
"This missionary, Dr. Kerr, has lived many years in the country, and he asserts that in many ways the French residents and officials have continually irritated the Moors and provoked them to anger. Dr. Kerr states that no further outbreaks occurred after the massacre of French and Spanish workmen on July 30, and that when the bombardment began on August 1 there was absolutely no immediate provocation for it. He denounces it as contrary to the usages of civilized war and as ‘wicked and unjustifiable,’ adding that the British merchants in Casablanca will probably sue the French Government for damages caused to their property by what they consider an unnecessary bombardment. The punishment of the Moors concerned in the murder of the eight workmen, says Dr. Kerr, no one could object to, but instead of this the punishment took the form of an unprovoked massacre of persons many of whom were entirely innocent. The details of the affair as he gives them are certainly deplorable, and if his assertion that the landing force of the French fired the first shot is true, the succeeding episodes described are unpardonable. One of these episodes may be quoted here:
"‘I saw two young women walking as quickly as they could. … Suddenly a volley was fired into them by the Spanish marines. They fell, but picked themselves up, and took refuge in a ledge of a wall. After waiting a few minutes they made to return, when another volley was fired at them, and they fell again. … One of these brave daughters of Ishmael refused to flee without taking with her the "khaik," or outer garment, which fell from her [thus leaving her face uncovered, contrary to Moslem law]. She turned back, picked up her garment, and fled as fast as she could, bleeding all over.’"
In the fall of 1907 General Drude was succeeded in the command at Casablanca by General d’Amade, who prosecuted a more vigorous campaign against the obstinately hostile tribes of the region, and made but slow progress in reducing them to submission.
Meantime a rising against Sultan Abd el Aziz, in favor of one of his brothers, Mulai Hafid, had been started and was making rapid headway. Mulai Hafid was proclaimed Sultan at Marrakesh on the 25th of August, 1907, and on the 4th of the following January his supporters had gained possession of Fez and proclaimed him there. Abd el Aziz kept the field against his rival until August, 1908, when he had practically no following left, and the direction of Government was assumed formally by Mulai Hafid. His authority had soon become established so fully that the German Government addressed a note to the Powers proposing an immediate recognition of it. France and Spain objected, insisting that Mulai Hafid must confirm existing treaties, accept responsibility for the debts of the previous regime, give pledges of indemnity for the Casablanca outbreak, disavow the "Holy War" which he had countenanced and which had given him his success, and take effective measures for securing the safety of foreigners in the Empire. Their objection was approved generally; Germany assented to the requirements proposed, and it was not until Mulai Hafid had satisfied them that he obtained recognition as the legitimate sovereign of Morocco. This was given in the following note, handed to his representative on the 5th of January, 1909, by the _doyen_ of the Diplomatic Body at Tangier:
"The signatory Governments of the Act of Algeciras have received the letter which Mulai Hafid sent to them through the agency of the Diplomatic Body at Tangier in reply to their _communiqué_ of November 18. The Governments represented in Morocco received with satisfaction this reply, in which they saw a proof that the explanations which they formulated in their Note of November 18, in the interest of the relations of friendship and confidence which they desire to maintain with the sovereign authority of the Shereefian Empire, are in accordance with the views of Mulai Hafid. In consequence the signatory Powers of the Act of Algeciras have decided to recognize his Majesty Mulai Hafid as legitimate Sultan of Morocco, and have charged the _doyen_ of the Diplomatic Body at Tangier to notify their recognition of him to the representatives of his Majesty in that town."
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Before this settlement was reached an incident had occurred at Casablanca on the 15th of September, 1908, which irritated the chronic sensitiveness of feeling between Germany and France. Five or six soldiers of the Foreign Legion in French service at Casablanca, including three Germans, deserted, and the German Consulate attempted to protect the Germans when their arrest was undertaken by French gendarmes. There was some struggle, but the arrest was accomplished, and the demand of the Consul for the release of the three Germans was refused. Germany demanded satisfaction for the treatment of her Consul. France maintained that satisfaction was due to herself for the interference of the Consul with her military rights; but offered to submit the affair to the Hague Tribunal for arbitration. Germany was willing to arbitrate the questions involved if France would first express regret for the official conduct on her side of the matter. France in reply suggested expressions of regret by both parties; and on these terms, supposedly vindicating national dignity on each side, the case went to The Hague. The Court of Arbitration held its first meeting on the 1st of May, 1909, and announced its judgment on the 22d of the same month. As summarized in an English despatch from The Hague, the opinion of the Court was as follows:
"The Court considered that in this case there was a conflict of jurisdiction between the Consular and the military authority of two foreign Powers, the one Power exercising full Consular authority over her subjects, who happened to be soldiers in the Foreign Legion of the other Power. The latter Power had effected the military occupation of a certain territory, and in consequence exercised full authority over that territory. As it was impossible to decide this conflict by any absolute ruling, which might indicate in a general way the precedence of either jurisdiction, the Court considered that the question must be determined by the particular circumstances of any given case.
"In this case the jurisdiction of the occupying force had precedence because the persons in question did not leave the territory occupied by that force. The Court decided that the Secretary of the German Consulate at Casablanca wrongly and through a grave and manifest error tried to embark in a German steamer deserters of the French Foreign Legion, who were not of German nationality. The German Consul and the other officials of the Consulate were not responsible for that fact; the Consul, however, in signing the safe conduct, which was laid before him, committed an unintentional error.
"The German Consulate in the circumstances obtaining at that time was not entitled to grant its protection even to deserters of German nationality; the legal error, however, which was committed in this connexion by the officials of the Consulate could not be reckoned either as an intentional or as an unintentional error.
"The French military authorities were wrong in not respecting, as far as possible, the _de facto_ protection exercised over those deserters in the name of the German Consulate. The circumstances did not justify either menace by revolver on the part of the French soldiers, or the blows given to the Moroccan soldier of the Consulate."
This proved satisfactory to all concerned, and the Casablanca incident was happily closed.
A more important adjustment of matters between Germany and France, aiming at a general clearing of causes of friction in their relations, so far as concerned Morocco, had preceded the Casablanca arbitration by nearly three months. All Europe had been surprised and delighted on the 9th of February, 1909, by the announcement of a Franco-German Agreement, just concluded, in the following words:
"The Government of the French Republic and the German Imperial Government, actuated by an equal desire to facilitate the execution of the Act of Algeciras, have agreed to define the significance which they attach to its clauses with a view to avoiding any cause of misunderstanding between them in the future.
"Consequently, the Government of the French Republic, wholly attached to the maintenance of the integrity and of the independence of the Shereefian Empire, decided to safeguard economic equality there, and accordingly not to impede German commercial and industrial interests, and the German Imperial Government, pursuing only economic interests in Morocco, recognizing at the same time that the special political interests of France are closely bound up in that country with the consolidation of order and of internal peace, and resolved not to impede those interests, declare that they will not prosecute or encourage any measure calculated to create in their favour or in favour of any Power whatsoever an economic privilege, and that they will endeavour to associate their nationals in business for which these may be able to obtain contracts (_l’entreprise_)."
This most important agreement resulted from negotiations that were said to have been opened by a suggestion from the German Foreign Secretary, Baron von Schön. Its importance to Europe was hardly exaggerated by the Paris _Matin_, when it said:
"It is a great and happy event, the importance of which need not be emphasized. … This close of the Moroccan quarrel may, if such be the desire, mark a date of capital importance in the history of Europe. In fact, as Prince Bülow has said and repeated, Morocco was only a pretext. If therefore it has become an object of agreement, it is not merely because it has been recognized that the local problem was not insoluble, but also because the general situation has changed or because the ‘opportunity’ no longer exists."
MOROCCO: A. D. 1908. A German Statement of the Moroccan Policy of Germany.
See (in this Volume) GERMANY: A. D. 1908.
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MOROCCO: A. D. 1909. Discontent with the new Sultan. His struggle with Pretenders. Spanish War with the Tribes of the Riff. Success of Mulai Hafid against his Rivals. French operations in and around the Moorish Empire. French Mauretanie. French Demands. The Mannesmann Mining Concession.
France and Spain were now strengthened in the execution of their Algeciras commission, by a harmonious backing in Europe, and the native Government in Morocco had acquired, seemingly, a strong and capable man at its head. Sultan Mulai Hafid made that impression very positively on a correspondent of the London _Times_, to whom he gave audience on the 13th of February, and who wrote of him that day: "It is quite evident that Mulai Hafid is a man of large and independent ideas, with a leaning toward democracy. In appearance and manner he is most attractive, and both his looks and his conversation betoken a character at once strong and of quick decision. Everything he says is very much to the point, and his remarks are often touched with humour and even cynicism. His openmindedness and cordiality extend almost to breaches of the rigorous Moorish etiquette."
Five days later the same correspondent wrote again: "The Fez Moors had hoped at Mulai Hafid’s accession for material though indefinite advantages, for they felt that the new Sultan, who owed his throne not to inheritance but to election, would be an instrument in their own hands, and that they would be able to exert their influence for their own purely selfish ends. But they had counted without Mulai Hafid. Once on the throne, he consolidated, at all events locally, his power, and the Fez population, who during the previous reign had undoubtedly held and used considerable influence, found themselves in the hands of a firm, masterful man, who did not hesitate to tax them to an extent formerly unknown, and gave them clearly to understand that he would brook no interference in matters of policy. The effect was instantaneous. The Fezzis began openly to regret the slack _régime_ of Mulai Abdul Aziz, and Mulai Hafid became unpopular, as any monarch who really governs in Morocco must always be.
"But if Mulai Hafid was unpopular, he inspired at the same time a wholesome fear. His indifference to public opinion, his breaches of the absurd prescriptions of Moorish etiquette, his personal supervision of every detail, and the publicity in which he lives show not only remarkable courage, but also remarkable knowledge of the people whom he governs. … Yet he has but a small army, and he is financially hampered. He receives Europeans publicly, and grants audiences in the presence of the whole Court, often before the whole army. He invites his guests to be seated, and chats in a natural and sympathetic manner on all kinds of subjects. But it is quite apparent that his _entourage_ is in terror of him. Never have the viziers had less freedom or fewer opportunities for plunder. The Government is Mulai Hafid, and Mulai Hafid alone, and yet Mulai Hafid is a democrat. He desires to put down—and has already largely done so—the fanatical and always mischievous influence of the great Shereefian families. He works from morning till night, and keeps every one else working. His negotiations with the French Minister are progressing in a way that astonishes every one. … Mulai Hafid obtained the throne by preaching a holy war against Europeans. He will maintain himself upon the throne by a policy of reform which will win for him the assistance of France against his own fanatical people."
But subsequent events did not realize the confident expectations of this writer. A month later he reported:
"Shereef Sid Mohammed Kittani, a descendant of a former dynasty and chief of an important reactionary religious sect, who was freely spoken of as possible Sultan before Mulai Hafid’s proclamation, left Fez secretly yesterday. Apparently he had previously succeeded in dispatching his family and movable property from time to time to some spot in the Berber tribelands without exciting suspicion. His flight has caused what can only be described as consternation. His influence is very great, and he is known to lay claim to the Throne."
Within another month this pretender had defeated Mulai Hafid’s forces in a sharp engagement and had an army encamped about eighteen miles east of Fez. French officers were reported to be doing notable work in organizing and equipping the Sultan’s troops. On the 8th of May there was alarming news that Mulai el Kebir, another brother of Mulai Hafid and of the ex-Sultan, Abd el Aziz, "who was accompanying the Southern Kaids to Fez, had left their camp secretly by night and had fled into the Zimmour country," and "many believe that he will take advantage of the Sultan’s unpopularity to raise a rebellion." Two days later "nothing is known of the whereabouts of Mulai el Kebir," and "the Sultan does not conceal his anxiety. Mulai-el-Kebir was on the best terms with his Majesty, but the Sultan’s severe treatment of other members of his family no doubt filled him with fear."
From Paris, on the 26th of May, it was telegraphed that the Sultan’s Minister of Finance, El Mokri, then visiting Paris on a financial mission, "observes that Mulai Hafid’s authority is more solidly established at present than might at first sight appear to be the case. At no time has any Sultan been recognized over a much wider area of Moroccan territory. In the Beled el Makhzen his sway is uncontested. The kaids of the Haouz and the southern Atlas have always been his partisans. El Mokri has no fear of the pretenders."
There were now two pretenders in the field: for Mulai Kebir had been heard from, "beyond Mekinez," where he had raised the standard of revolt. And Bu Hamara was on the stage of civil war again, east of Fez, with an army which "is camped at less than four hours distance from the capital," and which is "actively pillaging the only tribe that remains loyal to Mulai Hafid in that region." Troops sent against him a few days later were said to have been badly beaten. The Sultan was reported to be in quarrel with his viziers; was ill,—invisible in the palace,—and the situation did not seem to look well for him.
Then, suddenly, all news reports from Morocco became silent as to Mulai Hafid and his rivals, and gave entire attention to a serious outbreak of warfare in that northeastern corner of the empire, known as the Riff, where Spain has had a long recognized "sphere of influence," and where she had undertaken the working of valuable iron mines near Melilla. Hostilities were begun in July by an attack of tribesmen on the miners, killing several, and the Spanish troops sent to the scene met disaster, being insufficient in force. In the end, so extensive a rising of Moorish tribesmen had occurred that Spain was obliged to put a large army into the field against them and organize a costly campaign. It was not until late in September that much success attended the Spanish arms, and not until late in November that the campaign was regarded as closed, the Spanish forces having secured positions which, when fortified, were expected to give them a firm footing in the region, and having brought most of the tribes to terms.
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Meantime, the war had been bitterly unpopular among large classes in Spain, and the feeling had been manifested in destructive rioting at Barcelona and elsewhere.
See (in this Volume) SPAIN: A. D. 1907-1909.
What France had been doing meanwhile, in and around Morocco, has been told by a writer in _The Atlantic Monthly:_
"During the year [May, 1908, to May, 1909] the French army under General d’Amade, has continued occupying Casablanca, and the fertile Chaouïa (Shawia) region. It has forced peace, law, and order, and open markets on the inhabitants, to their great advantage. Agriculture has revived; and German trade itself has run up two million francs. Even so the ‘economic interests’ of Germany in Morocco are scant indeed compared with those of France and England; they are perhaps less than those of Spain—and yet they have long threatened the peace of Europe. … Meanwhile the interior of Morocco has been chiefly occupied in the unmaking and making of Sultans. Toward the German Emperor these fighting Moors have now a feeling much like that of the Transvaal Boers when the Kruger telegram failed to lead to eventualities. … The real success of France is along the entire land-frontier of Morocco. For its whole length this is now also the frontier of French territory,--Algiers to the east, the Sahara with its line of French posts to the south, and so on to the Atlantic Ocean through the new French civil territory of ‘Mauritanie.’ Here foreign geography will still be incomplete for some time; but it is childish to dismiss these territorial stretches as so many acres of sand. The empire which France might have had in Canada was, in like manner, denounced by Voltaire as acres of snow.
"France absolutely refused to allow any question concerning this land-frontier to be brought up at the Conference of Algeciras. It is no business of Europe; it concerns the two neighbors, France and Morocco, only.
"General Lyautey has had its more than eight hundred miles well under control. … Of late years France has successfully occupied territory farther and farther to the south, pushing forward the railway, and throwing out a long line of military posts through the Sahara. People who amuse themselves marking obscure changes of conquest on the map, may safely stick their pins one full degree farther west all along this part of Algiers, beginning where Spain at Melilla blocks the way along the Mediterranean coast."
_Stoddard Dewey, The Year in France (Atlantic Monthly, August, 1909)._
When newspaper attention reverted to Mulai Hafid a great improvement was found in his affairs. Seemingly, the pretenders to his throne had disappeared, and Bu Hamara, the rebel, now styled El Roghi, was decisively routed by troops of the Sultan on the 16th of August, captured a few days later, and taken to Fez in an iron cage. On the 13th of September it was announced that he had been executed the day before. Later, this was contradicted, and there seems to be no certainty as to his fate.
The Moroccan Government was now being sharply pressed by France with demands over which negotiation had proceeded hitherto very slowly. M. Pichon, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, made a statement on the subject to the Chamber of Deputies on the 23d of November, to the following effect: "On August 14 the representatives of the Sultan received a note summing up the conditions imposed by the French Government. These conditions were the evacuation of the Shawia region on condition of the organization by the Maghzen of a force; the evacuation of Casablanca when the French Government felt convinced that the organization of the Shawia police had become sufficiently effective; the organization of the police service on the Algero-Moroccan frontier; the payment of the Maghzen’s debts and the reimbursement of the costs of the French military expeditions. The Maghzen owed at present £3,200,000, more than £400,000 of which was due to private creditors. The French Government would allow the Moroccan Government to raise a loan in France in order to facilitate the payment of its debts. … The French conditions had been acknowledged to be very moderate by all who had had cognisance of them. Germany had recently informed the Maghzen that it was high time to contract a loan. M. Pichon dwelt on the loyalty with which the Franco-German Agreement had been observed by the Berlin Government. Nevertheless the adhesion of the Moroccan Government had not yet been obtained. That Government had admitted the principle of the loan of 80,000,000f. and that of the indemnity of 70,000,000f. for the French military expedition, but there was disagreement still in regard to the guarantees required for the realization of that operation. Mulai Hafid, moreover, demanded the immediate evacuation of the Shawia and of Casablanca. On November 6 M. Pichon informed the Sultan’s envoys that it was futile to continue the _pourparlers_ if France did not obtain a satisfactory reply. It would not be without danger for the Moroccan Government to persevere in its attitude."
A little later it was made known that the Sultan had yielded to the terms prescribed by the French Government and was to obtain the loan which would help toward the payment of his debts.
By this time a new Morocco question had sprung out of a sweeping mining concession which certain German exploiters, the Brothers Mannesmann, had obtained from Sultan Mulai Hafid, in distinct violation of the agreements at Algeciras which the Sultan had been a party to. The Mannesmann mining rights under this concession, if allowed, would swallow up all others, and large interests, French, Spanish, German, English, Italian, and Dutch, were arrayed against their claims. The backing of the Mannesmanns in Germany, however, by commercial and newspaper influence, appears to have been very powerful, and it has not been easy for the Government to resist being drawn into alliance with it. But the attitude of the Imperial Government appears to have been strictly loyal to the Algeciras agreements, and it has gone no farther for the Mannesmanns and their partisans than to negotiate with the other Powers concerned for a submission of the question of legality in the Mannesmann concession to a Court of Arbitration. That will probably be the mode of settling it.
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MOROS, The.
See (in this Volume) PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1901-1902.
MORRIS, SIR EDWARD: Premier of Newfoundland.
See (in this Volume) NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1908-1909.
MORTON, PAUL: Secretary of the Navy.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1905.
MORTON, PAUL: President of Equitable Life Assurance Society.
See (in this Volume) INSURANCE, LIFE.
MOSCOW, Risings and Disturbances in.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA.
MOSLEM LEAGUE.
See (in this Volume) INDIA: A. D. 1907 (December); also, 1907-1909.
MOSQUITO TERRITORY, THE.
See (in this Volume) CENTRAL AMERICA: A. D. 1905.
MOTIENLING.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).
MOVING PICTURE SHOWS.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE AND INVENTION.
MUIJTEHEDS: The higher Persian Priests.
See (in this Volume) PERSIA: A. D. 1905-1907.
MUKDEN: A. D. 1903. Opened to Foreign Trade.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1903 (MAY-OCTOBER).
MUKDEN: Battle of.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905 (SEPTEMBER-MARCH).
MULAI AHMED BEN MOHAMMED, EL RAISULI.
See (in this Volume) MOROCCO: A. D. 1904-1909.
MULAI HAFID: Sultan of Morocco by Dethronement of his Brother.
See (in this Volume) MOROCCO: A. D. 1907-1909, and 1909.
MULAI HASSAN, Late Sultan of Morocco.
See (in this Volume) MOROCCO: A. D. 1903.
MULLAH, ABDULLA MUHAMMED.
See (in this Volume) AFRICA: SOMALILAND.
MULLAS: The common Persian Priests.
See (in this Volume) PERSIA: A. D. 1905-1907.
MUNICIPAL COMMITTEES IN INDIA.
See (in this Volume) INDIA: A. D. 1907-1909.
----------MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: Start--------
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: American Democracy’s most Serious Problem. Present Interest in it. Hopeful Movements.
Americans have long been forced to acknowledge that political democracy in the United States makes its worst showing in the government of municipalities; and those who give any searching thought to the matter have little dispute over reasons for the fact. It connects very plainly with another fact, namely, that _municipal politics_, as a political interest distinct and apart from the interests of government in Nation and State, has had no growth in the country as yet. Up to the time of the formation of the national union, the few cities of America had a quite positive political life of their own, which might have carried them into conditions very different from what they have realized since, if it had not undergone the absorption that it did in the politics of a national government. The national political parties formed then on exciting issues, sectional, constitutional, and economic, caught all political feeling into their embrace, not instantly, but gradually, and surely, and appropriated the whole mechanism of political organization to themselves. Cities are the natural centers of such mechanism, and the great parties of Federal politics were able easily to impose on them a domination which left no free working of public opinion on the immediate concerns of the cities themselves. All political action was drawn into the mill which turns out Presidents, Congresses, Tariffs, Bank Acts, etc., and the mere by-product of Mayors, Aldermen, and City Ordinances which it drops incidentally into the cities, receives almost no stamp of quality or design from the local mind.
Until the wheels of local government are loosened in some way from the clutch of the great party machines, and can work independently, under motive forces of their own, to produce the satisfaction of local needs, interests, and aims, there will be little success in undertakings of municipal reform. How to accomplish that political ungearing is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of the problems now occupying the minds of the American people. Fortunately it is occupying their minds. Within the last few years they have given more thought to this subject than it ever received from them before; and it has been bold thought, as well as profoundly earnest. It has not been afraid of hospitality to new ideas and new experiences, but is giving them fair hearings and fair tests. The present attitude of the whole country in this matter is of the happiest hopefulness, and every day brightens the prospect of a better future for municipal government in America.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: BOSTON: A. D. 1909. A Plan of Government chosen by popular vote.
In connection with the election of November 2, 1909, the citizens of Boston, Massachusetts, had two plans of City Government submitted to their vote, and the charter under which the City will be ruled and its business conducted after the beginning of February, 1910, was determined by the choice between these plans which a majority expressed at the polls. One of the plans emanated from an official body, called the Finance Commission, which had been appointed to investigate bad conditions in the City Government, and whose investigations had given rise to the demand for a radical reform. This plan had the approval, moreover, of a citizens Committee of One Hundred, which had given much attention to the subject; but it was exceedingly unsatisfactory to the party politicians, whose personal interests were flagrantly disregarded in its scheme. These drafted a form of charter which fitted their own purposes, and the two plans were submitted to the Legislature in the winter of 1909. That body escaped the responsibility of a decision between them by referring both to the voters of Boston. The charter wanted by the party managers was designated as "Plan No. 1"; that of the Finance Commission and the Committee of One Hundred as "Plan No. 2." {432} A strenuous campaign of education was fought for some weeks before election day by the supporters of Plan No. 2, who seem to have included practically all single-minded seekers of good government, and an equally active campaign of wire-pulling was carried on by the champions of Plan No. 1. The education was successful in convincing 39,175 voters that Plan 2 should be preferred, while 35,306 were persuaded to the contrary, and about 34,000 remained so indifferent or undecided that they gave the question no vote. But public considerations prevailed over party motives and influences by 3869 votes, which is a highly important fact.
The charter thus adopted for Boston differs in many features from what has acquired the name of "the Des Moines plan," but is fundamentally akin to it in principle and aim. Its prime purpose is to divorce local politics from national politics, freeing municipal elections from the baneful control of
## parties which have nothing rightly to do with the city’s
affairs. Its secondary object is to concentrate official responsibility in a moderated way. It subjects the mayor of Boston, at the middle of his term, to a reconsideration of the vote which elected him (in the nature of the Swiss "recall"), but it does not introduce the initiative and referendum. The operation of the new charter under its provisions was outlined as follows by the Boston _Herald_ on the day following its adoption:
"By the acceptance of plan 2, party and all other designations will be eliminated from the ballots for the municipal elections, which will be held on the first Tuesday after the second Monday in January of each year. The coming city election will be held on January 11.
"Candidates for mayor must be nominated by petition of not less than 5000 registered Boston voters. The candidate who receives the highest vote at the city election will hold office for four years, unless recalled at the end of two years. The salary will be $10,000 a year.
"At the state election in the second year of the mayor’s term the ballots will contain the question: ‘Shall there be an election for mayor at the next municipal election?’ And this will be answered by ‘Yes,’ or ‘No.’ If a majority of the registered voters vote ‘Yes’ an election for mayor will be held at the following city election.
"Whether recalled or not, the mayor holding office will have his name on the ballot at the city election unless in writing he requests the election commissioners not to place his name on the ballot. The mayor then elected will hold office for four years, subject to recall at the end of his second year.
"The city council will consist of nine members, all elected at large. The salary will be $1500 each. In the election on January 11 the voters may vote for nine candidates, and the nine receiving the highest votes will be declared elected. The three highest will have three-year terms, the three next highest will serve for two years and the next three for one year each. Each year thereafter three candidates-at-large will be elected, and the voters may vote for three. All members of the city council will be elected at large, and there will be no ward members of the body. By the abolition of party designations no primary elections or caucuses for municipal offices will be held.
"All candidates for mayor, city council and school board must be nominated by papers of not less than 5000 registered voters. No voter may sign more than one paper for mayor, not more than nine for council for the first election and for three candidates thereafter, and not more than two papers for the school board when there are two members to be elected.
"If a candidate for any of the offices decides to withdraw from the contest before the election, vacancies in nominations for any cause may be filled by a committee of not less than five persons authorized in the nomination papers to fill such vacancies.
"Members of the street commission, formerly elected at large, will be appointed by the mayor, subject to approval by the civil service commission, but without restriction as to their political affiliation. All department heads will be appointed by the mayor, subject to approval by the civil service commission.
"The new municipal year will begin on the first Monday in February, when the mayor and city council will be inducted into office."
The election, held at the appointed time, January 11, 1910, was managed so badly as to divide the vote of the reforming element between three candidates, against one, the former Mayor, Fitzgerald, whose scandalous administration had afforded the prime incentive to the reform movement, and thus giving opportunity for his election by a small plurality. A committee of the reform leaders had chosen for their candidate Mr. James J. Storrow, President of the Boston Chamber of Commerce, and strove to concentrate the opposition to Fitzgerald upon him; but the Mayor in office, who had secured renomination, persisted in keeping the field, and won the petty number of 1816 votes, which a little more than sufficed to elect Fitzgerald. The vote given the latter was 47,142, against 45,757 to Mr. Storrow, and 613 to the fourth candidate, Taylor. A recount of the vote was secured, but made no substantial change.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: California: Charter-framing Power given to Cities.
"All cities in California except the very smallest are permitted to frame their own charters, which become effective upon ratification by the legislature. The cities are quick to avail themselves of this privilege, with the result that almost every possible experiment in municipal organization may be found on trial somewhere in California. That the cities are progressive is shown by the fact that within the past decade every city of any size in the State has remodeled its organization either by a new charter or by far-reaching amendments. A high standard of efficient city organization has been set by the recent charter of the city of Berkeley [adopted 1909], which furnishes a very perfect example of the ‘commission’ plan. Elections are freed from the influence of national parties, and the possibility of a final choice in the direct primary is sufficient to bring out the entire vote of the city.
"The popular initiative, the referendum, and the recall are now generally established in all the larger cities of the State, but outside of San Francisco and Los Angeles without sufficient use to test their value for good government. In San Francisco the popular initiative has been used more frequently for bad measures than for good. In Los Angeles the spectacular removal of the mayor in 1909 will doubtless be regarded as a justification of the method of recall."
_Frederick H. Clark, Head of History Department, Lowell High School, San Francisco, California._
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MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: Chicago: The Municipal Voters’ League.
In 1896 there was thought in Chicago of attempting to organize a strictly Municipal Party for action in municipal politics alone, and a conference of citizens appointed a committee to deal with the scheme. The committee decided this project to be impracticable, but its deliberations resulted in the creation of a Municipal Voters’ League, acting through a non-partisan committee of nine, whose function was to scrutinize all candidacies and nominations for the City Common Council, and afford information concerning them to voters of all parties who desired the election of honest and capable men. A permanent office force was employed, and thorough investigations made as to the record and character of every nominee for the Council. The results of these investigations were published, with recommendations for or against the respective candidates. The league brought pressure to bear, in the first place, to prevent the nomination of objectionable candidates, and then exerted its influence to defeat such candidates at the polls.
This has been done with such effect in election after election as to produce a remarkable change in the character of the Council. Similar agencies have been brought into action in a number of cities within the few last years, with equally good results.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: Chicago’s Struggles for a Better Charter.
A body known as the "Charter Convention," made up of delegates appointed by or representing the Governor of the State, the State Assembly, and the several branches and departments of the City Government, was organized in December, 1905, and labored at the framing of a new City Charter until the early part of 1907, when the product of its labors was submitted to the Legislature of Illinois. Some of the main features of the charter were these:
Consolidation in the municipal government of Chicago of the power vested in the board of education, township, park, and other local governments within the city;
submission of propositions to popular vote;
aldermen to be elected once in four years;
the raising of adequate revenue by the issue of bonds and by other means;
the power to own, maintain, and operate all public utilities in the city, including intramural, railroads, subways and tunnels, and telephone, telegraph, gas, electric lighting, heating, refrigerating and power plants;
the parks to be under the management of a city department of parks;
the public-school system to be a department of the city government and under the control of a board of education of fifteen members appointed by the mayor for terms of three years;
the public library to be managed by a board of nine directors appointed by the mayor for terms of six years.
As it went to the Legislature this draft charter represented much compromising of divergent opinions, and, probably, was not really satisfactory to anybody. The Legislature made it less so by amendments, and when it went to the people of Chicago, in September, 1907, for their verdict on it at the polls, they rejected it by 121,935 votes against 59,786.
Early in 1908 the Charter Convention was reassembled and revised its former work, cutting the requisite legislation up into seven distinct bills, with a view to securing better chances of success for some reforms, if the whole could not be won; but the entire lot was killed in the Legislature.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: The Galveston or Des Moines Plan. Its Features. Extent of its Present Trial.
Curiously enough, the present trend of opinion on the question, "What structure of municipal government will lend itself best to the reforms that it needs?" is in a direction that was given to it by accident, about ten years ago. Perhaps nothing short of a great catastrophe, like that of hurricane and flood, which wrecked the city of Galveston, on the 8th of September, 1900, could have broken the conventional pattern on which our cities were constructed so long. At all events, it was that catastrophe which started a crack in the antique pattern first. In improvising for the needs of a desperate emergency, the wrecked community had sense and energy enough to follow the plain instincts of business, and put itself, as a municipal corporation, under the kind of administration that any other corporation would construct. All the folly of localized interests in this and that part of the town, requiring to be "represented" by ward aldermen, went out of their heads. Their common calamity compelled them to understand that particular interests within the narrow bounds of a civic commonwealth are either included in or superseded by the common interests of the whole. They acted accordingly; dismissed their locally representative aldermen, dropped their old corps of administrative functionaries, and put the undivided management of their affairs into the hands of five commissioners, with a "mayor-president" at the head.
It would not seem to have needed much political wisdom to predict the success of this experiment; but the quick effect of its teaching was more than there could be reason to expect. Houston, the near neighbor-city, was prompt to receive and apply the lesson, but bettering it somewhat. For Houston employed the whole time of its five business managers, paying them fair salaries for the service; whereas Galveston contented itself with less service and paid less.
The two examples then presented, of a municipal corporation conducting its business in the plain mode and by the plain methods of the commercial corporations, drew increasing attention, in all parts of the country, west and east. Boston was soon discussing the Galveston experiment with deep interest, and at a meeting of the highly influential Economic Club of that city, in January, 1907, President Eliot, of Harvard University, declared that he saw in it the dawning of a brighter day. "We have got down very low," he said, "in regard to our municipal governments, and we have got dark days here now, but we can see a light breaking, and one of the lights broke in Galveston. I have personally been interested in the enormous improvement in just one branch of municipal business in our country within the last ten years—that is, school boards and school administrations. There has been a real wave of reform sweeping over the country, in the great cities particularly, with regard to school boards, and every bit of that experience goes the way I am describing it. {434} It is all in the direction of a few men not paid, originally determining the general policy of the schools of the city and trusting entirely to experts for executive action. Our whole experience in Massachusetts with the commissions we have had, tends the same way. If we ask what have been the best performances of the governmental functions in Massachusetts for the last twenty-five years, we have but one answer to make, namely, the work of our commissions, water, sewage, railroads, gas and electric lighting, public libraries where owned by the city, hospitals where owned by the city. You can think of numerous instances in Massachusetts where admirable work has been done by commissions acting on the principles which I have described. I say the day is dawning. What it needs, that the light may grow and get to full noon, is that the people, the great body of the people, should be convinced that municipal government means nothing but good, intelligent conduct of business."
Meantime, in the West, action was already following study of the Galveston plan of city government, and the four states of Iowa, Kansas, North Dakota, and South Dakota passed acts in 1907 to enable the adoption of it by any city so desiring. One of the first to exercise the privilege was the city of Des Moines, Iowa, certain of whose progressive young business men had been studying the municipal problem of late, and who had determined to bring some system of local government into operation that would make their city what it ought to be. On the basis of the Galveston plan they worked out the details of a charter which has become the model of its species most widely accepted, so that more has been heard latterly of "the Des Moines Charter" than of "the Galveston Plan." What is called the Des Moines charter, however, was no special enactment for that city, but a legislative frame of municipal government which any city in Iowa having not less than 25,000 inhabitants may fit itself into.
It confides the whole management of strictly local affairs in the city to four councilmen and a mayor, all elected by the voters of the city at large. It divides their administration into five departments, namely: The department of Public Affairs; The department of Accounts and Finances; The department of Public Safety; The department of Streets and Public Improvements; The department of Parks and Public Property.
The mayor, by virtue of his office, is chairman of the council. He is also superintendent of the department of public affairs, and exercises a general supervision over the whole of the city administration.
The council thus composed, with the mayor at its head, is invested with all executive, legislative and judicial authority, formerly exercised by perhaps twelve different officers, and twelve different boards. It appoints the city attorney, the city treasurer, the city auditor, the city engineer; and, in fact, every other appointive official. It makes every appropriation, and conducts the entire affairs of the city. "At the first meeting of this council, immediately following the election of its members, the work of the city is assigned to its most appropriate department; to one of these five departments. Each of the members of the council is also named as superintendent of a particular department; the theory of the law being that the man who is best qualified, by reason of his experience and training, will be placed at the head of that department where his training and experience will be of most value. As superintendent of this department, he is held strictly accountable for all matters which come within his jurisdiction; he is also charged with responsibility for all that is done or not done in his particular department." In the nomination and election of this important council, no party names are permitted to be connected with the candidates, in any manner whatsoever. Each candidate for the office becomes so by the filing of a petition with the city clerk, bearing the signatures of not less than twenty-five citizens, who make affidavit to the effect that the man is of good moral character, of age, and qualified to fill the office. "Ten days before the election is held, the city clerk takes the petitions which have been filed and prepares the ballot. He does this by arranging the names of candidates in alphabetical order. The candidates for mayor are arranged under the heading ‘Mayor’; the candidates for councilmen are also arranged in alphabetical order under the heading ‘Councilmen.’ There is no party designation, and because of this alphabetical arrangement there can be no favorite position on the ballot. The result is, that the candidate comes before the whole people of the city on his own merit, and on his own record."
As a citizen of Des Moines has described the proceeding, "after the primary has been held the general election is called, and in order to secure names for the ballot in the general election, we take the two candidates who have received the highest number of votes for mayor at the primary, and place their names on the ballot. In order to secure the councilmen, we take the eight candidates for councilmen who have received the highest number of votes at the primary and place their names on the regular election ballot. This gives us two opportunities to weed out undesirable men. In the first place, we have the choice among all candidates at the primary. At the election, we have the choice of one of two men for mayor, and the choice of four out of eight candidates for councilmen."
A most important provision of this Iowa charter for cities has to do with the civil service. "At the first meeting of the city council, after the election of these five commissioners or five councilmen--they are not commissioners—they appoint a civil service board composed of three members, and this civil service board, in whose charge is placed the work of preparing a civil service examination, is appointed for a period of six years. Thus they are removed from any influence that might be exerted by the councilmen, who are only elected for two years. This civil service commission prepares once a year an examination for all employees of the city, with the exception of unskilled labor and the heads of the departments, such as city attorney, city treasurer, city assessor, etc. (all of whom are appointed by a majority vote of the council). Having passed the examination successfully, the applicant is placed in a position, and so long as his work is satisfactory and he remains competent, he cannot be removed. He may be suspended, but he cannot be removed, and he is entitled to a hearing before the civil service board. This provision at once takes away all chance of a machine being built up through patronage."
{435}
This is a sufficient description of the official frame of government that has been instituted at Des Moines and other cities of Iowa under a general law of that State. The law goes farther, and connects with this frame or system a supplementary provision of methods for giving the whole body of the people an immediate agency in municipal legislation and a power to recall their election of any elected official during his term. By the use of the Swiss process of "initiative," a sufficient number of voters (25 per cent. of the whole) can propose measures which the Council must either adopt or else submit to the general vote, and can suspend measures adopted by the council until the general body of citizens has voted for or against them. These features, of the initiative, the referendum and the recall, are no more essential attachments to the Des Moines or Iowa form of municipal organization than to any other. To what extent the States and cities making trial of the general features of the Galveston scheme of municipal organization have followed Iowa in making the Swiss additions to it, information at present is wanting. Apparently the Des Moines pattern is having wide acceptance.
In the fall of 1909 the towns in the United States which had adopted the so-called Des Moines plan of government were reported to number 12 in Texas, 7 in Kansas, 6 in Iowa, 3 in Massachusetts, 3 in California, 2 in Colorado, 2 in Missouri, 2 in Tennessee, 1 in West Virginia, 1 in Mississippi, 1 in North Dakota, 1 in South Dakota, being 42 in all. Movements looking to the introduction of the same system were on foot in other cities. At the November election a draft of charter on the lines of the Des Moines plan was submitted to popular vote in the city of Buffalo, New York, and approved by 8848 electors, out of a total of 11,346 who expressed themselves on the subject. The total vote, however, was only about one-sixth of that cast for candidates at the election. On the strength of the opinion expressed, the Legislature is now being asked to enact the charter. Should it do so, the form of government will have trial in the largest city that has yet introduced it.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: London, England: Defeat of the Progressives in the County and Borough Elections.
See (in this Volume) LONDON: A. D. 1907-1909.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: Los Angeles, California: Experiments and Experiences.
Since 1900, Los Angeles, California, has been going through some interesting experiences, due to a series of charter amendments. The former charter of the city had been of the common pattern, organizing the municipal government under a mayor and a board of aldermen elected by wards. The amendments of recent years have created a Board of Public Works, with large powers in the management of municipal work; have changed the Board of Education from a body of nine members elected by wards to a membership of seven chosen from the city at large; have provided an elaborate system of municipal civil service regulation; and finally have provided for a complete system of popular initiative and referendum in municipal legislation, and for recall of elective officers. Popular initiative in legislation is made possible upon the demand by petition of 15 per cent of the voters, estimated upon the total vote for mayor at the preceding municipal election; referendum in ordinary legislation is required upon a petition of 7 per cent of the voters; a recall election must be ordered upon the demand of 25 per cent of the voters concerned in the filling of the office. The official whom the petition seeks to remove is made a candidate for reflection without other nomination, unless in writing he notifies the city clerk that he is not a candidate.
The recall methods, provided for in charter amendments of 1903, have been put into actual service; first, in 1906, when a councilman was replaced by vote of the Ward, and again in February, 1909, when a recall election was ordered for the office of mayor. The proceedings in this case attracted widespread attention and interest throughout the country. They failed, however, to afford a perfect test of recall methods for the reason that after the election had been ordered but before the date had arrived the mayor in office resigned, thus surrendering without a struggle to the opponents who had sought his removal.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: Michigan: Home Rule for Cities.
The lately revised Constitution of Michigan authorizes cities and villages to frame, adopt and amend their charters, and to pass laws and ordinances in regard to their municipal concerns. Under this improved Constitution, the Michigan Legislature of 1909 adopted the necessary legislation for the formulation of action and for the limitation of taxes and debts. The following, from the New York _Evening Post_, is a summary of the more important provisions of the Act: "Charters of new cities will be framed by a commission of nine electors chosen by popular vote. Revised charters of existing cities will be framed, after a vote of the electors in favor of revision (submitted by a two-thirds vote of the local legislative body or on an initiatory petition of twenty per cent. of the total vote cast for Mayor), by an elected commission of one member from each ward and three electors at large. Candidates for charter commissioners are to be placed on the ballot without party affiliations designated. Charter amendments may be proposed by a two-thirds vote of the local legislative body, or by an initiatory petition of twenty per cent. of the vote for Mayor.
"Every charter and charter amendment, before submission to the electors, must be submitted to the Governor of the State, but if disapproved by him, and passed on reconsideration by a two-thirds vote of the Charter Commission or local legislative body, shall be submitted to the electors. Copies of charters and charter amendments approved by the electors of the city shall be certified to the secretary of state, and shall thereupon become a law.
"The law names certain things which each city charter shall provide, and imposes certain restrictions on the powers of cities. There must be an elected Mayor and a body vested with legislative power; the clerk, treasurer, and assessors, and other officers may be elected or appointed. This permits the establishment of a commission system, or of a Mayor and council with distinct powers. Provision must be made for the levy, collection, and return of State, county, and school taxes, for annual appropriations for municipal purposes, and for a system of accounts.
{436}
"Provision may be made for municipal taxes and for borrowing money up to prescribed limits, for the regulation of trades, occupations, and amusements, for the purchase of franchises, for a plan of streets within three miles beyond the city limits, 'for a system of civil service,' for the referendum, and the following omnibus clause: for the exercise of all municipal powers in the management and control of municipal property and in the administration of the municipal government, whether such powers be expressly enumerated or not; for any act to advance the interests of the city, the good government and prosperity of the municipality and its inhabitants, and through its regularly constituted authority, to pass all laws and ordinances relating to its municipal concerns, subject to the Constitution and general laws of the State.
"Limitations include the following: Existing limits to the tax rate and borrowing powers to remain until a change is authorized by vote of the electors, with a maximum limit of 2 per cent. of the assessed valuation for the tax rate and 8 per cent. for loans; but, as authorized by the Constitution, bonds may be issued beyond this limit for public utilities, when secured only upon the property and revenues of the utility. A sinking fund must be provided for bonds. A charter or charter amendment may not be submitted oftener than once in two years. The salary of public officials may not be changed after election or appointment. Certain municipal property may only be sold or vacated when approved by three-fifths of the electors voting thereon.
"A separate act was passed for villages. This follows the main features of the law for cities, but is briefer."
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: New York City: A. D. 1901-1909. The Municipal Elections of 1901, 1903, 1905, and 1909.
See (in this Volume) NEW YORK CITY.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: New York City: A. D. 1905-1909. The Working of the Bureau of Municipal Research.
The Bureau of Municipal Research, instituted in New York City by an organization of citizens in 1905, has proved to be as effective an agency as has ever been employed for the straightening of crookedness and the correcting of negligence in the conduct of municipal affairs. Its working is described fully in an article which appeared in the _Atlantic Monthly_ of October, 1908, by the head of the Bureau, Dr. William H. Allen, under the title, "A National Fund for Efficient Democracy." What the writer aims to do, and does most effectively, is, first, to show how inefficient our democracy is in its practical working, how demoralizing that inefficiency is, how feebly education and religion are struggling against its demoralizations, so long as they do not work to make government efficient; and then he unfolds the remedy indicated in results obtained already from the public enlightenment—the citizen education—which the Bureau of Municipal Research is developing in New York. His final purpose is to plead for the great national fund that would establish a central foundation for the extending and organizing of similar educational work throughout the country at large.
The simple object of the New York Bureau of Municipal Research has been to make and to keep the public acquainted with the working of things in its government; to make and keep it attentive to the facts of efficiency or inefficiency in that working, which proves to be the kind of political education that bears the most practical fruits. The aim of the bureau, says Dr. Allen, has been "educative, not detective. Infinitely more interested in pointing out what is needed than what is wrong, it realizes that the great problem of democracy is not the control of the officer, but the education of the citizen. It began, not by laying down principles of government or discussing men, but by studying the needs of the community and its official acts. It would educate democracy in facts about democracy’s acts and methods, democracy’s need, and democracy’s opportunity." Something of the results achieved is set forth in the following passage:
"Three years, $150,000, and scientific method, have accomplished results surpassing all dreams of those who outlined its programme. So convincing are these results that onlookers who said three years ago, ‘The tiger will never change its stripes,’ are now saying, ‘You could hardly do this in cities where the tiger marks are less obvious.’ Although many phases of municipal administration have not yet been studied, there is hardly an obstacle to efficiency and honesty that has not been encountered and overcome by light. The real-estate bureau that eluded all graft charges is being reorganized to prevent either graft or one hundred per cent. profits for land sold the city at private sale. While its own staff, consisting of three investigators in 1907 and 40 in the summer of 1908, can of itself do no inconsiderable educational work, the bureau gauges its effectiveness, not by what its own staff accomplishes, but by what the city’s staff of 70,000, and through them the city’s population of 4,000,000, are enabled to accomplish because of its educational effort.
"Methods that manufacture corruption and inefficiency, and that for 50 years defied political reform, are giving way to methods by which 70,000 employees must tell the truth about what they do when they do it, about what they spend when they spend it, in clear, legible form. … Tammany officials, when interested, make excellent collaborators. The commissioners of accounts, for 30 years, through reform and Tammany administrations alike, a whitewashing body that condoned and glossed over wasteful and corrupt acts, have become, as a direct result of the bureau’s work, a great educational agency."
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: New York City: A. D. 1909. Proposed New Charter, not acted on in the Legislature.
A Commission appointed for the purpose by Governor Hughes, after long and careful study of the subject of a new charter for Greater New York, reported in March, 1909, submitting a recommended draft, which was submitted to the Legislature then in session, but obtained no action from that body before its adjournment. The ruling principle in the work of the Commission had been that of reducing the number of elected administrative officers, of putting into separate hands the power to appropriate and the power to spend money, and of concentrating power and responsibility in a few. {437} As originally organized, the "Greater New York" City is divided into five boroughs. At the head of each borough is a Borough President, who has charge of the streets and the public buildings within the borough. There is also a Board of Estimate and Apportionment, consisting of the Mayor, Comptroller, the President of the Board of Aldermen, and the Borough Presidents. There is also a Board of Aldermen. The Commissioners proposed that the Borough Presidents shall cease to have administrative functions and shall devote their attention exclusively to the great financial work of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment; that the administrative work be given to heads of departments responsible to the Mayor, and to bureaus, some of them under the Board of Estimate and Apportionment and some under the various departments; and that the Board of Aldermen be supplanted by a Council of thirty-nine members to serve without pay; to have enlarged legislative powers, but none connected with the grant franchises, which the Board of Estimate and Apportionment should control. A new Department of Street Control was proposed, to take over all street work, abolishing the Street-Cleaning Department.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: Philadelphia: A. D. 1905. A Temporary House Cleaning of the Municipality. Mayor Weaver’s Conversion.
"Philadelphia has reformed. It is the swiftest and most thorough municipal revolution known in American civic annals. Without an election and without primaries, without warning and without preparation, the great deep of small householders,—which is Philadelphia,—moved from below. When the work was over, Mayor Weaver, who led the revolution, had not only changed the heads of the two executive departments, with ten thousand employees, but he was in full control of City Councils; he was recognized as the head of the city Republican party organization; he had forced the city Republican committee to withdraw the local ticket already nominated and await the choice of another ticket by the reform leaders; he had begun criminal prosecution, stopped work on contracts for filtration plants, boulevards, and highways amounting to some twelve million dollars, beginning a searching investigation by a board of expert engineers, and had defeated two grabs, one a contract for seventy-five years in gas and the other a street-car grab of one hundred and ten miles of streets, sought by the two local public-service corporations, the United Gas Improvement Company and the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company. Both had been successfully passed before this revolution broke, and both were recalled, on the demand of the mayor, by the same councils that had passed them.
"The coherent homogeneous vote of the myriads of small homes which make up Philadelphia has made this sweeping victory possible against great odds. The party majority in Pennsylvania and Philadelphia is the strongest in the country. The city machine is as well organized as Tammany Hall. It holds city, State, and federal patronage. For ten years it has without challenge chosen the executive officers at Harrisburg and Philadelphia and held the Legislature and Councils. The city ring, in a decade of unchecked rule, has issued $40,000,000 of city bonds; let on the filtration plant alone $13,660,000 of contracts; as much more on various public improvements, and had pending work authorized, but not let, costing about $30,000,000. The criminal investigation already made indicates that on the filtration-plant contracts alone the margin of loose profit is from 28 to 30 per cent. In this period the city gas works have been leased for a term ending in 1927, on provisions which yield $2,000,000 a year, twice the expected profit to the lessee, the United Gas Improvement Company. The other public-service corporation, the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company, has had a free gift of a subway and over two hundred miles of street without payment and without limitation. The combination, under an antiquated law which threw no safeguards about the ballot of a venal vote controlled by machine office-holders of the great corporations, railroad and public-service, and of a corrupt combination of contractors and politicians, seemed omnipotent. By the adroit use of State and city appropriations for private charities and educational institutions, the respectable were placated. The leaders of this organization were also wise enough to meet reforms non-political halfway. The last State legislature passed excellent sanitary legislation, reorganized on sound lines the city schools of Philadelphia, passed efficient child-labor laws, and at many points improved State legislation. Carefully separating political management and elected officers, the leaders of the machine chose judicial candidates usually unexceptionable, and elected as governor of the State and mayor of Philadelphia men honest, dull, highly respected, without stain but pliant.
"In April, so far as Philadelphia was concerned, self-government seemed to have disappeared. Its charter was amended, in the teeth of universal protest, so as to rob future mayors of all powers. Senator Boies Penrose and Insurance Commissioner Israel W. Durham made all nominations, State and city. The former awaits investigation. Durham has been shown to be a silent and secret partner in a contracting firm holding $13,660,000 of contracts, under city ordinances he passed, led by officers he chose, and yielding some 30 per cent. profit. In Pennsylvania and Philadelphia, the corporation pays the machine and the machine aids the corporation. It is like this in other States, but preeminently in that founded by Penn. After a long series of like gifts and franchises, councils voted the Rapid Transit Company one hundred and ten miles of streets, passed a costly boulevard system, and in return for $25,000,000 intended for more contracts proposed to lease the city gas works for seventy-five years, postponing reduction in the price of gas for three-quarters of a century.
"This ran the pliant fingers of the machine into the pockets of every householder who had a gas bill to pay, some two hundred and eighty thousand in number. Suddenly this great mass moved from within. The pulpit of small churches knew it before the press, the little division leaders before the ward managers, and they before the chiefs of the organization. In a week, the city seethed. Children of councilmen came crying from the public schools. No one would play with them. Callous, thick-skinned politicians found their mail, their telephones, and their daily tours one hot rain of protest from their old neighbors. Division leaders reported defection by the avalanche. {438} The small householder, the narrow burgher, comfortable, contented, owning his house, careless over ideals, education, corruption, and venal voter, was aflame over a bigger gas bill. It is the old story of ship money and stamp taxes. No vote was necessary. No primary was needed. The leaders of a political machine are ignorant of much, but they know the voice of the voter in the land. John Weaver, the mayor, chosen by the machine, and its lifelong friend and supporter, had been a fair case lawyer and district attorney. Honest, narrow, clean-lived, of a legal mind, restive at the way he was treated as a mere figurehead, he recognized the civic revolution because he was himself of the class that had risen. He had, moreover, in his day won his division and was a ward leader."
_American Review of Reviews, July, 1905._
The Israel W. Durham referred to above, who was the absolute "boss" of Philadelphia from 1896 to 1905, died on the 28th of June, 1909.
See, also, PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1906.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: A. D. 1909. The old Evil Conditions revived. Defeat of Revolt against them.
The old mastery of the City Government by an all-powerful and shameless political "machine" was recovered at the end of the term of Mayor Weaver, and conditions were soon as rotten as before the momentary and partial cleansing had been performed. In 1909 a hopeful revolt against them was undertaken, under the lead of D. Clarence Gibboney a young lawyer who as secretary of an active "Law and Order Society," had shown inspiring powers of leadership and high qualities of sincerity and resolution. Gibboney had been put forward for District Attorney in 1906 on Democratic and Independent tickets, and had suffered defeat. Now he was brought again to the front, for that office, from which the plunderers of the city could be most advantageously attacked. A William Penn Party had been organized in the interest of reform, and his nomination by this was endorsed by the Democratic organization. A great effort was made to rouse the conscience and the self-respect of the city, to throw off the thraldom of blind partisanship under which it submits to be corrupted and robbed. But the effort failed. Gibboney was rejected by a majority of about 40,000 voters.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: Pittsburg: Achievements of a Reforming Mayor.
George W. Guthrie became Mayor of Pittsburg in 1906. "When Mayor Guthrie went into office there was no merit system in Pittsburg; but he soon established an effective one of his own, and at the 1907 session of the Pennsylvania Legislature effectively co-operated with the Pennsylvania Civil Service Reform Association and similar bodies, with Mayor Dimmick, of Scranton, and the business bodies of second-class cities, to secure a law which would permanently establish the merit system in them. He and his colleagues succeeded. A short time ago some one asked the Mayor how many Democrats he had appointed to office. His immediate reply was, 'I haven’t the least idea. The question of party has never entered into the matter.’ …
"The tax levied in February, 1906, before Mayor Guthrie assumed office, was 15 mills. That levied in February, 1907, the first under his administration, was 12½ mills. This year, had it not been for the annexation of Allegheny, the city would have required only 10 or 10½ mills. The Mayor’s first estimate was 11 mills; but the final figures, as made up by the Finance Committee, showed that the lower figure would have been sufficient. When the Mayor entered office, there was a cash deficit of $400,000, caused by the payment of bills left over from the previous administration. He closed his first year with a small surplus, and the second (1907) with a large one. The total tax valuation of the old city of Pittsburg is $599,852,923. Its total bonded indebtedness is $24,956,001, and its net indebtedness (arrived at by deducting bonds in the saving fund) is $16,532,425, or .0275 per cent of the valuation. This highly desirable financial result, however, has not been reached by any false economy. Inadequate salaries have been raised. All the street repairing for 1907 was paid for out of the tax levy, and the work on the filtration plant has been pushed unceasingly. Enough of the filter beds are finished to provide for present needs, and as soon as they are ‘ripened’ and the pumping machinery rearranged the city will have filtered water. …
"For many years, under the old regime, Pittsburg had been free from many of the evils of an open city; but a syndicate of Councilmen and politicians had made immense sums out of the business. They controlled the leases of the houses, which they sublet at exorbitant sums. They also controlled the supplies which were furnished to them. The Mayor issued but one order for the regulation of this district. He made no attempt to solve the entire problem. As the law was plain about the sale of liquor, he declared that that must stop absolutely; and that no house could be run on streets on which there were surface cars. This order proved to be the death-blow of the combination that had previously existed. The politicians, when they heard the order, laughed. They had fooled every other Mayor, and they thought they could fool Guthrie. He would need Councils and must necessarily ‘deal’ with them. But he needed no one, and he ‘dealt’ with no one. He waited six weeks for his warning to be taken, and then he acted. One Saturday night the police drew a net around the district, and over one thousand arrests were made. Then came the final blow that stopped political interference. Under the old system police magistrates had been in the habit of holding fines or delaying sentences, which, under the pressure of political influence, were remitted or suspended. Such money as was paid in was held for a month before being turned over to the city treasury. … Mr. Guthrie established the rule that all fines and jail sentences, once imposed, would have to stand unless revoked by the county courts. Not only have the revenues of the city largely increased by this policy, as we have already seen, but one of the greatest sources of political evil has been removed. Since this policy was inaugurated there has been no political or machine interference in the administration of the law. Incidentally, I may mention that one Councilman went to jail for his complicity with the protection of the social evil.
{439}
"The situation in Pittsburg is so changed and improved that the Secretary of the Civic Voters' League was able to say recently; ‘While we have forced Councils to be good, elected the best Mayor in the country, put in county offices men of ability and honesty, forced the politicians to give us a good civil service measure, I am convinced that our most important victory has been to convince the political leaders and bosses that there is a new era in politics, and that for the future none but the best men can be elected to public office.’"
_Clinton Rogers Woodruff, A Mayor with an Ideal (The Outlook, April 25, 1908)._
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: Defeat of the Reforming Mayor in 1909, but no Discouragement of the Reforming Activity of the Voters’ League. Unparalleled Success in convicting Bribed Officials and their Bribers.
Mayor Guthrie, nominated for reëlection in 1909, was defeated by the nominee of a corrupt party "machine"; but this put no check on the efforts of the Voters’ League behind him to hunt down the corrupting influences and agencies which had mastered the city once more. A fortunate accident gave the League a single clue to the hidden labyrinth of rascality, and it sufficed for astounding revelations. It tracked and caught, first, a single ex-Councilman, who had handled large sums of bribe-money, receiving and dividing it among his fellow members of a gang known as the "Big Six." This man, John P. Klein, when he found himself helplessly in the toils, and likely to be the scape-goat for all his confederates and their corrupters, made confessions which uncovered much, if not all, of the bribe-giving and bribe-taking of several past years. Down to the 23d of March, 1910, when the following summary was published, the results coming from this confession had been as follows:
In penitentiary— W. W. Ramsey, ex-president of the German National Bank; William Brand, ex-president of the Common Council; Joseph C. Wasson, ex-Councilman, and H. M. Bolder.
Under sentence to the penitentiary— John F. Klein, ex-Councilman.
Awaiting disposition of their cases— E. H. Jennings, president of the Columbia National Bank, and F. A. Griffin, cashier, who pleaded _nolo contendere_.
Under indictment— Forty-one Councilmen.
Confessors of bribe-sharing— Twenty Councilmen, former and present, Select and Common.
More confessors awaiting turn— Ten former and present Councilmen.
As this goes to the printers, the bribe-givers, including some of the multi-millionaires of Pittsburg, are being dragged into court.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: St. Louis: A. D. 1900-1940. The Unearthing of Thievery and Corruption by Circuit Attorney Folk. Prosecutions, Confessions, and Convictions.
One of the most notable and effective cleansings of a corrupted municipality that has occurred in the United States was accomplished in St. Louis by Joseph Wingate Folk, using the powers of the office of Circuit Attorney of the City, to which he was fortunately elected in the spring of 1900. That bribery was active among the Aldermen and Councilmen of the two chambers of the municipal legislature, and that unscrupulous men of business were habitually employing it to secure iniquitous franchises and jobs, appears to have been a matter of common belief; but the belief had not roused feeling enough to bring about any change, until the opportunity to act was given to Mr. Folk.
One notoriously suspicious transaction, which consolidated the street railways of the city, was outlawed for all but a single actor in it by the Missouri statute of limitations, which bars criminal proceedings after three years; but the one man had been absent from the State during so large a part of those three years that he could be reached by the law, and the Circuit Attorney turned the search light of a grand jury investigation on his case. This man, R. M. Snyder, of Kansas City, was indicted, arrested, and held for trial under bonds of $50,000. From that beginning Mr. Folk went on to the probing of a more recent franchise grant, and unearthed the fact that two deposits of cash, for sums of $60,000 and $75,000 were boxed in safety deposit vaults, each guarded by duplicate keys held on one side by a corporation agent, and on the other side by agents of the Council and the Aldermanic body respectively, waiting for distribution among the officials who had sold the public franchise for those sums. A rival corporation had, meantime, attacked the legality of the grant, held it up by an injunction, and so kept these corruption funds in suspension between the bribers and the bribed.
By what resolute persistence, what shrewdness, what bold ventures of surmise, Mr. Folk uncovered the cunningly secreted facts, terrified the "boodlers" and the bribers into betraying one another, and fastened their crimes upon them, cannot be told here. Two of the wealthy buyers in the rascally trade, a Mr. Turner and a Mr. Stock, became witnesses for the State against the men whose crime they had bought. The two agents for Aldermen and Councilmen, who held the keys of the deposited bribe, J. K. Murrell and Charles Kratz, fled to Mexico, forfeiting their bail. Three others of the accused, Emil Meysenberg, Julius Lehmann and Harry Faulkner, were tried, convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for three and two years. The escape of Murrell and Kratz beyond reach of extradition embarrassed the prosecution of the remaining confederates, who seemed likely to go free for lack of sufficient evidence; but unexpectedly, in September, 1902, Murrell reappeared in St. Louis, saying that he could not endure exile any longer and was ready to bear the penalty of his wrongdoing. On his confessions eleven aldermen were arrested, charged with bribery in two cases and with perjury before the grand jury. Seven others made successful flights.
In the course of the next year another of the refugees from justice returned, supposing his time of danger to have passed. This was Charles F. Kelly, who had been Speaker of the St. Louis House of Delegates and a ready tool of Edward Butler, the St. Louis political "Boss" and legislative broker. Butler had been involved in the prosecutions, and Kelly had fled to avoid giving testimony against him, being paid, as he confessed finally, $50,000 for his retirement into obscure foreign parts. What happened to him later, and what confessions he made were the subject of a brief story in THE OUTLOOK of November 5, 1904, in part as follows:
{440}
"Returning when it was believed that his patron was secure through the operation of the statute of limitations, Kelly was arrested and sentenced to two years in the penitentiary for perjury in his testimony in one of the boodle cases. He appealed to the Supreme Court, and meanwhile was rearrested on the charge of accepting a bribe in another deal. At, this juncture he complained that Butler had deserted him and had advised him to plead guilty. ‘It didn’t look right,’ he said in an interview, ‘that we should take our medicine and that he should go free.’ Therefore he determined to relate his dealings with Butler in the bribery cases. In his statement he says that he has reason to believe that boodling had been in progress in the St. Louis Municipal Assembly for the last twenty-five years. The boodlers did not fear exposure, because they ‘knew that most of the politicians and many of the large financiers of St. Louis’ would be with them. One prosecutor who attempted to bring them to justice was ‘bluffed off.’ When Mr. Folk began his work, there were threats of assassination, and finally a deliberate plot was arranged to ruin the prosecutor’s influence by falsehoods. ‘Prominent financiers’ as well as the boodlers were engaged in this attempt, according to the confession.
"The general scheme of the boodle ‘combine’ is already fairly well known, but Mr. Kelly adds some interesting details. There were nineteen members, and the combine was ‘not along party lines.’ ‘My experience,’ he remarks, ‘has been that boodlers line up according to their interests, and not under party standards.’ The members of the combine held regular meetings, and decided by a majority vote on the prices to be charged for various measures. There was a ‘fixed schedule of prices’ for bills in accordance with the value of the privileges to be given. The combine rarely sold out for less than a thousand dollars, though once ‘some of the boys took five dollars each, but were so ashamed of it they would not speak of it afterwards, because the price was so small.’ The combine was in the habit of selecting one of its members to act as agent in the deals, and only in one or two instances did the representative prove untrustworthy. ‘Among ourselves,’ says this frank boodler, ‘we had a high code of morals, and it was considered extremely dishonest for a member of the combine to accept bribe money without dividing it among his fellows.’ A
## particularly interesting feature of the confession is the
warning which it gives to St. Louis of the danger of a relapse to the old conditions when Mr. Folk’s term as Circuit Attorney shall have expired. Kelly asserts that Butler advised his indicted friends to get continuances until a new Circuit Attorney should be elected, and that he promised them that the prosecutor should be ‘his man.’ ‘What,’ asks Kelly, ‘has been done in St. Louis? Nothing at all. The prosecutor has, after three years’ fighting, whipped us. But it seems to me, such is the condition of public sentiment in St. Louis, that when the new prosecutor, who of course will be Ed Butler’s man, takes charge, boodlers will be in clover again.’ In his opinion the great trouble is that ‘so many of the large corporations of the city are mixed up in boodle one way or another’ that the town is willing to tolerate corruption."
Here, as in all exposed cases, the power to organize "boodle" or "graft" in municipal government is found to have been derived from the "machines" of the national political parties.
The exhibit of character and ability made by Mr. Folk in his extraordinary enforcement of law in St. Louis, to the overthrow of the stronghold of municipal thieves and corruptionists, so commended him to the people of Missouri that they nominated and elected him Governor of the State in 1904, despite the most desperate endeavor of the party organizations to defeat him. In his higher office he continued his work of reform.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: SAN FRANCISCO: A. D. 1901-1909. The Struggle with Political Corruption.
"Before the enactment of the charter of 1899 the mayoralty in San Francisco had little power, and successive political bosses had ignored it. Instead of this, they aimed to control the municipal Board of Supervisors, which had the awarding of contracts and franchises. The charter of 1899 changed all this, by concentrating vast powers of appointment and removal in the mayoralty, the office being filled by biennial election. The office was ably and honestly administered for the first two years by Honorable Jas. D. Phelan.
"During the latter portion of Phelan’s term there occurred a long and bitter industrial struggle, known as the ‘Teamsters’ Strike,’ in which the sympathy of other labor organizations was deeply stirred. At the request of the employers Mayor Phelan consented to placing the city police upon drays and wagons as guards for non-union drivers. This action aroused violent denunciation on the part of the union labor leaders. It also served as a political object lesson. It was seen that to gain possession of the mayoralty in the interest of union labor would be a great political advantage, especially in a recurrence of industrial strife.
"In the following election (1901) Eugene E. Schmitz, orchestra leader at the Columbia theatre and head of the musicians’ union, the candidate of the union labor party, was elected mayor by 21,776 votes as against 30,365 votes somewhat evenly divided between the Republican and the Democratic candidates. Two years later (1903) Schmitz was reëlected in the same way, and in 1905 he was again successful, this time securing a large majority over the fusion candidate nominated by the Democratic and Republican parties combined. Throughout the whole period Schmitz's chief political manager was Abraham Ruef, a native of San Francisco, well educated, gifted and ambitious, an adroit politician, previously affiliated with the Republican party. In 1904 he was a delegate at large for California in the Republican national convention at Chicago.
"Almost from the beginning of the Schmitz administration it became recognized throughout the city that the most certain way of obtaining favors from the mayor’s office was through the law office of Abraham Ruef, who acted as the legal and political adviser of Mayor Schmitz. Ruef steered a different course from political bosses generally. He kept his office open for all comers, high and low. He was thoroughly accessible. He welcomed all applicants and dealt out encouraging assurances to every request. It soon became a matter of general belief that under the guise of legal services Ruef was selling licenses, securing special privileges for favored clients and protecting illegal concerns. Ruef’s income increased enormously during the Schmitz regime, but to the end he maintained this pretense of ‘attorney’s fees,’ and only a few months before he was indicted for extortion he stoutly maintained before a public meeting that he had never made a dollar out of politics.’
{441}
"In 1905 the grand jury made a thorough investigation of the municipal administration and became convinced of the existence of a wide-spread system of bribery and corruption. In its report to the Superior Court, filed August 19, 1905, it stated: ‘that wholesale and wide-spread violation of law is open, notorious and flagrant; that it meets with the acquiescence of the mayor; that it receives the approval of the police commission; that it is aided, abetted and protected by police officials. … We find that vice and crime have been organized so systematically, and fostered with such vigilant attention to detail, that nothing which business acumen or political expediency could suggest has been neglected or omitted.’ For lack of legal evidence, however, or the funds with which to carry on an investigation for securing it, no indictments in these matters were returned.
"The municipal election of 1905 gave to Ruef the control of the Board of Supervisors as well as the administrative departments of the city. The great upheaval in business conditions produced by the earthquake and fire of April, 1906, brought new and wealthier clients to his office. Evidence made public in the later prosecutions goes to show that Ruef was paid to secure from the Board of Supervisors for the United Railroads permission to use an overhead trolley system for operating its street cars instead of the cable system in use before the fire; that the gas company had bribed the supervisors to raise the price of gas from 75 to 85 cents per thousand feet; and that the telephone companies had used the same means to promote their interests.
"The work of securing the evidence upon which criminal indictments could be based was performed by a few determined men. Rudolph Spreckels, a young man of large fortune, came forward with a pledge of $100,000 for the expenses of a searching investigation. District Attorney William H. Langdon, who had been elected on the same ticket with Schmitz, announced that he would conduct the inquiry without regard to party affiliations, and appointed Francis J. Heney, assistant district attorney. A man of courage and devotion to public honesty, Heney had gained distinction by the successful prosecution of land frauds before the Federal courts in Oregon. Heney requested and obtained the assistance of William J. Burns, a detective in the United States Secret Service.
"Ruef and Schmitz were soon indicted by the grand jury, charged with extorting money from restaurant proprietors. During the progress of his trial Ruef changed his plea from ‘Not guilty’ to ‘Guilty.’ Judgment against him was delayed, however, by the prosecution for the purpose of gaining evidence against others. Schmitz was tried on a similar charge and with the aid of testimony given by Ruef was convicted and [July, 1907] sentenced to imprisonment for five years in the state penitentiary.
"Meanwhile, some of the weaker supervisors having been caught in a trap set for them by Burns, confessions of bribery were obtained by the grand jury from fifteen out of eighteen members of the Board. In return for these confessions the district attorney entered into immunity contracts with the supervisors, and became temporarily the directing power in the municipal government. The office of mayor was declared vacant, and Honorable. Edward R. Taylor, a learned and conscientious man, a professor in the Hastings College of Law in San Francisco, was appointed to the position. Gradually the whole Board of Supervisors was replaced by honest and experienced men.
"On the confessions of the discredited supervisors there followed a large number of indictments against Ruef, Schmitz and the various officers and employees of the public service corporations concerned in corrupting the city government. By May 25, 1907, the number of so-called ‘graft’ indictments was 137, against 19 persons. From collateral issues the number of indictments later rose to 160. The indictments against a few of the accused were subsequently dismissed. Five of the original 19 accused persons had been put on trial one or more times previous to January, 1910,—the expiration of the term of office of District Attorney Langdon. These trials were carried on with the utmost rancor on the part of opposing counsel. The greatest difficulties were encountered in securing juries and in several cases juries failed to agree. Throughout the community and in the public prints there developed factional division and bitterness. This factional hatred culminated in acts of violence and terrorism. Two houses in Oakland, Alameda County, one occupied, the other owned by James L. Gallagher, former supervisor and lieutenant of Ruef, later a most important witness for the prosecution, were dynamited and nearly destroyed. For these crimes a culprit was discovered and sent to the state prison for life by the courts of Alameda County. On November 13, 1908, during the trial of Ruef on bribery charges, Mr. Heney was shot from behind while at his post in the court-room by a half-demented sympathizer with the accused. A day later the assassin took his own life while in jail. By the merest chance Mr. Heney’s wound proved not to be fatal, and after a few months he returned to his duties.
"Even in the few cases in which convictions were obtained judgment was arrested by appeals to the higher courts, which uniformly resolved all technical questions in favor of the accused. To the end of 1909, the record of these cases is as follows:
"Number of indictments 160.
"Contracts of immunity 19.
"Tried and acquitted twice: Tirey L. Ford, attorney for the United Railroads.
"Trials in which the jury disagreed: Louis Glass, manager for the Pacific States Telephone Co.; Tirey L. Ford; Abraham Ruef; Patrick Calhoun, president of the United Railroads.
"Judgments reversed by higher court, Eugene E. Schmitz and Louis Glass.
"Plea of guilty nullified by higher court: Abraham Ruef.
"Convicted, but appeals to higher court in progress: Abraham Ruef and M. W. Coffey, a supervisor who broke his immunity contract.
{442}
"Thus it is evident that the prosecution has so far failed to punish extortion and bribery by criminal procedure. The real results of the prosecution are to be found in the prompt reform of the municipal government of San Francisco in 1907, and, in a larger way, in an awakened public conscience and a strengthened sense of civic duty. These results are not limited to San Francisco, but are a part of the great work of political regeneration in which the whole country is concerned.
"The question of further efforts to secure convictions in these ‘graft’ cases was made a political issue in San Francisco by the candidacy of Mr. Heney for the office of district attorney in 1909. That a large number of voters considered such continued efforts useless or hopeless was shown by his defeat by a decisive majority of 10,000 votes against him."
The new Mayor placed at the head of the City Government by this election was the nominee of the same Union Labor Party which had seated Schmitz and his manager, Ruef, and it was made plain that he represented the opposition to all that had been done and attempted toward municipal reform.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: Spain: A. D. 1907-1909. Municipal Reforms.
See (in this Volume) SPAIN: A. D. 1907-1909.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: The Transvaal: A. D. 1909. Introduction of Proportional Representation.
See (in this Volume) ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: United States: The "Municipal Program," framed by the National Municipal League.
"At the joint invitation of the City Club of New York and the Municipal League of Philadelphia, a Conference for Good City Government was held in Philadelphia in January, 1894. Out of this conference grew the National Municipal League, formally organized in New York City in May, 1894. The League includes in its affiliated membership, the leading municipal reform organizations of the country, and, in its associated membership the leading students of municipal government. At the annual meeting of the League in 1897 held in Louisville, a special committee was appointed ‘to report on the feasibility of a _Municipal Program_ which will embody the essential principles that must underlie successful municipal government, and which shall also set forth a working plan or system, consistent with American industrial and political conditions, for putting such principles into practical operation; and the Committee, if it finds such _Municipal Program_ to be feasible, is instructed to report the same with its reasons therefor, to the League, for consideration.’
"The Committee appointed under this resolution made a preliminary report at the annual meeting of the League held in Indianapolis in 1898, and a final one at the annual meeting of the League held in Columbus in 1899. The Committee did not claim that its report constituted the final word upon the subject referred to it, but its members were convinced, as a result of their studies and investigations, that ‘_A Municipal Program_’ which would embody the essential principles that must underlie successful municipal government was entirely feasible, and they recommended certain Constitutional Amendments and a general Municipal Corporations Act, as setting forth a working plan or system consistent with American industrial and political conditions, for putting such principles into practical operation. The Committee’s recommendations were unanimously adopted by the League at its Columbus meeting."
_Horace E. Deming, The Government of American Cities, page 203 (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York)._
As originally published, the "Municipal Program" has gone out of print, but Mr. Deming, under an arrangement with the League, has reproduced it as an appendix to his book, with an explanatory discussion of it. The main objects sought in it are "to clothe the city government with such broad powers as will enable it to perform all the appropriate functions of a local government without resort to the State Legislature for the grant of additional power"; and to "prevent the interference by the State Legislature with the free exercise by the city of the governmental powers granted it." Beyond this, the designers of the "Program" have worked out what seemed to them the most effective plan of organization in municipal government for the exercise of such full powers.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: WISCONSIN: Organization of a Municipal Reference Bureau by the State University.
Within the past year a Municipal Reference Bureau has been organized in connection with the Extension Department of the Wisconsin State University, its purpose being to offer the widest possible use of the material on questions relative to municipal government which the University has collected, by answering inquiries. The Bureau is under the charge of Mr. Ford H. MacGregor, and will work in cooperation with the very useful Legislative Reference Department of the Wisconsin Free Library Commission, which was organized a few years ago and is still conducted by Dr. Charles McCarthy.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT.
See, also, (in this Volume) ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: UNITED STATES, AND SOCIAL BETTERMENT.
----------MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: End--------
MURRELL, J. K.: Confessions.
See (in this Volume) MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: ST. LOUIS.
MÜRZSTEG PROGRAMME, The.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1903-1904, and 1905-1908.
MUSHIR-ED-DOWLEH.
See (in this Volume) PERSIA: A. D. 1907-1908 (SEPTEMBER-JUNE).
MUSTAFA FAZIL PASHA.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1908 (JULY-DECEMBER).
MUTINY IN THE RUSSIAN NAVY.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1905 (FEBRUARY-NOVEMBER).
MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY: Legislative Investigation.
See (in this Volume) INSURANCE, LIFE.
MUZZAFER-ED-DIN: Late Shah of Persia.
See (in this Volume) PERSIA: A. D. 1905-1907.
MYTILENE, International Occupation of.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1905-1908.
{443}
N.
NABUCO, DR. JOAQUIN: President of Third International Conference of American Republics.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
NACIONALISTAS.
See (in this Volume) PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1907.
NAGEL, CHARLES: Secretary of Commerce and Labor.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909 (MARCH).
NAKAMURA, GENERAL.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905 (MAY-JANUARY).
NANSHAN, BATTLE OF.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (FEBRUARY-JULY), A. D. 1904-1905 (MAY-JANUARY).
NAPOLEON I.: Declining Worship of his Memory in France.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1907-1908.
NASR-UL-MULK: PRIME MINISTER OF PERSIA. His exile.
See (in this Volume) PERSIA: A. D. 1907-1908 (SEPTEMBER-JUNE), AND 1908-1909.
NATAL.
See (in this Volume) SOUTH AFRICA.
NATHAN, ERNESTO: MAYOR OF ROME.
See (in this Volume) ITALY: A. D. 1909.
NATIONAL CIVIC FEDERATION, The.
See (in this Volume) SOCIAL BETTERMENT: UNITED STATES.
NATIONAL CIVIC FEDERATION, The: Its notable Conference on Industrial Disputes. Its great Committee for Intermediation and Conciliation.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1902.
NATIONAL CIVIC FEDERATION, The: Its Intermediation in Coal Strike.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1902-1903.
NATIONAL CIVIC FEDERATION, The: National Conference at Chicago, 1907, on Trusts and Combinations.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL, &c.: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1907.
NATIONAL CIVIC FEDERATION, The: Its work in Promotion of Trades Agreements.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1908.
NATIONAL CIVIC FEDERATION, The: Its work for Uniformity in State Legislation.
See (in this Volume) LAW AND ITS COURTS: UNITED STATES.
NATIONAL CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION.
See (in this Volume) CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: UNITED STATES.
NATIONAL FARMERS’ UNION.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1902-1909.
NATURAL RESOURCES, The Conservation of.
See (in this Volume) CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES.
NATURALIZATION: Convention between American Republics.
The following Convention was adopted and signed at the Second Conference of the American Republics, at Rio de Janeiro, 1906.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
"Article I. If a citizen a native of any of the countries signing the present Convention, and naturalized in another, shall again take up his residence in his native country without the intention of returning to the country in which he has been naturalized, he will be considered as having resumed his original citizenship, and as having renounced the citizenship acquired by the said naturalization."
"Article II. The intention not to return will be presumed to exist when the naturalized person shall have resided in his native country for more than two years. But this presumption may be destroyed by evidence to the contrary."
"Article III. This Convention will become effective in the countries that ratify it three months from the dates upon which said ratifications shall be communicated to the Government of the United States of Brazil; and if it should be denounced by any one of them, it shall continue in effect for one year more, to count from the date of such denouncement."
"Article IV. The denouncement of this Convention by any one of the signatory States shall be made to the Government of the United States of Brazil and shall take effect only with regard to the country that may make it."
NATURALIZATION: In the British Empire: Proposed Uniformity of Law.
See (in this Volume) BRITISH EMPIRE: A. D. 1907.
NATURALIZATION: In the United States: The Question of Treatment of Expatriated Citizens who visit their Native Country. The Principle asserted to Germany. New Law of American Citizenship.-
Consequent on an increasing disposition in Germany to curtail the revisiting of their native country by Germans who had become naturalized citizens of the United States, the American Ambassador to Berlin discussed the subject with the German Foreign Minister, on the 12th of August, 1902, and reported the substance of the conversation to Washington: "Statements were made on the part of the embassy as follows: No sympathy whatever is felt with the person who deliberately emigrates and avails himself of the American naturalization laws for the mere purpose of escaping military service in Germany, and there is no wish on the part of the American authorities to enable such persons to make a convenience of their American naturalization. The embassy has also consistently declined to intervene in behalf of persons whose wish was to make their permanent residence in Germany. It is thought, however, that where German emigrants have fulfilled the conditions necessary to entitle them to ‘be treated as American citizens’ they should actually be so treated, and when they have emigrated in good faith they should be permitted to sojourn in Germany, for their business or pleasure, to visit at their former homes, or to enjoy the benefits afforded by German watering places, etc., in accordance with the terms of the treaty with Prussia of 1828. The sovereign right of Prussia to expel persons whose presence is not considered desirable is not contested, but it is thought that the American Government has the right to know why the presence of any American citizen is so considered.
"Dr. Von Mühlberg’s attention was called to a number of cases now pending, where naturalized American citizens have received orders to leave the country after a stay of a few weeks. He said that he would take the matter up personally and would communicate with the Prussian minister of the interior in regard to it at once."
{444}
In reply from the Department of State at Washington, the
## action of Ambassador White was approved, and it was said
further: "You should lose no suitable opportunity to press and to emphasize the considerations which you advanced in your interview with Dr. Von Mühlberg. The essence of the right of expulsion which the German States claim is that it should be reasonably and justly applied in cases obviously calling for so extreme a measure. Expulsion should not be invoked indiscriminately, so as to operate as a deterrent to the exercise of the rights of expatriation and acquisition of new allegiance granted under the naturalization treaties, or so as to neutralize, by indirection, treatment stipulated thereafter regarding the recognition of the new national character."
_Papers relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1902, page 441._
The doctrine of citizenship stated by Ambassador White on this occasion was embodied subsequently in a new citizenship law, which came into force on the 2d of March, 1907. The new law was based on a report made by an official commission, one of the members of which has written of it as follows:
"When a future historian shall write an account of the achievements of this the most remarkable administration of our government since the Civil War, he will give prominent place to the naturalization law of a year ago and the citizenship law which was approved last March and is now becoming effective; for these two measures are the culmination of a hundred years of effort for reform, and affect the very foundation of our political structure. …
"So far as the naturalization law is concerned, the objections to it come chiefly from petty courts throughout the country which are now not permitted to naturalize, and which formerly derived part of their prestige and their fees from naturalization business. Dissatisfaction with the new citizenship law flows from those people who have been living abroad in fancied security of their American citizenship, and who now find themselves obliged to take positive steps to preserve a status which they have heretofore supposed attached to them indefinitely, without the performance of any obligations on their part. Both of these laws originated in the House of Representatives, but each resulted from a report made by executive officers, and the Senate can claim little agency in them. The citizenship law was based upon a report made to Secretary Root by a board of officers of his Department, the members being James Brown Scott, the Solicitor for the Department of State, David Jayne Hill, our Minister at The Hague, and the writer of this article, with Samuel B. Crandall, Ph. D., of the Department as Secretary. … From this report sprang a bill, introduced in the House by the Honorable James Breck Perkins of New York, which became a law on March 2nd.
"The law does not change or even modify the American doctrine of citizenship. That was already settled by the Constitution and the decisions of the Supreme Court. Anybody born in the United States, no matter what his race, unless he is an Indian living with a tribe, or however ineligible to our citizenship he may be for any other reason, is a citizen of the United States. …
"Broadly speaking, an individual becomes a citizen of the United States by birth or naturalization, and these facts have been well settled; but how does he lose American citizenship? This was the question to which the citizenship board chiefly addressed itself, and which Congress settled a few months ago by declaring that an American shall be held to have expatriated himself when he becomes naturalized as a citizen of another country, or when he takes an oath of allegiance to another state, or when he lives permanently outside of the United States without intent to return. …
"We have had a constantly increasing number of so-called American citizens living abroad—men who have lived in the United States for only five years and in many cases have fraudulently secured naturalization papers after less than five years of residence; who never were really domiciled there; who never have performed any of the duties of American citizenship and who never intended to do so. … Until the new naturalization law went into effect, it was not actually against the letter of the law for a man to commit this fraud; for, when he applied for citizenship, he was required merely to show that he had resided in the United States for five years, and no inquiry was made concerning his future intentions."
_Gaillard Hunt, The New Citizenship Law (North American Review, July, 1907)._
NAVAL CONFERENCE, INTERNATIONAL, AT LONDON, 1908-1909.
_See (in this Volume) War, The Revolt against: A. D. 1907 (appended to account of Second Peace Conference at The Hague)._
NAVIES.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR: NAVAL.
NAVIGATION LAWS: Proposed British Imperial Policy.
See (in this Volume) BRITISH EMPIRE: A. D. 1907.
NEERGAARD, M.: PREMIER OF DENMARK.
See (in this Volume) DENMARK: A. D. 1905-1909.
NEGRO PROBLEMS, IN THE UNITED STATES.
See (in this Volume) RACE PROBLEMS: UNITED STATES.
NELIDOW, M.: President of the Second Peace Conference.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1907.
NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1870-1905. Increase of Population compared with other European Countries.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1870-1905.
NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1902. Offer of mediation between Great Britain and the Boers.
See (in this Volume) SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1901-1902.
NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1903. Laws against Railway Strikes. Failure of General Labor Strike to prevent their Enactment.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1903.
NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1903. Agreement for Settlement of Claims against Venezuela.
See (in this Volume) VENEZUELA: A. D. 1902-1904.
NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1904. Military operations against the Atchinese.
A Dutch military expedition against the long-insurgent natives of the old Sultanate of Atchin, in Sumatra, which was said to have carried death to a thousand women and children, gave rise to stormy scenes in the Netherlands when its session was opened in September. The excuse of the Government was that the warriors used the women and children as shields.
{445}
NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1905-1909. Defeat and Fall of the Calvinistic Party of the Reverend Dr. Kuyper. The Suffrage and Education Questions. The six principal Parties. Success of the groups of "the Right" in the latest Elections.
Elections to the lower chamber of the States-General, held in June, overthrew the Conservative majority in that body and gave the Liberals a small majority of 4. An important issue between parties had been on the question of universal suffrage, but the support given to its advocates was not strong enough to justify immediate attempts on their part to carry any measure of law. A royal Commission was appointed, however, to investigate and report generally on the need or expediency of a revision of the Constitution. The defeated Ministry of Dr. Abraham Kuyper represented an ultra-Calvinistic Church element in politics, and its defeat appears to have been due in the main to educational laws which it had carried through. According to the Dutch review, _De Gids_, from which the following has been translated, the aim of the new laws and the objection to them were much the same as in the English controversy over the Education Act of 1902, when church and clerical influences carried the day against the supporters of secular schools. "These educational laws," said _De Gids_, "were unanimously supported by, if they did not wholly originate with, the clericals, or the Anti-Revolutionary party, as they call themselves, of which Dr. Kuyper is the astute and able leader and head. They had the undivided support also of the Catholics, but were strenuously opposed by the Liberals and all the anti-clericals, including the Social Democrats. The Anti-Revolutionists and Catholics on the one hand, and the Liberals and their allies on the other, form, respectively, the Right and Left in the Chambers."
Since 1905 there seems to have been little if any change in the Dutch parties. On the approach of the quadrennial general elections of June, 1909, a correspondent of the London _Times_ wrote of "the complex grouping" of the political
## parties contending in them: "There are six which may fairly
claim to be important. The largest is probably the Catholic. It is estimated that a third of the population is Catholic by religion, and of the Catholics a very large proportion belong to the Catholic political party, and vote consistently in accordance with the commands of its leaders. Next to the Catholics come the strict Calvinists, who have been organized by Dr. Kuyper into a compact and most formidable party, generally called the Anti-Révolutionnaire party. It finds its chief supporters among the rural population and the petite bourgeoisie, and owes its name to the doctrine, sedulously preached by Dr. Kuyper, that the Radical and Liberal parties are fomenting an anti-religious revolution, and that it is therefore necessary to choose between Christianity and Heathenism. This doctrine is generally known as ‘the antithesis,’ and, though its influence has waned somewhat in the towns, it still has considerable influence in the country. Closely allied to the Anti-Révolutionnaire party is the Christlijk Historisch party, which is more aristocratic, but less energetic, with many principles but no very definite programme. It not infrequently speaks against the Calvinist party, but as a rule joins it when it comes to voting.
"These three parties, Catholic, Anti-Révolutionnaire, and Christlijk Historisch, form the Right. The Left is composed of the Old and United Liberals, the Radicals or Vrijzinnige Democraten, and the Socialists, representing all shades of opinion from what in England might be called Whiggism to extreme Socialism. The questions which really divide these
## parties, as distinguished from the party cries on which the
election is being fought, are Clericalism and Socialism, and a very large proportion of the electors are not quite sure which enemy they most fear. There is no doubt that the Anti-Révolutionnaire party and the Catholics represent two forms of Clericalism, while the Socialists are openly Collectivists. The other parties, with the exception of the Vrijzinnige Democraten, can be better described as opposed to the two extremes than as presenting any clearly marked characteristics of their own."
The first balloting of this election took place on the 11th of June and the second on the 23d. The Anti-Révolutionnaires came out of it with 23, the Catholics with 25, the Christlijk Historischs with 12, making 60 for the groups of "the Right"; against a total of 40 in the groups of "the Left." Of this minority only 7 were in the ranks of the Social Democrats. Dr. Kuyper was among the defeated candidates.
NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1906. At the Algeciras Conference on the Morocco Question.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1905-1906.
NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1906. The Second Peace Conference at The Hague convoked by the Queen.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1907.
NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1908 (April). Treaty with Denmark, England, France, Germany, and Sweden, for maintenance of the Status Quo on the North Sea.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1907-1908.
NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1908-1909. Trouble with Castro of Venezuela.
See (in this Volume) VENEZUELA: A. D. 1908-1909.
NEW BRUNSWICK: A. D. 1901-1902. Census. Reduced representation in Parliament.
See (in this Volume) CANADA: A. D. 1901-1902.
NEWCOMB, PROFESSOR SIMON.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE AND INVENTION: CARNEGIE INSTITUTION, AND AERONAUTICS.
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1902. British Colonial Conference at London.
See (in this Volume) BRITISH EMPIRE.
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1902-1905. Negotiation and Senatorial Destruction of the Hay-Bond Reciprocity Treaty with the United States.
In November, 1902, a Treaty of Reciprocity which would have settled the long-standing disputes over American rights of fishing on the Newfoundland coast, on terms of most equitable advantage to both countries, and especially favorable to the interests of the general public in the United States, was concluded and signed at Washington by Secretary Hay and the British Ambassador, Sir Michael Herbert. The Premier of Newfoundland, Sir Robert Bond, had taken a principal part in the negotiation, and the resulting document was known consequently as the Hay-Bond Treaty. It secured to the New England fishermen the coveted privilege of buying bait and other supplies and hiring crews in Newfoundland ports; and it admitted the greater part of American manufactures into the island duty free. {446} On the other hand, it opened the markets of the United States to the fish and fish products, the coal, oil, and ores of Newfoundland, for the benefit of the consumers of the country. The treaty was hailed with satisfaction by the general public of the United States, but opposed by a few interests whose gains might be lessened if any breach in their monopoly of the sale of salted fish and coal and oil should be permitted. The majority which has seldom failed of late to be retainable in the United States Senate for the service of such private interests, against the public good, was promptly organized by Senator Lodge, first for pocketing the Treaty throughout more than two years, and finally for amending it to death, in February, 1905. The provisions that made it advantageous to Newfoundland were cut out, and it was reduced to a state which made it insulting as an offer of reciprocity. It suffered the fate which, in late years, is quite certain to befall any project of real statesmanship that has to go through the hands of the United States Senate.
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1904. Convention between England and France touching Fishery Rights.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1904 (APRIL).
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1905-1909. Renewed Disputes over American Fishing Rights on the Treaty Coast. Arrangement of a Modus Vivendi. Agreement on Questions to be submitted to a Tribunal of Arbitration at The Hague. Constitution of the Tribunal.
The endless friction that has attended the exercise of treaty-rights by American fishermen in the Newfoundland fisheries was freshly roughened in the fall of 1905, by a new enactment of the provincial legislature, to prevent the sale of bait or outfits and supplies of any nature to foreign fishermen, and by orders from the Minister of Marine and Fisheries forbidding vessels of American registry to fish on the Treaty Coast. This reopened debate between the State Department at Washington and the Foreign Office at London, over the intentions and meanings of that first article in the Treaty of 1818 which has been a source of incessant dispute for ninety-one years. The following is the language of the article:
"Article I. Whereas differences have arisen respecting the liberty claimed by the United States, for the inhabitants thereof, to take, dry, and cure fish, on certain coasts, bays, harbours, and creeks of His Britannick Majesty’s Dominions in America, it is agreed between the High Contracting Parties that the inhabitants of the said United States shall have, for ever, in common with the subjects of His Britannick Majesty, the liberty to take fish of every kind, on that part of the southern coast of Newfoundland, which extends from Cape Ray to the Rameau Islands, on the western and northern coast of Newfoundland, from the said Cape Ray to the Quirpon Islands, on the shores of the Magdalen Islands, and also on the coasts, bays, harbours, and creeks, from Mount Joly, on the southern coast of Labrador, to and through the Streights of Belleisle, and thence northwardly indefinitely along the coast, without prejudice, however, to any of the exclusive rights of the Hudson’s Bay Company. And that the American fishermen shall also have liberty, for ever, to dry and cure fish in any of the unsettled bays, harbours, and creeks of the southern part of the coast of Newfoundland, here above described, and of the coast of Labrador; but so soon as the same, or any portion thereof, shall be settled, it shall not be lawful for the said fishermen to dry or cure fish at such portion so settled, without previous agreement for such purpose, with the inhabitants, proprietors, or possessors of the ground. And the United States hereby renounced, for ever, any liberty heretofore enjoyed or claimed by the inhabitants thereof, to take, dry, or cure fish on or within three marine miles of any of the coasts, bays, creeks, or harbours of His Britannick Majesty’s Dominions in America, not included within the above-mentioned limits: provided, however, that the American fishermen shall be admitted to enter such bays or harbours, for the purpose of shelter, and of repairing damages therein, of purchasing wood, and of obtaining water, and for no other purpose whatever. But they shall be under such restrictions as may be necessary to prevent their taking, drying, or curing fish therein, or in any other manner whatever abusing the privileges hereby reserved to them."
With reference to the present obstruction to American fishing in Newfoundland waters, the contention of Secretary Root was set forth in the following propositions:
"1. Any American vessel is entitled to go into the waters of the Treaty Coast and take fish of any kind.
"She derives this right from the Treaty (or from the conditions existing prior to the Treaty and recognized by it) and not from any permission or authority proceeding from the Government of Newfoundland.
"2. An American vessel seeking to exercise the Treaty right is not bound to obtain a licence from the Government of Newfoundland, and, if she does not purpose to trade as well as fish, she is not bound to enter at any Newfoundland custom-house.
"3. The only concern of the Government of Newfoundland with such a vessel is to call for proper evidence that she is an American vessel, and, therefore, entitled to exercise the Treaty right, and to have her refrain from violating any laws of Newfoundland not inconsistent with the Treaty.
"4. The proper evidence that a vessel is an American vessel and entitled to exercise the Treaty right is the production of the ship’s papers of the kind generally recognized in the maritime world as evidence of a vessel’s national character.
"5. When a vessel has produced papers showing that she is an American vessel, the officials of Newfoundland have no concern with the character or extent of the privileges accorded to such a vessel by the Government of the United States. No question as between a registry and licence is a proper subject for their consideration. They are not charged with enforcing any laws or regulations of the United States. As to them, if the vessel is American she has the Treaty right, and they are not at liberty to deny it.
"6. If any such matter were a proper subject for the consideration of the officials of Newfoundland, the statement of this Department that vessels bearing an American registry are entitled to exercise the Treaty right should be taken by such officials as conclusive."
{447}
On the British side, Sir Edward Grey raised two principal objections to these propositions of Mr. Root: First—that "the privilege of fishing conceded by Article I of the Convention of 1818 is conceded, not to American vessels, but to inhabitants of the United States and to American fishermen;" second, that "inhabitants of the United States would not now be entitled to fish in British North American waters but for the fact that they were entitled to do so when they were British subjects. American fishermen cannot therefore rightly claim to exercise their right of fishery under the Convention of 1818 on a footing of greater freedom than if they had never ceased to be British subjects. Nor consistently with the terms of the Convention can they claim to exercise it on a footing of greater freedom than the British subjects ‘in common with’ whom they exercise it under the Convention. In other words, the American fishery under the Convention is not a free but a regulated fishery, and, in the opinion of His Majesty’s Government, American fishermen are bound to comply with all Colonial Laws and Regulations, including any touching the conduct of the fishery, so long as these are not in their nature unreasonable, and are applicable to all fishermen alike."
To the first of these objections Mr. Root replied;
"We may agree that ships, strictly speaking, can have no rights or duties, and that whenever the Memorandum, or the letter upon which it comments, speaks of a ship’s rights and duties, it but uses a convenient and customary form of describing the owner’s or master’s right and duties in respect of the ship. … The liberty assured to us by the Treaty plainly includes the right to use all the means customary or appropriate for fishing upon the sea, not only ships and nets and boats, but crews to handle the ships and the nets and the boats. … I am not able to discover that any suggestion has ever been made of a right to scrutinize the nationality of the crews." As for the second objection, the American Secretary appealed to history against it. "The qualification," he said, "that the liberty assured to American fishermen by the Treaty of 1818 they were to have ‘in common with the subjects of Great Britain ’ merely negatives an exclusive right. Under the Treaties of Utrecht, of 1763 and 1783, between Great Britain and France, the French had constantly maintained that they enjoyed an exclusive right of fishery on that portion of the coast of Newfoundland between Cape St. John and Cape Raye, passing around by the north of the island. The British, on the other hand, had maintained that British subjects had a right to fish along with the French, so long as they did not interrupt them. The dissension arising from these conflicting views had been serious and annoying, and the provision that the liberty of the inhabitants of the United States to take fish should be in common with the liberty of the subjects of His Britannic Majesty to take fish was precisely appropriate to exclude the French construction and leave no doubt that the British construction of such a general grant should apply under the new Treaty. The words used have no greater or other effect. The provision is that the _liberty_ to take fish shall be held in common, not that the _exercise_ of that liberty by one people shall be the limit of the exercise of that liberty by the other."
As between these chief disputants in the matter, the first result of their exchange of arguments was a ready disposition to arrange some _modus vivendi_, under which peace might be kept on the fishing grounds until fresh undertakings could be planned for a lasting interpretation of the old enigmas in Article 1 of 1818. But the provincial Government of Newfoundland resented bitterly the imperial interference with its measures, charging that it was in violation of a pledge "given by the late Lord Salisbury in the House of Lords in 1891, to the effect that the colony had been given unlimited power with respect to its internal affairs." They were promptly told, however, that what concerned action under a British treaty went considerably beyond the internal affairs of their colony.
Considerable correspondence on the terms of the proposed _modus vivendi_ brought an agreement on the 6th of October, 1906, set forth in the following communication from Ambassador Whitelaw Reid to Sir Edward Grey.
"I am authorized by my government to ratify a _modus vivendi_ in regard to the Newfoundland fishery question on the basis of the Foreign Office Memorandum, dated the 25th ultimo, in which you accept the arrangement set out in my Memorandum of the 12th ultimo, and consent accordingly to the use of purse seines by American fishermen during the ensuing season, subject, of course, to due regard being paid in the use of such implements to other modes of fishery, which, as you state, is only intended to secure that there shall be the same spirit of give and take and of respect for common rights between the users of purse seines and the users of stationary nets as would be expected to exist if both sets of fishermen employed the same gear.
"My Government understand by this that the use of purse seines by American fishermen is not to be interfered with, and the shipment of Newfoundlanders by American fishermen outside the 3-mile limit is not to be made the basis of interference or to be penalized; at the same time they are glad to assure His Majesty’s Government, should such shipments be found necessary, that they will be made far enough from the exact 3-mile limit to avoid any reasonable doubt.
"On the other hand, it is also understood that our fishermen are to be advised by my Government, and to agree, not to fish on Sunday.
"It is further understood that His Majesty’s Government will not bring into force the Newfoundland Foreign Fishing-Vessels Act of 1906, which imposes on American fishing-vessels certain restrictions in addition to those imposed by the Act of 1905, and also that the provisions of the first part of section 1 of the Act of 1905, as to boarding and bringing into port, and also the whole of section 3 of the same Act, will not be regarded as applying to American fishing-vessels.
"It also being understood that our fishermen will gladly pay light dues if they are not deprived of their rights to fish, and that our fishermen are not unwilling to comply with the provisions of the Colonial Customs Law as to reporting at a custom-house when physically possible to do so."
To explain the stipulation relative to "purse seines" it should be said that the New England fishermen claimed to be driven to the use of them, by the local regulations which hampered their fishing otherwise.
{448}
As formulated in the note of Ambassador Reid the _modus vivendi_ was accepted by the British Government and went into effect. In due time thereafter the two Governments entered upon a discussion of ways and means for accomplishing a definite and final settlement of the whole question of American rights in the Newfoundland fisheries. The outcome was an agreement signed at Washington on the 27th of January, 1909, to the effect that the following questions shall be submitted for decision to a Tribunal of Arbitration, constituted as subsequent articles provide:—
"Question 1. To what extent are the following contentions or either of them justified?
"It is contended on the part of Great Britain that the exercise of the liberty to take fish referred to in the said Article, which the inhabitants of the United States have for ever in common with the subjects of his Britannic Majesty, is subject, without the consent of the United States, to reasonable regulation by Great Britain, Canada, or Newfoundland in the form of municipal laws, ordinances, or rules, as, for example, to regulations in respect of
(1) the hours, days, or seasons when fish may be taken on the Treaty coasts;
(2) the method, means, and implements to be used in the taking of fish or in the carrying on of fishing operations on such coasts;
(3) any other matters of a similar character relating to fishing; such regulations being reasonable, as being, for instance—
"(a) Appropriate or necessary for the protection and preservation of such fisheries and the exercise of the rights of British subjects therein and of the liberty which by the said Article 1 the inhabitants of the United States have therein in common with British subjects;
"(b) Desirable on grounds of public order and morals;
"(c) Equitable and fair as between local fishermen and the inhabitants of the United States exercising the said Treaty liberty and not so framed as to give unfairly an advantage to the former over the latter class.
"It is contended on the part of the United States that the exercise of such liberty is not subject to limitations or restraints by Great Britain, Canada, or Newfoundland in the form of municipal laws, ordinances, or regulations in respect of
(1) the hours, days, or seasons when the inhabitants of the United States may take fish on the Treaty coasts, or
(2) the method, means, and implements used by them in taking fish or in carrying on fishing operations on such coasts, or
(3) any other limitations or restraints of similar character—
"(a) Unless they are appropriate and necessary for the protection and preservation of the common rights in such fisheries and the exercise thereof; and
"(b) Unless they are reasonable in themselves and fair as between local fishermen and fishermen coming from the United States, and not so framed as to give an advantage to the former over the latter class; and
"(c) Unless their appropriateness, necessity, reasonableness, and fairness be determined by the United States and Great Britain by common accord and the United States concurs in their enforcement.
"Question 2. Have the inhabitants of the United States, while exercising the liberties referred to in said Article, a right to employ as members of the fishing crews of their vessels persons not inhabitants of the United States?
"Question 3. Can the exercise by the inhabitants of the United States of the liberties referred to in the said Article be subjected, without the consent of the United States, to the requirements of entry or report at custom-houses or the payment of light or harbour or other dues, or to any other similar requirement or condition or exaction?
"Question 4. Under the provision of the said Article that the American fishermen shall be admitted to enter certain bays or harbours for shelter, repairs, wood, or water, and for no other purpose whatever, but that they shall be under such restrictions as may be necessary to prevent their taking, drying, or curing fish therein or in any other manner whatever abusing the privileges thereby reserved to them, is it permissible to impose restrictions making the exercise of such privileges conditional upon the payment of light or harbour or other dues, or entering or reporting at custom-houses or any similar conditions?
"Question 5. From where must be measured the ‘3 marine miles of any of the coasts, bays, creeks or harbours’ referred to in the said Article?
"Question 6. Have the inhabitants of the United States the liberty under the said Article or otherwise to take fish in the bays, harbours, and creeks on that part of the southern coast of Newfoundland which extends from Cape Ray to Rameau Islands, or on the western and northern coasts of Newfoundland from Cape Ray to Quirpon Islands, or on the Magdalen Islands?
"Question 7. Are the inhabitants of the United States whose vessels resort to the Treaty coasts for the purpose of exercising the liberties referred to in Article 1 of the Treaty of 1818 entitled to have for those vessels, when duly authorized by the United States in that behalf, the commercial privileges on the Treaty coasts accorded by agreement or otherwise to United States trading vessels generally?"
Of the remaining articles of the Agreement, IV. and V. provide for the determination of future questions that may arise, and for the composition of the Tribunal of Arbitration, which is to be chosen from the members of the Permanent Court at The Hague.
The agreement above was formulated at a conference in Washington between Secretary Root, Ambassador Bryce, Honourable A. B. Aylesworth, Canadian Minister of Justice, and Attorney-General Kent of Newfoundland. In March the following were chosen from the general membership of the Permanent Court at The Hague to constitute the Tribunal for this arbitration, namely: Dr. Luis Maria Drago, Argentina; Jonkheer de Savornin Lohmnan, Netherlands; Judge George Gray, United States; and Sir Charles Fitzpatrick, Chief Justice of Canada, with Dr. H. Lammasch, of Vienna, to be umpire on points of disagreement.
The case for the United States was delivered to the British Embassy at Washington, and that for Great Britain to the American Embassy at London, on the 4th of October. A little later it was announced that the _modus vivendi_ of 1908 had been renewed until the termination of the arbitration proceedings.
{449}
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1907. Imperial Conference at London.
See (in this Volume) BRITISH EMPIRE: A. D. 1907.
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1908-1909 (November-May). Six Months of Political Deadlock.
From November, 1908, until the following May an extraordinary deadlock resulted from a tie between rival parties in the House of Assembly. The situation, as described by a correspondent of the London _Times_, was as follows:
"Each side has 18 seats. Neither, therefore, can elect a Speaker, much less undertake the control of public business, when Parliament meets. Sir Robert Bond, who carried 32 seats against 4 in 1900 and 30 seats against 6 in 1904, returns with only half the House—18 men. In the former contests Sir Edward Morris, who now leads the Opposition against him, had been a member of his Cabinet and his ‘right-hand man,’ and the November results prove that Morris’s withdrawal was a serious injury to Bond. Morris went out a year or so previously owing to a disagreement as to raising the rate of wages on public works, and, being the leading Roman Catholic politician of the Island, had 14 seats, of that creed, as a solid block in Bond’s party during all this period. It was therefore felt, when he resigned, that this ‘solid 14’ would be broken, and this conclusion proved correct, because Morris carried half of them in spite of the open and avowed hostility of many of the priests in the diocese of St. Johns."
Sir Robert Bond retained the Prime Ministry until the end of February, 1909, when, having failed to obtain a dissolution of Parliament and a new election from the Governor, Sir William Macgregor, he resigned. Sir Edward Morris then took office, and the continued deadlock made it necessary, in a few weeks, to command a dissolution and call a new election, which was held on the 8th of May. It broke the tie of parties effectually, Sir Edward Morris carrying 26 seats, against 10 filled by the partisans of Sir Robert Bond.
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1909. A Year of Misfortune and Depression. Scant earnings from the Fisheries and from Whaling. Attitude of the people toward Confederation with Canada.
"The Fisheries represent fully eighty per cent. of the exports, and in order to understand the financial stringency which has now fairly settled down upon ‘Our Cousin to the East’ it must be borne in mind that while the catch of fish remains about the same from year to year, the price has been steadily increasing for the past ten years, until last year it was double what it was a decade ago. But this year the price has suddenly fallen to what it was at the beginning of the decade. In other words, the value of last season’s catch will be just about half what it was the season before; and, instead of the merchants receiving $7,800,000 for their fish, they will receive considerably less than $4,000,000; and the individual fisherman who at the former price was barely able to earn $350 will receive this year probably less than $175, on which to support himself and family for the year, and to provide himself with an outfit for the next season’s work. Many of course will not receive that much. … Although other industries are springing up in Newfoundland, the codfishery remains the great staple and dependence of the population—the vast majority of which are fishermen, born and bred, who do not readily adapt themselves to other methods of earning a living. The present depression is widespread and far-reaching, and every form of industry and trade, business and commerce in the Colony is suffering seriously thereby. The latest ill report comes from Bay of Islands, to the effect that the winter herring fishery on the west coast—the scene of the present controversy with the United States—is a failure. Last spring’s seal fishery was not up to the average, and owing to many accidents to the fleet, necessitating heavy outlay for repairs, the promoters have realized much less than they otherwise would have secured. The whale fishery, also, which a few years ago had assumed enormous proportions, and was yielding handsome returns, has now almost reached the vanishing point. To complete the sum of the Colony’s misfortunes comes the partial suspension of [iron] mining operations at Bell Island, during the winter months, at the very time when the men need employment most, and when, as a result of the lack of it, they will probably emigrate to other countries.
"This combination of misfortune is not only causing distress among all classes of citizens, but the government will also keenly feel the loss of revenue; for a conservative estimate of the reduction in the customs revenue for the current fiscal year puts the figures at $450,000; in other words, that the revenue will not exceed $2,000,000.
"The great drawback in Newfoundland institutions is the disproportion between the big machinery of government and the small population to be governed. A local politician has aptly described it as ‘the trappings of an elephant on the back of a rat.’"
_Edwin Smith, The Land of Baccalhos (Canadian Magazine, July, 1909)._
Another writer in the same number of The _Canadian Magazine_ discusses the opposition in Newfoundland to union with the Dominion of Canada as follows: "The political leader who should to-day appeal to the Newfoundland electorate on the question of Confederation would be disastrously defeated. But on the day when the leader of a party in the Island Colony makes up his mind to risk temporary defeat for the purpose of accomplishing Confederation, that day brings union between Newfoundland and Canada within the horizon of the proximate future. That leader must—unless the financial exigencies of the Island bring him extraneous aid—face an arduous campaign of education, but it will be a campaign crowned with victory.
"These are the impressions left on my mind by a visit to St. John’s made with the object of studying the political deadlock and the causes which led up to it. … The residents of the outports—all settlements except St. John’s are known as outports—are opposed to Confederation because they have been told that it would mean a heavy increase in their taxes; that their windows, all their domestic animals and all their personal property would be taxed. If this wrong impression were dispelled by a campaign of education, and they understood that instead of higher taxation Confederation would mean the opening up of the country, bonuses for the fishermen, and new markets for the fish in Canada and abroad through the services of Canadian Commercial agents, instead of opponents of union they would become its advocates."
{450}
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1909. (July-August). The Imperial Defence Conference.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR: MILITARY AND NAVAL.
NEW HEBRIDES: Arrangement between England and France.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1904 (APRIL).
NEW PROTECTION, The.
See (in this Volume) LABOR REMUNERATION: THE NEW PROTECTION.
NEW YORK CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY.: Fined for unlawful Rebates.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909.
NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1897. Leadership in the Administrative Control of Tuberculosis.
See (in this Volume) PUBLIC HEALTH: TUBERCULOSIS.
NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1900-1903. Beginning of Tenement House Reform.
By a steady process, accelerated in the last ten years, the congested tenement districts of New York have become one great aggregation of sunless and airless rooms. Immense buildings have gone up by the thousands, five, six, and seven stories high, in which practically no provision for ventilation has been made; and in which the occupants are undergoing a slow process of asphyxiation. Nor are these disadvantages confined to the submerged proletariat. The New York tenement system is pervasive. … Two-thirds of the total population of New York, or 2,500,000 out of 3,500,000, live in tenement houses, a proportion which is increasing every day. …
"It was not until Governor Roosevelt’s appointment of the De Forest Tenement House Commission in 1900 that the necessary remedial legislation took practical shape. This act itself was the result of many years’ struggle against corrupt politicians,—Tammany Hall, the self-appointed guardian of the poorer classes, has been a bitter enemy of tenement reform,—and against vested interests. Its long delay had greatly exaggerated the problem; for meanwhile the conditions described had accumulated in appalling Volume. The commission, however, was of high civic character, and was composed of men, several of whom had made an exhaustive study of the tenement problem. The law which was passed as a result of their investigation was the first sweeping and effective tenement measure since the enactment in 1867 of the first tenement house act. The newly elected Low administration found the enforcement of this statute one of its most important responsibilities. The law created a new branch of municipal service,—the tenement house department; and gave the tenement commission, in the shape of an elaborate code of housing laws, important supervision over the building of new tenements and the maintenance of old."
_B. J. Hendrick, A Great Municipal Reform (Atlantic Monthly, November, 1903)._
NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1900-1909. Subways and Tunnels.
It was not until 1900 that the building of subways for city transit in New York was begun. The first line, from the City Hall to Kingsbridge and the Bronx Park, was opened in 1904. During its construction plans for its extension southerly and under East River into Brooklyn were adopted, and contracts were let. The original work was executed under an arrangement with a company known as the McDonald Syndicate, whereby the City gave its credit to secure the requisite funds and would acquire the ownership of the subway and road at the end of fifty years. In 1902 the interests of the McDonald Syndicate were transferred to a new corporation, the Interborough Rapid Transit Company, which ultimately acquired a general control of the city railway service, and ran a crooked career to results of disaster, so far as the public was concerned. In 1905 the Board of Rapid Transit Commissioners, then exercising authority in this region of municipal affairs, under the New York State Rapid Transit Act of 1891, approved plans for an extensive additional system, comprehending as many as nineteen routes, with various "spurs," and the Board of Estimate and Apportionment consented to the execution of the plan.
The East River Tunnel to Brooklyn was finished early in 1908, and the first two tubes of four Hudson Tunnels, connecting Manhattan Island with New Jersey was opened in the last week of February, the same year. This first pair of the Hudson Tunnels realized a project which had been undertaken as far back as 1878 and which had undergone two financial failures, in 1882 and 1892. In 1902 its remains and its charter were passed on to a third courageous company, organized by Mr. William Gibbs McAdoo, who became the master-spirit of bold enterprise at New York in this engineering field. In 1903 Mr. McAdoo organized another company for the undertaking of a connection of the Pennsylvania Railroad in Jersey City with downtown New York, and also for connecting the uptown and downtown tunnels by means of a north and south line along the New Jersey water-front, so as to connect the Lackawanna, Erie, and Pennsylvania Railroads with the tunnel system, and thereby be able to give to their passengers an uptown and downtown railway delivery.
The second pair of Hudson River tubes (the downtown link) forming this New York and Jersey City Tunnel were opened on the 19th of July, 1909. Writing of the event a few days before its occurrence, the New York Evening Post summed up the existing and prospective conditions of entrance to and exit from the island of Manhattan by under-river passages as follows:
"Since the city entered its rapid transit boom and the practicability of sub-river tunnels was demonstrated to the satisfaction of the leading engineers of the world, fourteen such tubes have been under construction here. Four of them are in operation. The downtown link of the Hudson Company’s system will add two more, and the remaining eight are to be opened in the course of the next two years, according to present plans.
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"After the opening of the downtown Hudson tunnels, the travelling public will look forward to the operation of the other eight tubes, as follows: Two Pennsylvania Railroad tunnels beneath the Hudson River and four under the East River, meeting in Manhattan at the great terminal station now nearing completion, between Thirty-first and Thirty-third Streets, along Seventh Avenue; the pair of Steinway-Belmont tunnels, deriving their name from the originator of the franchise and the present controlling influence, running from Forty-second Street to Long Island City and held practically by the same men who control the operation of the Manhattan-Bronx subway (the Interborough Company).
"The Pennsylvania tubes under the North (Hudson) River are practically completed, and await only the finishing of the depot, while the East River tubes, though a little behind hand on account of difficulties met in the form of treacherous rock ledges, are within possibly a year of opening. The Steinway-Belmont tunnels are completed, and will be ready for operation as soon as the company makes a satisfactory arrangement with the Public Service Commission."
An official party in a passenger car went through the Pennsylvania Railroad’s tubes between New Jersey and Long Island on the 18th of November.
Work on a Fourth Avenue Subway in Brooklyn was begun November 13.
The Hudson Terminal at Cortlaudt and Church Streets is one of the most interesting structures in the world. Below the street is the terminal station, where all the trains "downtown" arrive and depart. This station is wholly below tide level. It is surrounded by a cofferdam of reinforced concrete 8 ft. thick, 400 ft. long, and 177 ft. wide, and is sunk 95 ft. deep to solid rock. Forty feet below the street is the track floor. Twenty feet below the street is the great "Concourse," where all traffic is collected and distributed to the various train platforms underneath. On the Concourse the Pennsylvania, the Lehigh Valley, and the Erie Railroads have ticket offices, where tickets to any part of America may be bought. This Concourse, which is about 1½ acres in extent, is one of the show places of New York. Above the street level are two great office buildings, each 22 stories in height, and containing approximately 27 acres of rentable area.
NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1901-1903. Municipal Elections. Tammany’s Loss and Recovery of the Government.
Tammany Hall suffered defeat in the municipal election of 1901, the Honorable Seth Low, formerly a notable Mayor of Brooklyn and latterly President of Columbia University, being carried into the Mayor’s office by a roused movement of reform which fused the elements of opposition to the corrupting Tammany power. Unfortunately the Mayor’s term of office had been shortened to two years by the charter amendment of the previous year, and the term was too brief for much depth and thoroughness of reform; but the city was greatly cleansed during those two years. When the next election came, in 1903, Tammany had rallied its hungry forces and secured a highly respectable nominee for Mayor, in the person of Honorable George B. McClellan, son of the famous General of the Civil War. Mayor Low, renominated by a second Fusion of opponents to Tammany, experienced defeat.
NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1904 (June). The Burning of the Steamer Slocum.
A catastrophe of such horror as to be historical attended the burning of the excursion steamer _General Slocum_, at New York, on the 15th of June, 1904. The boat left a New York dock in the morning with a Sunday-school picnic party aboard numbering about eleven hundred,—nearly all women and children. While passing through that part of the East River known as Hell Gate, within the New York City limits, fire was discovered in the forward part of the vessel. It was then flood tide, and the eddies and currents in those waters are very strong. The captain decided that it would be folly to attempt to land on either shore, or to beach his boat. He therefore headed the _Slocum_ for an island two miles up stream. As the boat went forward at full steam, the fore-and-aft draught thus created fanned the flames and hastened her destruction. On the discovery of the fire by the passengers, the wildest panic ensued. It was found that the life-preservers with which the _Slocum_ was equipped were worthless. No attempt was made to lower boats or life-rafts. The crew were engaged in trying to cope with the fire, but their efforts were futile. Within twenty minutes, the boat went to her doom, and of the women and helpless children who had embarked so gaily an hour before, more than nine hundred were drowned or burned to death. Hundreds were saved by the heroic efforts of policemen, river men, and the nurses on North Brother Island, the seat of New York’s hospital for contagious diseases, where the _Slocum_ was finally beached. Most of those who met this awful death had come from a single densely populated district of New York’s great "East Side." In some cases, whole families were wiped out.
NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1905. Institution of the Bureau of Municipal Research.
See (in this Volume) MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: NEW YORK CITY.
NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1905. The Municipal Election.
Especial excitements were given to the municipal election of this year in New York by the appearance in it of William R. Hearst, proprietor of several newspapers in the country which are foremost representatives of the recklessly sensational journalism called "yellow." The methods by which these papers won a great circulation include much that can hardly be described otherwise than as demagoguism, and many groups and classes of people who are restlessly discontented in life, whether reasonably or otherwise, had learned to look on Mr. Hearst as a champion of human rights. This prepared material from which to organize a personal following that took the character, for a time, of a formidable political organization, incorporated under the name of the Independence League; and the great wealth which Mr. Hearst had inherited, and which his prosperous newspapers replenished, was spent lavishly in exploiting, supporting, and controlling the organization. His political ambitions aimed high, and the mayoralty of New York City, for which his Independence League nominated him in 1905, was by no means the contemplated end.
The Tammany Democracy gave its nomination to George B. McClellan, son of the famous General, while the Republican party named William M. Ivins, a prominent lawyer of the city. The canvas was a heated one, and as it progressed the League of Mr. Hearst was seen to be dangerously large. As a consequence. Republicans who feared its control of the City government even more than they feared that of Tammany, threw their votes for McClellan, giving him a plurality of about 3500 over Hearst, and leaving Mr. Ivins far behind. {452} Frauds were claimed and the election contested by Hearst and his supporters, who secured, by order of a Justice of the Supreme Court of the State, a recounting of the ballots in four election districts, with the result of a gain of seventeen votes for Mr. Hearst. Appeal was then taken to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court for an order directing not only a recount but a recanvass of votes. Such an order was granted, but set aside by the Court of Appeals, to which the question went then; the court of last resort reversing, also, the order under which the four boxes had been recounted. The assertion of fraud was still maintained with vehemence, and the legitimacy of Mayor McClellan’s title to the office he filled was denied for more than a year. The Legislature then passed an Act directing a recanvass and recount of the entire ballots of the election, which had been preserved under seal. This was a labor of months, performed under the direction of Judge Lambert, of the Supreme Court. It gave a gain of 1094 votes to Hearst and a gain of 231 to McClellan, leaving a net gain of 863 to Hearst, and diminishing McClellan’s plurality in the total vote to 2791. The validity of his election was thereupon declared.
A more successful and far more notable independent candidacy than that of Mr. Hearst, in the New York City election of 1905, was conducted for the purpose of retaining Mr. William Travers Jerome in the office of District Attorney for the county of New York. He had been carried into the office on a fusion ticket, four years before, and had performed its important duties with a courage, a force, an independence and a rectitude that were beyond praise. The machines of the
## parties would not nominate him for reëlection; but an
extraordinary rally of the friends of good government in all
## parties put him into the field, with an emergency organization
that sufficed to carry him triumphantly through. He was elected by a plurality of about 16,000. So striking a proof of the political popularity which a high quality of public service can win has not often been given.
NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1905-1909. The Undertaking of Works for a Water Supply from the Catskill Mountains.
In 1905 the City of New York procured authority from the Legislature to construct the works necessary for an adequate supply of water, additional to that which had been drawn for many years from the Croton River for old New York and from the Ridgewood system for Brooklyn. The source determined on was in the Catskill Mountains, including several streams, called creeks,—namely Esopus, Rondout, Schoharie, and Catskill,— having a total water shed of 885 square miles, and estimated to furnish about 770 millions of gallons daily, even in dry years. The plan of the project in its entirety contemplates the construction of eight great reservoirs for storing and controlling the waters derived from these streams. The first to be built and the largest of such reservoirs is named the Ashokan, on Esopus Creek, about 14 miles west of the Hudson River at Kingston, near Brown’s station on the Ulster and Delaware Railway. Work on this was begun in 1907. It is being constructed in the form of two basins, having a united length of about twelve and a half miles, lying between hills which are connected by numerous massive dams. The dams necessary to complete the enclosure of the water have a total length of more than five miles.
In a straight line the distance from the Ashokan Reservoir to New York is 86 miles; but the windings of the course that will have to be given to the great aqueduct from the reservoir to the city will add six miles to its length. The aqueduct is to pass from the western to the eastern side of the Hudson at Storm King Mountain, through a tunnel in solid rock, far beneath the river bed. From Breakneck on the western shore it will cross a corner of the Croton watershed to a filter site, and to two final reservoirs, the Kensico and the Hill View. In connection with both Ashokan and Kensico reservoirs the plan of the system contemplates an aeration of the water, by flinging it to the air in thousands of fountain jets.
In the parts of the great concrete aqueduct that can be built in an open cut its dimensions are seventeen feet of height and seventeen and a half feet of width. Where it traverses tunnels the width is reduced to thirteen feet. Its delivery of water to New York is calculated to add 500,000,000 of gallons daily to the water supply of the city. The undertaking as a whole is claimed to be the greatest that any city has yet engaged in, while the engineering work involved is said to be second only in magnitude to that of the Panama Canal.
_Alfred D. Flinn, The World's Greatest Aqueduct (The Century Magazine, September, 1909)._
NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1907 (April). Great Peace Congress.
See (in this Volume) WAR: THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1907.
NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1909. Unearthing of Corruptions in the Custom House.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909 (OCTOBER-NOVEMBER).
NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1909 (June). The Wall Street Investigation, so-called. Report on the Operations of the Stock Exchange and other Exchanges.
See (in this Volume) FINANCE AND TRADE: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909.
NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1909. Renewed Struggle against Tammany, with Partial but Substantial Success.
Although Tammany elected its candidate for Mayor in the municipal election of 1909, its domination was practically overthrown by the defeat of its nominees for all other offices of importance in the City Government. A coalition of the Republicans with anti-Tammany Democrats and other organizations had presented a fusion ticket headed by a prominent and much-trusted business man, Mr. Otto T. Bannard. William R. Hearst entered the field again, as an independent nominee, and Tammany named Judge William J. Gaynor, who had been one of its opponents, as a Democrat, in the past. Judge Gaynor was elected by a plurality of 73,016, the vote cast for mayor being: Gaynor 250,678; Bannard 177,662; Hearst 153,843. The City Comptroller, four of the five borough presidents, and the President of the Board of Aldermen, were elected by the Fusionists. By the election of Mr. McAneny to be President of the Borough of Manhattan (the old New York City), a very eminent political reformer and one of great force, was brought into the City Government. As president of the energetic City Club, which became a power in reform politics under his lead, and as secretary of the National Civil Service Reform League, Mr. McAneny had given abundant proof of his capacity and his earnestness in work for good government.
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By controlling twelve of the sixteen votes in the important Board of Estimate, the opponents of Tammany stripped that organization of all power over public "jobs." As the fact was expressed exultingly in one of the journals of New York on the day after election, "after January 1 Charles F. Murphy and his associates no longer will say who shall have public franchises; they, too, will no longer fix the budget, sell the city’s bonds, and pay political debts with salary increases. In other words, the Tiger has lost his grip on the city’s purse-strings, and this fact, perhaps, more than any other, has turned his den into a cavern of gloom."
NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1909. Proposed New Charter, not acted on in the Legislature.
See (in this Volume) MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: NEW YORK CITY.
NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1909-1910. The Shirtwaist Makers’ Strike.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909-1910.
NEW YORK LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY: Legislative Investigation.
See (in this Volume) INSURANCE, LIFE.
NEW YORK, NEW HAVEN AND HARTFORD RAILROAD CASE.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1906.
NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1899-1909. The Barge Canal under Construction.
On the 8th of March, 1899, Theodore Roosevelt, then Governor of New York, appointed a committee of private citizens, for service without pay, in studying and reporting on the policy to be adopted by the State of New York in dealing with its canals. The appointed chairman of the committee was General Francis Vinton Greene, and the following account of the recommendations made by the committee is taken from a paper on the subject contributed by General Greene to Volume XIII. of the Publications of the Buffalo Historical Society, published in December, 1909:
"The other members were Major Thomas W. Symons of the Corps of Engineers, United States Army, then stationed at Buffalo in charge of river and harbor improvements, Honorable Frank S. Witherbee of Port Henry in the Champlain district, Honorable George E. Green, State Senator from Binghamton in the southern tier of counties, Honorable John N. Scatcherd of Buffalo, and the two state officials most intimately connected with the administration of canals, viz., Honorable Edward A. Bond, State Engineer, and Honorable John N. Partridge, Superintendent of Public Works.
"The request of the Governor was simply that we should study the canal problem and advise him. … We devoted the greater part of the year 1899 to a study of the subject, and made our report to the Governor under date of January 15, 1900. … The Governor promptly transmitted the report to the Legislature, adopting the conclusions and recommendations which it contained, and advising that legislation be enacted to carry them into effect. This was done in successive years … ; finally the project was ratified and adopted by an overwhelming vote of the people in the election of 1903. …
"As to our conclusions and recommendations, the first question to be decided was whether or not the canals should be entirely abandoned. It was claimed by many that canal transportation was antiquated and altogether out of date; that ‘the railroads, with their large capital and scientific management, their durable roadbeds, powerful locomotives, larger cars, greater train loads, greater speed, and more certainty of delivery, will be able now or in the early future to reduce the cost of transportation below what is possible on the canals.’ If it should seem probable that the railroads could accomplish this, then it would be manifestly unwise and improper to expend any more public money upon the canals.
"From a consideration of all [the] facts we reached our first conclusion—which, like all the other portions of our report, was unanimously adopted—to wit, ‘That the canals connecting the Hudson river with Lakes Erie, Ontario and Champlain should not be abandoned, but should be maintained and enlarged.’
"The next point to be considered was, to what extent should they be enlarged, what size of vessel they should be adapted to carry, and what would be the estimated cost of construction.
"As to the proper size of the enlarged canal, widely different views were held by engineers and by economists. Some contended that the nine foot canal authorized in 1894 was sufficiently large; others brought forward the supposed advantages of a ship canal large enough to carry ocean-going steamers without breaking bulk from Duluth to Liverpool, or any other port; others contended that a canal of intermediate size would be found to be the most economical, would cost the least amount of money for the results produced, and would, in fact, produce a lower freight rate than either the small canal on the one hand, or the ship canal on the other.
"To these questions we gave the most careful study. The ship canal had many glittering attractions, and there was a large sentiment along the lakes which had found expression in Deep Waterways conventions, which had been held in recent years and had advocated a water route of either 21 or 28 feet depth from Lake Erie to the Atlantic ocean. … But a careful examination of the facts led us to the conclusion that while a ship canal of 21 or 28 feet depth would cost enormously more than a barge canal of say, 12 feet depth, it would not produce as low a freight rate. …
"Having rejected the ship canal project, we had then to consider what size of enlarged canal we should recommend. In any event, we were satisfied that the route of the canal should be changed so as to use the waterways of the Seneca and Oneida rivers, Oneida lake and the Mohawk river in place of the present route; but the question was whether the depth of the canal should be 9 feet, capable of carrying a boat with cargo capacity of 450 tons, or a depth of 12 feet, carrying a boat with a cargo capacity of about 1,000 tons. With such data as we could obtain in the short time at our disposal, and without adequate surveys, we estimated the cost of the smaller project at a little more than $21,000,000, and of the larger project at a little less than $59,000,000.
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"Our conclusion was in these words: ‘In our judgment, arrived at after long consideration, and with some reluctance, the State should undertake the larger project on the ground that the smaller one is at best a temporary makeshift, and that the larger project will permanently secure the commercial supremacy of New York, and that this can be assured by no other means.’ …
"We made a fourth recommendation in the following words:
"‘That the money for these improvements should be raised by the issue of eighteen-year bonds in the manner prescribed by the State Constitution, and that the interest and principal of these bonds should be paid out of taxes specifically levied, for benefits received, in the counties bordering in whole or in part on the canals, the Hudson river and Lake Champlain; such taxes to be levied in proportion to the assessed valuation of the real and personal estate in such counties. These taxes will amount to about 10 cents per $100 of assessed valuation annually during the period of eighteen years.’
"Our object in making this recommendation was to disarm the opposition of the non-canal counties. … We also submitted statistics in tabular and graphic form showing that the valuation of the river and canal counties was 90% of the entire valuation of the State. In any event, they would bear 90% of the expense, and it was thought wise to suggest that they bear the entire expense so as to remove every ground of alleged injustice in taxing the counties which claimed to derive no benefit.
"This recommendation was not adopted by the Legislature, nor submitted to the people. …
"At the election the non-canal counties voted against the project by large majorities, St. Lawrence county, for instance, being 12 to 1 against it, and Steuben county, 10 to 1 against it; but, on the other hand, the canal counties voted in favor of it by almost equally large majorities, New York being 9 to 1 in favor of it; Kings, 8 to 1; Queens, 5 to 1, and Erie, nearly 5 to 1. For some unexplained reason Monroe county, in which Rochester is situated, and Onondaga county, in which Syracuse is situated, voted against it. The overwhelming vote, however, in the counties at the two terminals, New York and Buffalo, made a majority of 245,312 in the entire State in favor of the project, and a total vote of 1,100,708.
"Our fifth and final recommendation was as follows:
"That the efficiency of the canals depends upon their management quite as much as upon their physical size, and that no money should be spent for further enlargement unless accompanied by measures which will accomplish the following results:
"(a) The removal of all restrictions as to the amount of capital of companies engaged in transportation on the canals, and the encouragement of large transportation lines for handling canal business, in place of hampering them, as has hitherto been the case.
"(b) The use of mechanical means of traction, either steam or electricity, in place of draft animals; and the use of mechanical power in place of hand power for operating the gates and valves, and moving boats in locks.
"(c) The organization of the force engaged on the public works of the State on a more permanent basis, so as to afford an attractive career to graduates of scientific institutions, with the assurance that their entry into the service, their tenure of office, and their promotion will depend solely on their fitness, as determined by proper and practical tests.
"(d) A revision of the laws in regard to the letting of public contracts by the State, so as to make impossible a repetition of the unfortunate results of the $9,000,000 appropriation.
"Legislation has already been adopted to carry into effect (a) and (c); the adopted plans for the canal are in accordance with (b); and the specific form of contract which we recommended in connection with (d) was not adopted, but another form of contract was adopted which will practically accomplish the same result.
"It only remains to speak of the cost of the project. With such data as we had available and with such surveys as were possible during the year 1899, we estimated the cost of the project we recommended at $58,894,668 for the Erie Canal and $2,642,120 for the Oswego and Champlain canals, making a total of $61,536,788. This contemplated a canal with 12 feet depth and suitable locks for carrying a barge of approximately 1,000 tons capacity from Buffalo to the Hudson river, but as to the Oswego and Champlain canals, it recommended only the completion of the work already undertaken to provide for boats of six feet draft. … It was ultimately determined to enlarge the Champlain and Oswego canals to the same size as the main canal between Buffalo and the Hudson river, and also to include the dredging of a 12 foot channel in the Hudson river, which we had anticipated would be done by the Federal Government. This enlargement of the project very materially increased the cost, and in the interval between the time of our report and the completion of the detailed report of the State Engineer, the prices of labor and materials had very largely advanced. In order to cover all possible contingencies, the State Engineer carried his estimate to $101,000,000, and this was the amount appropriated by the Legislature and ratified by the people at the election of 1903."
_Francis Vinton Greene, The Inception of the Barge Canal Project (Buffalo Historical Society Publications, Volume 13)._
The first six contracts for the construction of the Barge Canal were let in April, 1905. The state of the work at the end of the year 1909 was announced by Governor Hughes in his Message to the next Legislature as follows:
"The contracts in force for the Barge Canal improvement amount in total price to $48,229,467, and the contract value of the work performed to December 1, 1909, was $15,821,275. It is estimated by the State engineer and surveyor that during 1910 work will be completed amounting to $16,000,000, and it is expected that the work for the entire length of the Barge Canal system will be under contract by April 1, 1910. At the present rate of progress, it is said that it is not unreasonable to expect that the Barge Canal system will be completed by the end of the year 1914. It is further stated that the work is being carried on within the original estimates. This enterprise should be pushed to completion as speedily, as economically, and efficiently as possible."
NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1901-1909. Legislation developing the Parole System of dealing with Convicts.
See (in this Volume) CRIME AND CRIMINOLOGY: INDETERMINATE SENTENCES.
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NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1905-1906. Legislative Investigation of Life Insurance Companies and the State Superintendency of them. Startling Disclosures. Remedial Legislation.
See (in this Volume) INSURANCE, LIFE.
NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1906-1910. The Epoch of Governor Hughes. The Special Significance of his Administration. His Exemplary Fidelity to Fundamental Political Principles. His Public Support against Hostile Party-Managers.
The election of 1906 is likely to be marked in the political history of New York as the introduction of an epoch,—the Epoch of Governor Hughes. The State has had a number of very notable Governors, in both early and late times,—Governors who left a deep and lasting impression of themselves on its history, and who have been large contributors to its prestige and influence as the Empire State of the American Union; but Governor Hughes is of a type so different from any of his predecessors, and his conduct of the Governor’s high office has been so distinctive in principle and method, that his administration can hardly fail, in the retrospect, to take on a special significance of its own.
As counsel to the Legislative Committee which investigated the scandals of life-insurance management in 1905-1906 (see, in this Volume, INSURANCE, LIFE), the conduct of the investigation by Mr. Charles Evans Hughes drew public attention, and made him known so favorably that when in the autumn of 1906 the Republican Party of the State had special need of a personally attractive candidate for Governor, an unmistakable expression of popular opinion directed the choice to him. The Independence League which Mr. William R. Hearst had rallied and organized, and which had served him the previous year in his candidacy for the mayoralty of New York (see, above, NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1905), had been recruited so successfully throughout the State, and had absorbed so much of some elements of the Democratic Party, that the latter made terms of combination with it, and adopted Mr. Hearst as its gubernatorial nominee. The combination was one which the ordinary forces acting for the Republican Party could hardly hope to overcome; but the recent prestige of Mr. Hughes might call out reinforcements that would save the day. It was not willingly that the professional managers of the party consented to his nomination, and it was not willingly that he accepted it. He was heartily a Republican in politics, but never active in its affairs, being devoted to his profession and plainly reluctant to be turned aside at all from the career it had just fairly opened before him. But he yielded, as the party managers did, to a call from the public of the party, and the result of the election afforded proof of the reality and sincerity of the call. Hughes alone on the State ticket of the Republicans was elected; Hearst alone on the ticket of the Democratic-Independence-League combination was defeated. Governor Hughes was thus placed, on the 1st of January, 1907, at the head of an administration in which every other elective office was filled by his political opponents.
This political aloneness of Governor Hughes in his office would have mattered very little, however, if his own party surroundings in it had been friendly and sympathetic; but very quickly it was seen that he had conceptions of official duty which those who controlled the machine-like "organization" of the party, with consequent powers of influence over its representatives in the legislature and in other official places, could in no wise comprehend. With a degree of precision and decision hardly matched by another executive, this Governor had studied, constitutionally and ethically, and had defined to himself, the obligations and limitations of his office, and had resolved them into principles of action from which he never swerved. In one particular, especially, this held him to a course which some former governors had adhered to in the main, but none, perhaps, with a consistency as firm. In the use of two powers confided to the Governor, that of the veto in legislation and that of appointment to many State offices, there had always been more or less of giving and taking between the Executive, on one side, and the Legislature and the controlling leaders of party organization on the other. A Governor actuated by personal motives, of ambition or other self-interest, would use these powers freely, in bargaining for or enforcing his desires; and a Governor who cared for public interests alone would sometimes feel driven to secure measures needful to that end at some price of concession in appointments and in the approval of bills, or some coercive use of the veto whip. Governor Hughes would do neither, and his attitude in this matter stands out so conspicuously as to mark in itself an epoch of great example in the right exercise of executive power.
No Governor has ever interested himself more earnestly in the work of the Legislature, with a watchful eye to the needs, interests, and rights of the public and to the demands of good government on every side. No Governor has ever taken a more
## active and effective part in the production of important
legislation, and none has ever put his stamp on more of such legislation within the same time. But all that he has done in that line of executive duty has been strictly by recommendation and by argument, addressed first to the Legislature and then to the public behind it; never by any other means. Legislatures have been coerced irresistibly into compliance with his recommendations, by public opinion, wakened by the Governor’s voice; never directly by him. There has been no departure from the principle of action which he stated once in these words: "I have not attempted, through the use of political patronage or political machinery to coerce anybody, and I don’t propose to do so. But under the constitution, it is my privilege and my duty to recommend legislation. If I mean what I say when I recommend, I ought to be able to tell why it is recommended, and my constituency is not the Legislature, and not any particular part of the people, but my constituency is the people of the State, and I propose, therefore, whenever I make a recommendation, and there is any question about it, to tell as forcibly, as fully and as frankly as possible why I stand for it. If it is wrong, you will know it all the sooner; if it is right, you will give it the support it deserves. I call that American government, and if we had a little less trading, a little less wirepulling and bulldozing, we would prosper to a far greater degree."
{456}
The Legislature of New York has been honored by this highminded and respectful treatment of it, which the highminded among its members have appreciated; but these have been at most times a minority. The majority, obedient to resentful party "bosses," have acted sullenly with him when the lash of public opinion has driven them to his side, and defiantly against him when they dared. His obstinate antagonists have found a reflection hard to obtain.
The most signal showing of the attitude of the public toward antagonists of Governor Hughes in the Legislature occurred in connection with a bill, recommended by the Governor in 1907, for the amendment of a disgraceful existing law relative to race-track gambling. The State Constitution, as revised in 1894, prohibits all forms of gambling, and declares that "the Legislature shall pass appropriate laws to prevent offenses against any of the provisions of this section." In 1895 an Act (known as the Percy-Gray Law) was got through the Legislature, professedly in obedience to this mandate of the Constitution, which verbally prohibited betting on races, but penalized it only by providing that the loser of a race-track bet might sue the winner and recover twice the amount of his bet, while betting and gambling in other places were punished heavily by imprisonment and fine. This scandalous favor to the race-track interests carried a bribe at the same time to the farmers of the State, in the form of a cunning provision of the Act, which appropriated five per cent. of the gross receipts of racing associations to the benefit of agricultural societies. Repeated attempts to correct so contemptuous a violation of the Constitution had failed; but Governor Hughes renewed the attempt, with a feeling of reverence for Law and for the honor of the State which could not tolerate defeat. When the amending Bill that he recommended was put in suspense by a tie vote in the Senate, the Governor called a special session of the Legislature, and brought the question before the people in speeches which made a mighty stir. The racing interests in the State were so powerful that they almost defied defeat, and all their influence came into play. Meantime a special election to fill a vacancy in the Senate was pending in Western New York, and the issue on the race-track gambling bill was fought out there, with the Governor in the field, contending for an honest enforcement of the constitutional law of the State. The result of the election gave support to that contention, and when, at the special session, the Bill in question was again called up in the Senate, as it could be, it was passed by a majority of one. The Republican senators who voted against it were most of them retired to private life by their constituents at the senatorial elections of the ensuing fall.
Almost everything of importance in New York legislation since Governor Hughes entered office has had its origin in his recommendations, and has been carried by the weight of public backing which belief in him calls out, against resisting influences that would ordinarily have prevailed. This was notably the fact in the case of the Public Service Commissions Act of 1907 (See (in this Volume) PUBLIC UTILITIES), which established an effective supervision and regulation of corporations engaged in public services, by placing over them two commissions, appointed by the Governor, one with jurisdiction in New York City, the other in the remainder of the State, both armed with large powers. The services covered are those of railways, gas and electric light and power companies, and the authority established over them extends not only to their rates, but to their capitalization, their issues of stock and bonds, their franchises, the labor conditions under them, their equipment, and the sufficiency and quality of the service they render. The excellence of the Act has been proved by its working, in the hands of the commissions appointed by Governor Hughes.
In the checking of improper legislation by his vetoes, especially against encroachments on local rights of self-government, and against special enactments that intrude on general laws, Governor Hughes has been a teacher of political principles, as importantly as in the legislative advice which it is part of his constitutional duty to render. He taught a great lesson to every legislative body and every executive in the Union, when he disapproved a highly popular bill which prescribed a fixed rate of railway passenger fares at two cents per mile, on the ground that it was not a matter to be dealt with summarily,—without careful investigation and determination of the facts involved. So consistent, so forceful, so effective a teacher, in fact, by precept and high example, of the fundamentals of principle in political action, has rarely appeared in any country.
That Governor Hughes was renominated and reelected in 1908 for a second term was again by reason of a public insistence which neither he nor the hostile manipulators of caucus-work in his party could resist. If the election had not been coincident in time with a presidential election the "bosses" of the party would have refused the nomination to him at any cost. They were able to secure a convention of delegates that would eagerly have made that refusal; but when the Governor was persuaded to say that he would accept renomination, they dared not imperil the national interests of the party by flouting demands which came from every quarter of the land. He had become so national a figure that interest in his reelection was nation-wide.
On the powerful movement in New York to break down the practical exclusion of the people from the choosing of candidates for office, which Governor Hughes inspired.
See (in this Volume) ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: UNITED STATES: DIRECT PRIMARY NOMINATIONS.
NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1906-1909. Work of Reforestation.
See (in this Volume) CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: UNITED STATES.
NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1907. The Gift of Letchworth Park.
A noble gift to the State was made in January, 1907, by the Honorable William Pryor Letchworth, a gentleman of distinction in benevolent work, officially as president for many years of the State Board of Charities, and privately, at the same time, as a profound student of and writer on, some of the gravest of the problems of philanthropy, especially that of the treatment of the insane. The home of Mr. Letchworth for many years has been on a great estate which embraces the finest and most famous scenery of the Upper Genesee River, lying on both sides of the cañon [canyon] down which the river plunges in three successive falls. {457} The thousand acres of the estate enclose all three of the falls. This magnificent domain, preserved in all its natural beauty and improved with careful taste by half a century of Mr. Letchworth’s care, has been conveyed in trust to the State, under the future custody of The American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, to be forever, after the death of Mr. Letchworth, a Public Park. A generous citizen has thus saved from destructive uses a piece of scenery which has hardly its equal for picturesque and varied beauty in another part of the State.
NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1907. Enactment of the Public Utilities Law.
See (in this Volume) PUBLIC UTILITIES.
NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1907-1909. Creation of the Probation System.
See (in this Volume) CRIME AND CRIMINOLOGY: PROBATION.
NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1909. Gas Company’s Refund.
See (in this Volume) PUBLIC UTILITIES.
NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1909. Historical Commemorations. The Champlain and the Hudson-Fulton.
Three notable events of the far past were notably commemorated in New York during the summer and autumn of 1909. The tercentenary year of Champlain’s discovery, in July, 1609, of the Lake which bears his name, was signalized by a week of historical pageants, fêtes, and gatherings for speech and ceremony, on and around the lake, beginning on the 4th of July. France, England, Canada, and the United States were represented in the addresses and exercises of the occasion, by the British and French Ambassadors, the Postmaster-General of the Dominion, President Taft and ex-Secretary Root, Governor Hughes of New York and Governor Prouty of Vermont. A large number of Indians took part in the pageants, occupying a floating island constructed for the occasion on the lake, and representing scenes of Indian life and warfare, the story of Hiawatha, and other reminders of the time when men of their race were the lords of the region of Lake Champlain. The occasion was made one of great interest.
Still more of interest was given to the double commemoration, in September, of Hendrick Hudson’s exploration of Hudson River and of Robert Fulton’s first practically successful undertaking of steamboating, on that river. The celebration of the event first named was timed appropriately on its third centennial anniversary. That of the second was belated by two years; but the two were most fitly connected. The people of Holland joined heartily in the Hudson commemoration, building and sending over to New York an exact replica of Hudson’s little ship, the _Halve Maen_, or Half Moon, in which his voyage was made. Fulton’s steamboat, the _Clermont_, was also reproduced for the occasion, and the two small, quaint vessels, strikingly in contrast with the monster battle ships and ocean liners that surrounded them, lent a singular interest to the affair. Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Mexico, Cuba, and the Argentine Republic accepted invitations to take part in the naval parades which formed a grand feature of the celebration, and an imposing assembly of great ships of war was shown. Eight days, from Saturday, September 25th, until the following Saturday, were filled with church services, school exercises, historical exhibitions and processions, military and naval parades, aquatic sports, carnival doings, aeroplane flights, banquets to foreign guests, etc., at New York City, after which the _Half Moon_ and the _Clermont_ proceeded up the river and the celebration was continued in various towns.
NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1909. Defeat of the Direct Primary Bill.
See (in this Volume) ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: UNITED STATES: DIRECT PRIMARY NOMINATION.
NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1909-1910. Munificent Gifts of Land on the Hudson for Park Purposes offered.
In his annual Message to the Legislature, January 5, 1910, Governor Hughes announced the details of a munificent project of gifts proffered to the State for the purpose of creating a noble State Park on and near the Hudson River. Mrs. Mary W. Harriman, widow of the late E. H. Harriman, offered to convey to the State a tract of about ten thousand acres of land in Orange and Rockland counties, to be held in perpetuity as a State park; offering further to give the State $1,000,000 in trust, to be used for the purchase of land lying between the tract mentioned and the Hudson River, so that the park may have the advantage of a river frontage. Other gifts for similar purposes amounting to $1,625,000 were announced as a result of the activity of the Palisades Park Commission, from residents of New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia. John D. Rockefeller and J. Pierpont Morgan each subscribed $500,000; Margaret Olivia Sage, William K. Vanderbilt, George F. Baker, James Stillman, John D. Archbold, Frank A. Munsey, Henry Phipps, E. T. Stotesbury, E. H. Gary, and George W. Perkins gave $50,000 each: Helen M. Gould and V. Everit Macy contributed $25,000 each, and Ellen F. James and Arthur C. James jointly gave a similar amount. These subscriptions were secured upon conditions stipulating, among other things, that New York State shall appropriate $2,500,000 for the acquiring of land and the building of roads and general park purposes; that the State of New Jersey shall contribute a fair share, and that the State discontinue work on the new State prison at Great Bear Mountain in Rockland County, where preliminary work on the site for a new $2,000,000 structure has been under way for several months.
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1886-1893. Extension of the Suffrage to Women.
See (in this Volume) ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1896-1908. Twelve Years of Local Option. The working of the Law. Warning to the Liquor Trade. The Vote of Women.
See (in this Volume) ALCOHOL PROBLEM: NEW ZEALAND.
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1902. Colonial Conference at London.
See (in this Volume) BRITISH EMPIRE.
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1903. The Maori King a Colonial Minister.
The old fierce conflict of the Maoris with the English colonists in New Zealand would seem to have been effectually ended, since the Maori King accepted a seat in the colonial Cabinet, as a responsible Minister, in 1903.
{458}
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1905. Government Ownership and Long-leasing of Land. Its working. Government Loans to Farmers.
The land system of New Zealand, as it was in 1895, is described in Volume VI. of this work (see NEW ZEALAND). It has since been carried farther on social-paternalistic lines, by extensive expropriations or compulsory sales of large estates to the Government, and by the institution of public loans of capital to farmers at a moderate rate of interest. The operation and result are thus described in a recent work:
"So far the government has lent to the farmers about $20,000,000, but it has saved them $20,000,000 in interest, because as soon as it came into the field with its cheap loans, interest rates dropped everywhere. You see Shylock has fled from these shores and will not return. The government has never lost a cent in these loans. Reform proceeded next, with a land tax graduated to an ascending scale, to discourage land-grabbing, and land speculation; so that the more land a man owns the higher is the tax-rate upon it. Thus for farms of ordinary size the rate is two cents in every $5 of assessed valuation; but on estates of more than $25,000 the rate increases in regular ratio to the maximum of six cents for every $5, except for absentee owners. They must pay fifty per cent. more than residents. You can see that in New Zealand the chance for fine old families and landed gentry is slim. No doubt the theory of these things is extremely reprehensible, but the practice is excellent. What with seizing the big estates, and what with the graduated land tax, the size of holdings has been so reduced that of 115,713 landowners in 1905 only 22,778 came under the operations of the augmented land tax. The others, having small properties, paid the smallest rate. Under the land purchase act the government has seized 691,594 acres, mostly hunting fields and uncultivated family inheritances. These have been partitioned into small farms and are occupied by actual settlers. Under the operation of all the new land laws together, the produce of New Zealand has trebled, and the New Zealand farmer has become the most prosperous in the world."
_Charles E. Russell, The Uprising of the Many,
## chapter 29
(copyright, 1907, by Doubleday, Page & Co., New York, 1907)._
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1906. The Democratizing of Competition. Labor Group Coöperation.
See (in this Volume) LABOR REMUNERATION.
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1906-1909. The Liberal Party and the Liberal Ministry. Their years of Great Power. Their Strength shaken in the latest Election. Its Method and Result. The new Ministry of Sir Joseph Ward.
In June, 1906, the Liberal Party in New Zealand experienced a great loss, in the death of Mr. Richard J. Seddon, its strong leader, and the Prime Minister of Government for some time past. His place was taken temporarily by Mr. Hall-Jones, until Sir Joseph Ward, then absent from the country, returned and received the chief ministerial seat. Since 1893 the Liberal Party had derived large majorities in Parliament from each triennial election. The Liberal Administration had advanced accordingly, says a recent letter to the London _Times_, "under the banner of labour legislation, new land laws, and State Socialism, and was strengthened in its position by the general prosperity of the country and the expenditure of large sums of borrowed money upon public works. At the end of last Session, it was still at the head of affairs with a majority (including the four Maori members) of no fewer than 46.
"In the meantime, however, the guiding hand of Mr. Seddon, the great apostle of New Zealand democracy, had been removed from the scene, the harsh working of the Compulsory Arbitration Act had begun to alienate the sympathies of both employers and workers; the anti-freehold tendencies of the present Administration were effecting a change of feeling in the country constituencies, and the drop in the prices of some of our staple products, combined with the stringency in the local money market, began to act as a check on our commercial prosperity. Finally, the Government made some tactical blunders." Hence the Opposition, at the Parliamentary election of November, 1908, was greatly strengthened, though the ascendancy of the Liberals was still maintained. The conduct of the election and its result are described by the correspondent already quoted, as follows: "An election in New Zealand is conducted in a most orderly manner. The distribution of literature, the wearing of badges, and any touting for votes from electors on their way to the polls or in front of the polling booths are strictly prohibited by law. A half-holiday has to be observed in shops and offices, and factory owners must allow their _employés_ time off to vote. The publichouses remain closed from noon until the polls are closed, the closing hour being in the country 6 P. M., and in the cities 7 P. M. Time was, in the very early days, when the polling booths were in some cases located between two drinking saloons that did a roaring trade, and the result was much loud disputation, bad language, and fighting. Nowadays all that is changed, and women can walk into the polling booths with complete unconcern. For the 76 seats 213 candidates had been nominated. Of these 114 claimed to be Ministerialists and 52 Oppositionists, while 46 were Independents, among whom were a few Socialists and Independent Labourites. The result of the first ballot was that 34 Government supporters, 16 Opposition candidates, and three Independents were elected by absolute majorities. In 23 constituencies the candidates at the head of the poll failed to secure absolute majorities of the total votes polled, and it became necessary to hold second ballots, the number of these being practically double what was estimated by the Prime Minister. … Twenty-two of these were held a week later, and resulted in a further strengthening of the Opposition party. One—in a widely scattered country constituency—has yet to be held. The Government secured 12 of the seats, the Opposition nine, and Independent Labour one. …
"The result of the elections, as a whole, is greatly to strengthen the Opposition, and correspondingly to weaken the Government. The next most noticeable feature about it is the unusual change it has made in the _personnel_ of the House of Representatives. While not a single Opposition member of the last Parliament who stood has lost his seat, no fewer than 17 followers of the Ministry have been relegated to private life; while the new Parliament will contain 27 new members out of 76. {459} The position of parties, with one second ballot yet to be decided, is—Government, 45; Opposition, 25; Independent, 4; Independent Labour, 1. At the end of last Session (excluding Maori members) the Government were 59 strong, while the Opposition, including one Independent, numbered only 17. Thus, whereas in the last Parliament the Government could reckon on a majority of 42, they cannot now be absolutely sure of a majority of more than 15 of the European members on certain issues. There are four Maori members still to be elected, and as these generally vote with the party in power the assured Ministerial majority will be 19. This should be amply sufficient to enable Sir Joseph Ward to continue in power for the full term of the Parliament—three years."
Early in January, 1909, the Ministry was reconstructed, the Premier, Sir Joseph Ward, burdening himself with the portfolios of Finance, Defence, Lands, Agriculture, and the Post Office. This was said to be made necessary by the inexperience in office of the new Ministers whom he called to his side.
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1907 (April-May). Imperial Conference at London.
See (in this Volume) BRITISH EMPIRE: A. D. 1907.
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1907-1909. Working of the Compulsory Arbitration Law.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: NEW ZEALAND.
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1908. Population.
The population of the Dominion of New Zealand on December 31, 1908, was estimated as follows: Europeans 960,000; Maoris, 49,000; Cook Islanders, 12,000. There was an increase of Europeans during the year of 31,000, being at the rate of 3.36 percent. The excess of immigration over departures was 14,000—a record; while the natural increase was 17,000. The death-rate was 9.57 per thousand, as compared with 10.95 in 1907; and the birth-rate was 27.45 per thousand, as compared with 27.30.
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1908-1909. Labor Strike caused by Legislation making "Miners’ Disease" a ground of Compensation from Employers.
See (in this Volume) LABOR PROTECTION: EMPLOYERS’ LIABILITY.
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1909. Announcement of Railway-Building Policy.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: NEW ZEALAND.
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1909. Act establishing compulsory Military Training.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR: MILITARY: NEW ZEALAND.
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1909. The Prime Minister’s testimony to the good working of Woman Suffrage.
See (in this Volume) ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1909 (July-August). Imperial Defence Conference. Offer of a "Dreadnought" to the Imperial Navy.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR: MILITARY AND NAVAL.
NIAGARA FALLS: Preservation of their "Scenic Grandeur."
An Act of Congress, designed "to preserve the scenic grandeur" of Niagara Falls, approved in June, 1906, authorized the Secretary of War to grant permits for the diversion of water for the creation of power to an aggregate amount not exceeding 15,600 cubic feet a second, and to grant permits for the transmission of power from Canada to an aggregate quantity not exceeding 160,000 horsepower. The then Secretary of War, Mr. Taft, since elected President of the United States, after careful investigations and hearings, granted permits for the diversion of the maximum amount of water under the act and for the admission of the maximum quantity of power. In reporting his decision Mr. Taft explained why he believed that the diversion authorized could be made without harm to the Falls: "I have reached," he said, "the conclusion that with the diversion of 15,600 cubic feet on the American side and the transmission of 160,000 horse power from the Canadian side, the scenic grandeur of the Falls will not be affected substantially or perceptibly to the eye. With respect to the American falls this is an increase of only 2,500 cubic feet a second over what is now being diverted and has been diverted for many years, and has not affected the Falls as a scenic wonder. With respect to the Canadian side, the water is drawn from the river in such a way as not to affect the American falls at all, because the point from which it is drawn is considerably below the level of the water, at the point where the waters separate above Goat Island, and the Waterways Commission and Dr. Clark agree that the taking of 13,000 cubic feet from the Canadian side will not in any way affect or reduce the water going over the American falls. The water going over the Falls on the Canadian side of Goat Island is about five times the Volume of that which goes over the American falls. … If the amount withdrawn on the Canada side for Canadian use were 5,000 cubic feet a second, which it is not likely to be during the three years’ life of these permits, the total to be withdrawn would not exceed ten per cent, of the Volume of the stream, and, considering the immense quantity which goes over the Horseshoe Falls, the diminution would not be perceptible to the eye."
See, also, provisions of "WATERWAYS TREATY," in this Volume, under CANADA: A. D. 1909 (JANUARY).
NIAGARA MOVEMENT, The.
See (in this Volume) RACE PROBLEMS: UNITED STATES.
NICARAGUA.
See (in this Volume) CENTRAL AMERICA.
NICHOLAS II., TSAR OF RUSSIA.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA.
NICHOLS, ERNEST FOX: President of Dartmouth University.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1909.
NICOLSON, SIR ARTHUR: British Ambassador at St. Petersburg. Convention with Russia.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1907 (AUGUST).
NIEL, M.: The head of the Confédération Générale du Travail in France.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: FRANCE: A. D. 1884-1909.
NIGERIA.
See (in this Volume) AFRICA: FRENCH CENTRAL.
NIGHT RIDERS, of the Tobacco Farmers’ Union.
See (in this Volume) KENTUCKY: A. D. 1905-1909.
NILE BARRAGE.
See (in this Volume) EGYPT: A. D. 1902 (DECEMBER).
{460}
NOBEL PRIZES.
By the will of Alfred Bernard Nobel, the distinguished Swedish engineer and chemist, pupil of John Ericsson and inventor of dynamite and other explosives, five great prizes, averaging nearly $40,000 each in value, were instituted, for annual reward to persons who shall severally have made the most important discovery or invention in the domain of physics, chemistry and physiology or medicine; to the writer who has produced in literature the most distinguished work of an idealistic tendency, and to the person who has most or best promoted the fraternity of nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and increase of peace congresses. The award of the two prizes first named to be made by the Royal Academy of Science in Stockholm; the third by the Caroline Medical-Chirurgical Institute in Stockholm; the fourth by the Swedish Academy in the same city; the fifth by the Storthing or Parliament of Norway.
The presentation of prizes on the first award was made with impressive ceremonies on the 10th of December, 1901, that being the fifth anniversary of Mr. Nobel’s death. Each year since, the awards have been made on that anniversary day. The recipients have been as follows:
PHYSICS.
1901 William Conrad Roentgen, professor of physics at the University of Munich.
1902 Divided equally between Henrik Anton Lorentz, professor of physics at the University of Leyden, and Peter Zeeman, professor of physics at the University of Amsterdam.
1903 Half to Antoine Henri Becquerel, professor of physics at the École Polytechnique and at the Museum d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France, member Institut Française, and half to Pierre Curie, professor of physics at the University of Paris (Sorbonne) and teacher in physics at the Paris Municipal School of Industrial Physics and Chemistry, and his wife, Marie Sklodovska Curie, preceptress at the Higher Normal School for Young Girls at Sevres.
1904 Lord Rayleigh, professor of natural philosophy, Royal Institution of Great Britain, London.
1905 Philippe Lenard, professor of physics at the physical Institute of Kiel.
1906 J. J. Thomson, professor of experimental physics at the University of Cambridge.
1907 Albert A. Michelsen, professor of physics at the University of Chicago.
1908 Professor Gabriel Lippman of the University of Paris.
1909 G. Marconi, Italy, and Professor Ferdinand Braun of Strassburg.
MEDICINE.
1901 Emil Adolf von Behring, professor of hygiene and medical history at the University of Marburg, Prussia.
1902 Ronald Ross, professor of tropical medicine at the University college of Liverpool.
1903 Niels Ryberg Finsen, professor of medicine, Copenhagen, Denmark.
1904 Ivan Petrovic Pawlow, professor of physiology in the Military Academy of Medicine, St. Petersburg.
1905 Robert Koch, member of the Royal Academy of Science, Berlin.
1906 Professors Ramon y Cajal and Camillo Golgi of the Pavia university, Italy.
1907 Charles L. A. Laveran of the Pasteur Institute in Paris.
1908 Dr. Paul Ehrlich of Berlin and Professor Elie Metchnikoff of the Pasteur Institute, Paris.
1909 Professor E. T. Kocher, Switzerland.
CHEMISTRY.
1901 Jakob Hendrik van’t Hoff, professor of chemistry in the University of Berlin.
1902 Emil Fischer, professor of chemistry in the University of Berlin.
1903 Svante August Arrhenius, professor at the University of Stockholm.
1904 Sir William Ramsay, professor of chemistry in the University college, London.
1905 Adolf von Baeyer, professor of chemistry at Munich.
1906 H. Moissan, professor of chemistry at the Sorbonne, Paris.
1907 Eduard Buchner, professor of chemistry in the agricultural high school of Berlin.
1908 Professor Ernest Rutherford of the University of Manchester, England.
1909 Professor W. Ostwald of Leipsic.
LITERATURE.
1901 Rene Francois Armand Sully-Prudhomme, member of the French Academy.
1902 Theodor Mommsen, professor of history at the University of Berlin.
1903 Bjornstjerne Bjornson, author, Norway.
1904 Half to Frederic Mistral of France and half to José Echegaray of Spain.
1905 Henryk Sienkiewicz, the author of "Quo Vadis?"
1906 Professor Giosue Carducci of Bologna, Italy.
1907 Rudyard Kipling of England.
1908 Professor Rudolf Eucken of the University of Java.
1909 Selma Lagerlof, Sweden.
PEACE.
1901 Divided equally between Henri Dunant, founder of the International Red Cross Society of Geneva, and Frederic Passay, founder of the first French peace association, the "Société Française pour l’Arbitrage Entre Nations."
1902 Divided equally between Elie Ducommum, secretary of the international peace bureau at Bern, and Albert Gobat, chief of the interparliamentary peace bureau at Bern.
1903 William Randal Cremer, M. P., secretary of the International Arbitration league, London.
1904 The Institute of International Right, a scientific association founded in 1873 in Ghent, Belgium.
1905 Baroness Bertha von Suttner for her literary work written in the interest of the world’s peace movement.
1906 Theodore Roosevelt, president of the United States, for the part he took in bringing the Russo-Japanese war to an end. Money set apart by the president for the establishment of a permanent industrial peace commission.
1907 Divided equally between Ernesto T. Moneta, president of the Lombardy Peace union, and Louis Renault, professor of international law at the University of Paris.
1908 K. P. Arnoldsen of Sweden and M. F. Bajer of Denmark.
1909 Baron d’Estournelles de Constant, Paris, and M. Beernaert, Holland, ex-Premier.
[For a contemporary list see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates]
NODZU, General.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (FEBRUARY-JULY), and after.
NOGI, GENERAL.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (FEBRUARY-JULY), and 1904-1905 (MAY-JANUARY).
NOMINATIONS, Political: By Direct Primary Vote.
See (in this Volume) ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: UNITED STATES.
NOMINAVIT NOVIS CONTROVERSY.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1905-1906.
NORD ALEXIS, GENERAL.
See (in this Volume) HAITI: A. D. 1902 and 1908.
{461}
NORDENSKJÖLD, DR. OTTO: Commanding Swedish Antarctic Expedition.
See (in this Volume) POLAR EXPLORATION.
NORDEZ, BISHOP LE.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1905-1900.
NORTHCOTE, LORD: On the Australian Land and Immigration Questions.
See (in this Volume) IMMIGRATION AND EMIGRATION: AUSTRALIA.
NORTHERN SECURITIES COMPANY CASE, THE.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1905.
NORTH SEA AND BALTIC AGREEMENTS.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1907-1908.
NORTHWEST TERRITORIES, CANADIAN: A. D. 1896-1909. Their Rapid Settlement. The "American Invasion."
See (in this Volume) CANADA: A. D. 1896-1909.
NORTHWEST TERRITORIES, CANADIAN: A. D. 1901-1902. Census. Increased Representation in Parliament.
See (in this Volume) CANADA: 1901-1902.
NORWAY: A. D. 1902-1905. Result of the Consular Question. Secession from the Union of Crowns with Sweden. Acceptance by King Oscar of his virtual Deposition. Election of Prince Charles of Denmark to the Throne.
The discontent of Norway in its union with Sweden, especially because it could have no distinct national representation, consular or diplomatic, in foreign countries, is described in Volume VI. of this work.
See (in this Volume) SWEDEN AND NORWAY.
In 1902 a Swedish-Norwegian Consular Commission was appointed to investigate the practicability of separate consuls for each of the united kingdoms, with joint diplomatic representation. The Commission produced a report very favorable to the proposition. Prolonged negotiations followed, between representatives of the two governments, and the outlines of a system under which Norway should acquire a separate consular service were definitely settled and accepted formally by the King, on the 21st of December, 1903. When it came, however, to the definite framing of laws for carrying the plan into effect, irreconcilable disagreements arose. Several details of the arrangement which Sweden insisted on implied a precedence and superiority of standing for that kingdom in the union of crowns which offended Norwegian pride. The Norwegian Government objected to having its selection of consuls made subject to the approval of the Foreign Minister of the dual monarchy. It objected to having the King, in his commission to them, entitled "King of Sweden and Norway"; and it rejected the Swedish proposals on other points. When the Government of Sweden replied that, while it might be willing to consider some modifications of its proposals, it must maintain the important parts of them, the Norwegian Government announced that it had no further statements to make, indicating that negotiation in the matter was at an end. Thereupon, on the 7th of February, 1905, the King made public the following statement:
"Under the present circumstances I do not see that I can resolve otherwise than to approve of what the Foreign Minister has proposed; but I cannot refrain from expressing to both my peoples my hearty desire that the two kingdoms, which have now been united for nearly a century, will never let any difference of opinion be hurtful to the Union itself. This Union is in truth the safest guarantee for the independence, the security and the happiness of both my peoples."
Feeble health now compelled King Oscar to yield the functions of royalty to his son, and the Crown Prince visited Christiania, as Regent, to confer personally with the leaders in Norwegian affairs. The outcome of his visit was the resignation of the Ministry of M. Hagcrup on the 1st of March, the formation of a new Cabinet, under M. Michelsen, and the announcement by the latter that the Government would steadfastly maintain the sovereignty of Norway, as an independent kingdom, according to the words of its constitution, the realization of which must depend on the strength and will of the Norwegian people. All attempts in the next three months to overcome or much modify the attitude of Norway were unsuccessful. In May, the Storthing passed an independent Consular Bill and laid it before King Oscar, who had resumed his duties, and the King refused to sanction it, saying: "The Crown Prince, as Regent, in Joint Council of State of April 5, has already shown the only way in which this important question can be advanced and all difficulties most likely removed, viz., through negotiation. I entirely agree with this view, and do not for the time being find it expedient to sanction this law, which means an alteration of the existing joint consular service which cannot be severed except by mutual arrangement. … When I now refuse to sanction this law I do so in accordance with the right conferred upon the King."
See in Volume I. of this work Section 30, Title 3, of the CONSTITUTION OF NORWAY.
"… It is my equally great love to both nations which makes it my duty to exercise this right;"
On the 7th of June, M. Michelsen, the Prime Minister, and his colleagues, gave their resignations to the Storthing, whereupon that body, by unanimous vote, adopted the following resolution:
"As all the members of the Council of State have resigned their offices; as his Majesty the King has declared himself unable to give the country a new Government; and as the constitutional kingdom has thus ceased to function, the Storthing authorizes the members of the Ministry, to-day resigned, to exercise in the meantime, as the Government of Norway, the authority vested in the King, in accordance with Norway’s constitution and existing laws, with the alterations necessitated by the fact that the Union with Sweden under one King has ceased on account of the king having ceased to act as Norwegian King." This action was proclaimed to the people on the same day. On the 9th the Union flag was lowered from Norwegian forts and war ships and the Norwegian flag raised in its place. On the 28th of July with King Oscar’s consent, the Swedish Riksdag adopted a resolution assenting to the severance of the Union, on condition that it be approved by a vote of the people of Norway. Accordingly the question was submitted to the people on the 13th of August, and all but 184 out of 368,392 votes were given in favor of the separation. A conference at Karlstadt in September arranged the future relations of the two kingdoms with success, and the dissolution was complete. It was formally acknowledged by King Oscar on October 26th. {462} As he made it known that he did not wish any member of his family to accept the crown of Norway if offered, the Storthing authorized the Government to open negotiations with Prince Charles of Denmark, with a view to its acceptance by him, if its proffer should be sanctioned by a popular vote. Again a plebiscite was polled and a large majority given in favor of the proffer of the crown to Prince Charles. The Prince accepted, with the permission of his grandfather, the Danish King, and proposed to take the name of Haakon VII. The name was well chosen for its significance, Haakon VI. having been the last of the old royal line of Norway, which became extinct at his death in 1387. The King-elect and his wife entered Christiania on the 25th of November and took the oath of fidelity to the Norwegian Constitution on the 27th. In the following June King Haakon was anointed and crowned with solemn ceremonies, in the ancient cathedral of Trondhjem, the capital of the first King who reigned over the whole Norse realm.
NORWAY: A. D. 1903. Agreement for Settlement of Claims against Venezuela.
See (in this Volume) VENEZUELA: A. D. 1902-1904.
NORWAY: A. D. 1907. Treaty with Great Britain, France, Germany, and Russia guaranteeing the Integrity of the Kingdom.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1907-1908, and 1908.
NORWAY: A. D. 1908. Parliamentary Suffrage extended to Women. See (in this Volume) ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
NORWAY: A. D. 1909 (October). Arbitration of the Frontier Dispute with Sweden.
The maritime frontier dispute between Norway and Sweden, consequent on their separation, was referred to The Hague Tribunal, and decided in October, more favorably to Sweden than to Norway, but the decision was loyally accepted by the latter.
NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1901-1902. Census. Reduced Representation in Parliament.
See (in this Volume) CANADA: A. D. 1901-1902.
O.
OBOLENSKI, PRINCE JOHN.
See (in this Volume) FINLAND: A. D. 1905.
O’CONOR, Sir N.: British Ambassador to Turkey.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1903-1904, and 1905-1908.
OCTOBRISTS.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1904-1905. and 1907.
ODESSA, Disturbances in.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1904-1905.
OGDEN, Robert C.: Promoter of the Annual Conference for Education in the South.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1898-1909.
OIL, PETROLEUM: The Supply and the Waste in the United States.
See (in this Volume) CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES.
OKLAHOMA: A. D. 1904. Marvelous Growth of Fifteen Years.
"Oklahoma is the Minerva of the States. With her there was no period of slow settlement. On the day that her borders were opened to the settler she sprang full-fledged, a vigorous young commonwealth, into the Union. And on the day that Congress admits her to Statehood she will take rank with the foremost of the Western States. Her population of a million and three hundred thousand—which is the combined population of Oklahoma and Indian Territory, according to the annual report of Governor Ferguson for the year ending June 30, 1904, it is probably somewhat more than that now [1905]—will place her in advance of at least twenty-one of her sister States, several of them among the original thirteen. Not counting Texas, only two States west of the Missouri will be her equal in number of people—Kansas and California. In old New England, three States—New Hampshire, Vermont, and Rhode Island—could be combined and still not contain as great a population as this new commonwealth in the West will have on the first day of its Statehood.
"No other State ever had such a remarkable growth and prosperity as Oklahoma. Sixteen years ago last March the prairie winds blew over wide expanses of plains with no signs of human habitation on them for miles at a stretch. A month later, on April 22, 1889, upward of one hundred thousand persons engaged in the most spectacular race in history--a race for homes.
See, in Volume V. of this work, UNITED STATES: A. D. 1889-1890].
That was the day when the first Oklahoma counties were opened for settlement. … At nightfall of that first day of its history Oklahoma had a larger population than the State of Nevada. Towns were surveyed, and sprung up in a night, and in a week a new empire had been created in the Southwest. A year later the Iowa, Pottawatomie, and Sac and Fox reservations were opened for settlement."
_Clarence H. Matson, Oklahoma (American Review of Reviews, September, 1905)_.
OKLAHOMA: A. D. 1906-1907. Joined in Statehood with Indian Territory and admitted to the Union.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1906. See, also, (in this Volume) CONSTITUTION OF OKLAHOMA.
OKU, GENERAL.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (FEBRUARY-JULY), and after.
OLD AGE HOMES, in Vienna.
See (in this Volume) POVERTY, THE PROBLEMS OF.
OLD AGE PENSIONS.
See (in this Volume) POVERTY, THE PROBLEMS OF.
"OLD BELIEVERS," RUSSIAN.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1905 (APRIL-AUGUST.).
OLDENBURG: A. D. 1906. Committed to Universal Suffrage.
See (in this Volume) ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: GERMANY: A. D. 1906.
OMAR JAN.
See (in this Volume) AFGHANISTAN: A. D. 1901-1904.
ONTARIO: A. D. 1901-1902. Census. Reduced Representation in Parliament.
See (in this Volume) CANADA: A. D. 1901-1902.
ONTARIO: A. D. 1906-1907. Political Experiments. The Salaried Leader of Opposition, etc.
See (in this Volume) CANADA: A. D. 1906-1907.
"OPEN DOOR," THE COMING OF THE EPOCH OF THE.
See (in this Volume) WORLD MOVEMENTS.
{463}
OPIUM PROBLEM: China: A. D. 1900-1906. Progressive Tariff and Internal Taxation measures to check the Consumption of the Drug.
The following is from a report on opium production and taxation in China prepared by Mr. Williams, Chinese secretary of the United States Legation at Peking, and sent to the State Department at Washington, in September, 1906:
[Transcriber's note: The following paragraph includes a variety of spellings and possibly defective type slugs. The tael was said to be worth 73 cents in gold in 1905. The weight of the picul is 133½ pounds.]
"Previous to 1900 native opium passing through the maritime customs at Ichaug had been paying a total charge of taels, 60 per picul exclusive of taxes at the place of production. In July, 1900, the viceroy, Chang Chih-tung, with a view to cheeking the consumption of opium in the territory under his jurisdiction, increased this charge to taels 72 per picul, and near the close of 1901 increased it again, making it taels 80 per picul. This, with the likin charged in Szechuen, made a total on the product coming from that province of taels 84.76. Opium designed for local consumption was still more heavily taxed, being required to pay taels 90 besides the likin of Szeehuen, or a total of 94.76 taels per picul. The immediate result of this action was to greatly increase smuggling and to drive legitimate traffic to the use of native junks or roundabout land routes controlled by the native customs or likin offices, and thus to reduce the receipts of the maritime customs. Another significant result was the importation of a small amount of foreign opium to a district where it had been unknown for many years. In view of these facts, in 1903 the authorities reduced the tax to a total of 76.75 taels per picul, including the Szcchuen likin.
"In February, 1904, the same tax was imposed in the province of Hunan, also in the jurisdiction of the Viceroy Chang Chih-tung, and in the summer of the same year an agreement was made with the provincial authorities of the provinces of Kiangse and Anhui that one consolidated tax, to include both likin and customs duties, should be levied at a uniform rate in the four provinces, and to prevent discrimination by the native customs as against the maritime service it was agreed that the collection of this consolidated tax should be intrusted to the imperial maritime customs at Ichang and to branch offices under its control. The port of Ichang was chosen because it is at the head of steam navigation on the Yangtze, for which reason most of the opium from Yunnan and Szechuen was sent thither for distribution. In 1905 this arrangement was extended to four other provinces, Kiangse, Fukien, Kuangtung, and Kuangsi, and the tax increased to taels 134.79 per picul for opium destined to the four inner provinces and taels 104 for that going to those on the seaboard. Previous to this latter arrangement, however, after the experience of 1902, it was seen that unless the tax on foreign opium should also be increased the effort to stamp out the vice by heavy taxation would fail, and therefore in 1903 representations were made to the British Government by the Chinese minister in London looking toward the increase of the duty upon Indian opium. The reply of the British Government, as quoted in the Peking Gazette, was that the tax on the native drug ought to be increased by the same amount as any addition made to the duty on the foreign article. Upon this a memorial was submitted to the Imperial Chinese Government, asking that the customs duty and likin on foreign and native opium be increased by an equal amount, and the matter was referred to the proper boards for consideration and report. No further report has as yet appeared relating to the negotiations respecting foreign opium. As to the native drug, the steps to increase the taxes upon it in eight of the provinces have been related above. The success of this arrangement has been so pronounced that on the 7th of May this year (1906) an imperial edict appeared directing that the system adopted in the eight provinces mentioned above should be at once extended to all the provinces of China proper and at a later date, to be hereafter determined, to Turkestan and Manchuria."
OPIUM PROBLEM: A. D. 1906. Imperial Edict against the use of Opium. Undertaking to suppress it in Ten Years.
By a formal edict from the throne, published in September, 1906, the imperial Government of China undertook to eradicate the use of opium in that empire, and to do so by heroic measures within ten years. A register was ordered to be made of every consumer of the drug (estimated at 40 per cent. of the vast population of the empire) and of the quantity that he consumes. Those who are under 60 years of age must thereafter diminish their consumption by not less than twenty per cent, each year, till they are free of the habit and the use is stopped. Meantime there would be a public provision of medicines to assist the cure. To those beyond 60 years in age, and to the princes, nobles, and magnates of the empire, a certain relaxation of these rules would be allowed. But all minor officials under 60 years must drop opium entirely, at once, and there would be no toleration of an acquirement of the opium habit thereafter. No further cultivation of the poppy would be allowed, and, of course, the importation would be controlled.
Tang Shao Yi, the special Chinese envoy who visited the United States and England early in 1909, had much to do with this measure on the part of his Government, and, in addressing a deputation which called on him in London, had this to say of the circumstances connected with it:
"He had always taken a deep interest in the anti-opium movement ever since he was a student in America in the early seventies. He had never realized, however, that they could attempt to make such a movement in China till he was sent by his Government to India in 1905 in connexion with the Lhasa Convention. While there he had opportunities of studying the opium question, and he was fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of the finance secretary, Mr. Baker. From him he learnt that the Government of India could dispense with the revenue derived from opium. Nothing was more surprising to him and nothing gave him greater joy than to hear that. In that year the question was brought up in England, and when he returned to China in the winter of 1905 he informed his Government that the British public was very ‘anti-opium’ and also that the Indian Government was not at all anxious for the revenue derived from opium. Therefore, he told his Government that it was for the Chinese themselves to put a stop to the opium trade, and that they must not rely upon others. He had already got regulations in his head and the Government asked him to draw up certain rules to put a stop to the opium curse. {464} In order not to be too radical, he suggested that three years should be allowed for putting an end to it, but the Cabinet said that was too radical, and, although he suggested six years, the final decision of the Government was to make it ten years. He said that unless they put a stop to it in two or three years they might as well let this generation die out. They fully appreciated the co-operation of gentlemen in England, and he begged that they would keep up the agitation not only for their own sakes but for the sake of the Chinese people. The Chinese people wanted to be reminded that they were opium smokers and that they must give up the practice. Some scepticism had been expressed as to the genuineness of the movement in China, but he was sure that the people there were in earnest, and he trusted that his Government and people would not disappoint Great Britain."
OPIUM PROBLEM: A. D. 1909. Progress in the Opium Reform.
An official report on the progress of the opium reform in China, by Mr. Max Müller, Councillor of the British Legation at Peking, was published as a Parliamentary Paper (Cd. 4967), early in January, 1910. In communicating the report to the Foreign Office, Sir N. Jordan wrote:
"This report shows that considerable progress continues to be made in the task which the Chinese Government undertook three years ago. There has undoubtedly been a very sensible diminution in the consumption and cultivation of opium, and a public opinion has been formed which will greatly strengthen the hands of the Government and the provincial authorities in the drastic measures which they contemplate taking in the near future. … That the end, however, is so near as many of the official pronouncements would seem to indicate is, I venture to think, very doubtful. We have full and reliable information about only two of the provinces—Shansi and Yunnan—and the annexes to Mr. Max Müller’s report furnish eloquent testimony of the good work that has been done in both. At the opposite extreme stand Shensi, Kansu, Hupei, and Szeehuan, in all of which comparatively little has been accomplished to check either the consumption or cultivation of the drug. The last-named province, which is by far the largest producing area in the Empire, will furnish the supreme test of the success or failure of the programme of total prohibition, and as the order has gone forth that no poppy is to be sown this autumn the issue on which so much depends is doubtless being fought out as this report is being written."
OPIUM PROBLEM: International Opium Commission, in Session at Shanghai, February, 1909.
On the suggestion of Bishop Brent, of the Philippines, the Government of the United States took the initiative in bringing about the appointment of an International Commission to investigate matters connected with the use of and traffic in opium. The Commission, composed of delegates from China, Japan, Great Britain, France, Germany, Holland, Turkey, and the United States, met at Shanghai on the 1st of February, 1909, and was in session until the 26th of that month, under the presidency of Bishop Brent. Its study of the subject appears to have been made difficult and definite conclusions prevented by the lack of trustworthy Chinese statistics of the production of opium in the Empire itself, and of other important facts. The results of four weeks of investigation and discussion were embodied in nine resolutions, the first of which recognized the sincerity of the endeavor of the Chinese Government to eradicate the great evil from its dominion, in these words: "The Commission recognizes the unswerving sincerity of the Government of China in its efforts to eradicate the production and consumption of opium throughout the Empire, the increasing body of public opinion among the Chinese by whom these efforts are supported, and the real, though unequal, progress already made in a task of the greatest magnitude."
Of the further resolutions, one urged upon all governments the importance of drastic measures to control the manufacture, sale, and distribution of morphia and other noxious derivatives of opium; another recommended scientific investigation of so-called opium remedies; a third said all countries should adopt reasonable measures to prevent the shipment of opium or its derivatives to any country which prohibits their entry. By the terms of the remaining resolutions the delegates were urged to influence as far as possible their own governments to take steps for the gradual suppression of opium smoking in their own territories respectively; to further examine into their systems for the regulation of the traffic, in the light of the experience of other countries; to enter into negotiations with China to insure the adoption of effective and prompt measures to prohibit opium traffic in those concessions and settlements. Finally, the conference recommended that each government apply its pharmacy laws to its subjects in consular districts, concessions, and settlements in China.
In some quarters the outcome of the meeting was sharply criticised as being empty of any practical fruit, and England was accused of having rendered it so, under the influence of the Indian opium trade. But the State Department at Washington gave expression to a very different view. There it was pointed out that the Commission had been one of inquiry, only; that its instructions had been "to study the opium problem and report as to the best and most feasible means of solving it," and that this programme was executed "to the entire satisfaction of the Governments concerned." Bishop Brent, who presided over the Shanghai meeting, declared in his inaugural address:
"It devolves upon me to pronounce with emphasis that this is a commission, and as those who are informed—as all of you must be in matters that pertain to international affairs of this kind—a commission is not a conference. The idea of a conference was suggested, but it seemed wise to choose this
## particular form of action rather than a conference, because,
for the present at any rate, we are not sufficiently well informed and sufficiently unanimous in our attitude to have a conference with any great hope of immediate success."
{465}
As between China and Great Britain there is an opium problem which does not affect other parties. An important part of British Indian revenue is derived from the opium trade, and the Government of India can hardly be expected to throw it carelessly away, not knowing with certainty that it will not be picked up as gain for somebody else. In 1906, when China opened her campaign against opium, she entered into an agreement with England that her own production of opium should be reduced to extinction within ten years, and that the importation from India (under former commercial treaties), then amounting to 51,000 chests annually, should be reduced at the rate of 5100 chests per year. It seems to have been the lack of definite evidence as to the effective fulfilment of this agreement which made the British attitude at Shanghai a halting one.
The United States Government has not suffered the movement against opium to rest where it was left by the Shanghai Commission, but has asked the governments represented in that Commission to send delegates to a formal International Conference at The Hague.
OPIUM PROBLEM: The Philippine Islands, taking Instruction from the Japanese in Formosa.
A committee appointed by the Philippine Commission, to investigate methods of dealing with the sale and use of opium, included an American army officer, Major Carter, a Filipino physician, Dr. Albert, and the missionary bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church, Bishop Brent. The following is from a summary of the committee’s report, published in _The Outlook_ of March 4, 1905:
"Although the Committee visited and studied Java, Cochin China, the Straits Settlements, and various places in China, including Hong-kong, it really found the solution of the question in the Japanese administration of Formosa. …
"It is not surprising that the Committee recommend what is practically an adaptation of the Formosan system for the Philippines. For the maintenance of this system it is indispensable that the ‘opium and the traffic therein be made a strict Government monopoly immediately.’ That is the first provision. ‘Second, prohibition, except for medicinal purposes, after three years. Third, only licensees, who shall be males and over twenty-one years of age, shall be allowed to use opium until prohibition goes into effect. Fourth, all venders or dispensers of opium, except for medical purposes, shall be salaried officials of the Government. Fifth, every effort shall be made (a) to deter the young from contracting the habit by pointing out its evil effects and by legislation, (b) to aid in caring for and curing those who manifest a desire to give up the habit, and (c) to punish and, if necessary, to remove from the islands incorrigible offenders.’"
OPIUM PROBLEM: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909. Act to Prohibit the Importation and Smoking of Opium.
A stringent Act prohibitory of the importation and use of opium for any other than medicinal purposes passed the Senate of the United States on the 2d of February, 1909, having already been adopted by the other House. Smoking opium is positively forbidden; no one can bring it into the country without facing a fine of from fifty to five thousand dollars and imprisonment for two years; the mere possession of opium, a preparation of, or derivative therefrom, is to be deemed sufficient evidence to authorize conviction. For medicinal purposes, opium may be brought in under regulations prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury.
OPSONINS.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: OPSONINS.
ORANGE FREE STATE: End of the Republic.
See (in this Volume) SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1901-1902.
ORDER OF RAILWAY CONDUCTORS.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES.
ORGANIC STATUTES, The.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1905-1906.
ORMANIAN: Armenian Patriarch.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1903-1904.
OSAKA, The Burning of.
A large part of the city of Osaka, in Japan, was destroyed by fire in August, 1909. "Had it not been for the canals the region of destruction would have been even more extensive. Citizens by the thousand fled into the surrounding country, leaving the city to its fate. By the time the flames had spent their force more than 12,000 houses had gone up in smoke, leaving more than 100,000 people homeless. Most of the municipal, government, and other important buildings of the city were destroyed. Great numbers of people are ruined, as the Japanese carry no insurance, as a rule. The amount of insurance involved, however, is about 5,000,000 yen. Fortunately, the number of casualties was not great. About a dozen were killed by falling timbers, and several were more or less injured."
OSCAR II., King of Sweden and Norway: Surrender of the Crown of Norway.
See (in this Volume) NORWAY: A. D. 1902-1905.
OSMEÑA, SERGIO: President of the Philippine Assembly.
See (in this Volume) PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1907.
OSTWALD, W.
See (in this Volume) NOBEL PRIZES (CHEMISTRY)
OXFORD UNIVERSITY: Rhodes Scholarships.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: RHODES SCHOLARSHIPS.
OXFORD UNIVERSITY: Tutorial Classes organized for Working People.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: ENGLAND: A. D. 1908-1909.
P.
PACKING-HOUSE INVESTIGATION.
See (in this Volume) PUBLIC HEALTH: PURE FOOD LAWS: UNITED STATES.
PALMA, TOMAS ESTRADA: President of Cuba.
See (in this Volume) CUBA: A. D. 1901-1902 and 1902.
PALMA, TOMAS ESTRADA: Resignation of the Presidency of Cuba.
See (in this Volume) CUBA: A. D. 1906 (AUGUST-OCTOBER).
PAN-AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC CONGRESS.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE AND INVENTION: INTERNATIONAL CONGRESSES.
PAN-ANGLICAN CONGRESS, 1909.
See (in this Volume) SOCIALISM: ENGLAND: A. D. 1909.
PANAMA, REPUBLIC OF: A. D. 1903. Secession from Colombia. Recognized Independence. Treaty with the United States for the Building of the Panama Canal.
See (in this Volume) PANAMA CANAL.
PANAMA, REPUBLIC OF: A. D. 1904. Constitution of the Republic. First Election.
The Constitution of the new Republic was promulgated on the 16th of February, 1904, and the election of President and three Vice-Presidents took place, resulting in the choice of the following: President, Dr. Manuel Amador; first vice-president, Dr. Pablo Arosemena; second vice-president, Don Domingo de Obaldia; third vice-president, Dr. Carlos Mendoza.
{466}
The third article of the Constitution declares: "The territory of the Republic is composed of all the territory from which the State of Panama was formed by the amendment to the Granada constitution of 1853, on February 27, 1855, and which was transformed in 1886 into the Department of Panama, together with its islands, and of the continental and insular territory, which was adjudged to the Republic of Colombia in the award made by the President of the French Republic on September 11, 1900. The territory of the Republic remains subject to the jurisdictional limitations stipulated or which may be stipulated in public treaties concluded with the United States of North America for the construction, maintenance, or sanitation of any means of interoceanic transit.
"The boundaries with the Republic of Colombia shall be determined by public treaties."
PANAMA, REPUBLIC OF: A. D. 1906. Visit of President Roosevelt.
"For the first time in the history of the United States," said President Roosevelt, when he landed at Colon, November 14, 1906, preliminary to a visit and inspection of the Panama Canal, "it has become advisable for a President of the United States to step on territory not beneath the flag of the United States." He received a most hospitable welcome and entertainment in the young republic.
PANAMA, REPUBLIC OF: A. D. 1906.
## Participation in Third International Conference of
American Republics.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
PANAMA, REPUBLIC OF: A. D. 1909. Pending Tripartite Treaty with Colombia and the United States.
See (in this Volume) COLOMBIA: A. D. 1906-1909.
PANAMA CANAL: A. D. 1901-1902. The Second Hay-Pauncefote Treaty between the United States and Great Britain. Its Ratification.
After the rejection by the British Government of the Amendments made by the Senate of the United States to the Interoceanic Canal Treaty negotiated in February, 1900, by Mr. John Hay, United States Secretary of State, with the British Ambassador at Washington, Lord Pauncefote negotiations on the subject were renewed, with results of success in removing objections on both sides.
See, in Volume VI. of this work, CANAL, INTEROCEANIC: A. D. 1900 (DECEMBER).
The new Treaty was signed by Mr. Hay and Lord Pauncefote at Washington on the 18th of November, 1901, and ratifications were exchanged on the 21st of February, 1902. In the preamble of the Treaty its purpose is declared to be "to facilitate the construction of a ship-canal to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, by whatever route may be considered expedient, and to that end to remove any objection which may arise out of the Convention of the 19th April, 1850, commonly called the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, to the construction of such canal under the auspices of the Government of the United States, without impairing the ‘general principle’ of neutralization established in Article VIII of that Convention." The agreements and stipulations to this end are as follows:
"Article I. The High Contracting Parties agree that the present Treaty shall supersede the afore mentioned Convention of the 19th April, 1850.
"Article II. It is agreed that the canal may be constructed under the auspices of the Government of the United States, either directly at its own cost, or by gift or loan of money to individuals or Corporations, or through subscription to or purchase of stock or shares, and that, subject to the provisions of the present Treaty, the said Government shall have and enjoy all the rights incident to such construction, as well as the exclusive right of providing for the regulation and management of the canal.
"Article III. The United States adopts, as the basis of the neutralization of such ship canal, the following Rules, substantially as embodied in the Convention of Constantinople, signed the 28th October, 1888, for the free navigation of the Suez Canal, that is to say:
"1. The canal shall be free and open to the vessels of commerce and of war of all nations observing these Rules, on terms of entire equality, so that there shall be no discrimination against any such nation, or its citizens or subjects, in respect of the conditions or charges of traffic, or otherwise. Such conditions and charges of traffic shall be just and equitable.
"2. The canal shall never be blockaded, nor shall any right of war be exercised nor any act of hostility be committed within it. The United States, however, shall be at liberty to maintain such military police along the canal as may be necessary to protect it against lawlessness and disorder.
"3. Vessels of war of a belligerent shall not revictual nor take any stores in the canal except so far as may be strictly necessary; and the transit of such vessels through the canal shall be effected with the least possible delay in accordance with the Regulations in force, and with only such intermission as may result from the necessities of the service. Prizes shall be in all respects subject to the same Rules as vessels of war of the belligerents.
"4. No belligerent shall embark or disembark troops, munitions of war, or warlike materials in the canal, except in case of accidental hindrance of the transit, and in such case the transit shall be resumed with all possible dispatch.
"5. The provisions of this Article shall apply to waters adjacent to the canal, within 3 marine miles of either end. Vessels of war of a belligerent shall not remain in such waters longer than twenty-four hours at any one time, except in case of distress, and in such case shall depart as soon as possible; but a vessel of war of one belligerent shall not depart within twenty-four hours from the departure of a vessel of war of the other belligerent.
"6. The plant, establishments, buildings, and all works necessary to the construction, maintenance, and operation of the canal shall be deemed to be part thereof, for the purposes of this Treaty, and in time of war, as in time of peace, shall enjoy complete immunity from attack or injury by belligerents, and from acts calculated to impair their usefulness as part of the canal.
"Article IV. It is agreed that no change of territorial sovereignty or of the international relations of the country or countries traversed by the before mentioned canal shall affect the genera principle of neutralization or the obligation of the High Contracting Parties under the present Treaty.
{467}
"Article V. The present Treaty shall be ratified by the President of the United States, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate thereof, and by His Britannic Majesty: and the ratifications shall be exchanged at Washington or at London at the earliest possible time within six mouths from the date hereof."
_Papers relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, transmitted to Congress, December, 1902._
PANAMA CANAL: A. D. 1902. Undertaking of the United States endorsed by the Second Conference of American Republics.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
PANAMA CANAL: A. D. 1903. Purchase of the Franchises and Property of the Bankrupt French Company. Treaty with Colombia for the Building of the Canal rejected by the Colombian Senate. Secession of Panama. Recognition of the Independence of Panama. Treaty with the new Republic for the Building and Control of the Canal. President Roosevelt’s narrative of events.
The transactions that were preliminary to the undertaking of the construction of an interoceanic canal through the Isthmus of Panama, by the Government of the United States, are narrated down to March, 1901.
See (in Volume VI. of this work) CANAL, INTEROCEANIC.
At that time the proposed Nicaragua route was principally contemplated, for the reason that the rights in Panama held by the bankrupt French Company of Lesseps (see, in Volume IV., PANAMA CANAL) seemed unobtainable, on any terms which the American Government could accept. A commission appointed by President McKinley to investigate the situation had reported to that effect in November, 1900, and had recommended the building of a canal on the Nicaragua route. The effect of this report, and of the manifest disposition of the American Congress to authorize the building of a Nicaragua ship canal, was to draw from the French company an offer of its Panama franchises and entire property for the sum of $40,000,000. After long debate this offer was accepted, and negotiations were opened with the Republic of Colombia for the necessary treaty rights. Meantime the Hay-Pauncefote treaty with Great Britain, which the American Senate had amended in a manner objectionable to the British Government, was modified to the satisfaction of the latter, and the enterprise was cleared of questions except those between Colombia and the United States. The next ensuing events can be told in the words of President Roosevelt’s report of them to Congress, in his Message at the opening of the session convened on the 7th of December, 1903:
"By the act of June 28, 1902," wrote the President, "the Congress authorized the President to enter into treaty with Colombia for the building of the canal across the Isthmus of Panama; it being provided that in the event of failure to secure such treaty, after the lapse of a reasonable time, recourse should be had to the building of a canal through Nicaragua. It has not been necessary to consider this alternative, as I am enabled to lay before the Senate a treaty providing for the building of the canal across the Isthmus of Panama. This was the route which commended itself to the deliberate judgment of the Congress, and we can now acquire by Treaty the right to construct the canal over this route. The question now, therefore, is not by which route the isthmian canal shall be built, for that question has been definitely and irrevocably decided. The question is simply whether or not we shall have an isthmian canal.
"When the Congress directed that we should take the Panama route under treaty with Colombia, the essence of the condition, of course, referred not to the Government which controlled that route, but to the route itself; to the territory across which the route lay, not to the name which for the moment the territory bore on the map. The purpose of the law was to authorize the President to make a treaty with the power in actual control of the Isthmus of Panama. This purpose has been fulfilled.
"In the year 1846 this Government entered into a treaty with New Granada, the predecessor upon the Isthmus of the Republic of Colombia and of the present Republic of Panama, by which treaty it was provided that the Government and citizens of the United States should always have free and open right of way or transit across the Isthmus of Panama by any modes of communication that might be constructed, while in return our Government guaranteed the perfect neutrality of the above-mentioned Isthmus with the view that the free transit from the one to the other sea might not be interrupted or embarrassed. The treaty vested in the United States a substantial property right carved out of the rights of sovereignty and property which New Granada then had and possessed over the said territory. The name of New Granada has passed away and its territory has been divided. Its successor, the Government of Colombia, has ceased to own any property in the Isthmus. A new Republic, that of Panama, which was at one time a sovereign state, and at another time a mere department of the successive confederations known as New Granada and Colombia, has now succeeded to the rights which first one and then the other formerly exercised over the Isthmus. But as long as the Isthmus endures, the mere geographical fact of its existence, and the peculiar interest therein which is required by our position, perpetuate the solemn contract which binds the holders of the territory to respect our right to freedom of transit across it, and binds us in return to safeguard for the Isthmus and the world the exercise of that inestimable privilege. The true interpretation of the obligations upon which the United States entered in this treaty of 1846 has been given repeatedly in the utterances of Presidents and Secretaries of State. …
"Attorney-General Speed, under date of November 7, 1865, advised Secretary Seward as follows: ‘From this treaty it can not be supposed that New Granada invited the United States to become a party to the intestine troubles of that Government, nor did the United States become bound to take sides in the domestic broils of New Granada. The United States did guarantee New Granada in the sovereignty and property over the territory. This was as against other and foreign governments.’
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"For four hundred years, ever since shortly after the discovery of this hemisphere, the canal across the Isthmus has been planned. For two score years it has been worked at. When made it is to last for the ages. It is to alter the geography of a continent and the trade routes of the world. We have shown by every treaty we have negotiated or attempted to negotiate with the peoples in control of the Isthmus and with foreign nations in reference thereto our consistent good faith in observing our obligations; on the one hand to the peoples of the Isthmus, and on the other hand to the civilized world whose commercial rights we are safeguarding and guaranteeing by our action. We have done our duty to others in letter and in spirit, and we have shown the utmost forbearance in exacting our own rights.
"Last spring, under the act above referred to, a treaty concluded between the representatives of the Republic of Colombia and of our Government was ratified by the Senate. This treaty was entered into at the urgent solicitation of the people of Colombia and after a body of experts appointed by our Government especially to go into the matter of the routes across the Isthmus had pronounced unanimously in favor of the Panama route. In drawing up this treaty every concession was made to the people and to the Government of Colombia. We were more than just in dealing with them. Our generosity was such as to make it a serious question whether we had not gone too far in their interest at the expense of our own; for in our scrupulous desire to pay all possible heed, not merely to the real but even to the fancied rights of our weaker neighbor, who already owed so much to our protection and forbearance, we yielded in all possible ways to her desires in drawing up the treaty. Nevertheless the Government of Colombia not merely repudiated the treaty, but repudiated it in such a manner as to make it evident by the time the Colombian Congress adjourned that not the scantiest hope remained of ever getting a satisfactory treaty from them. The Government of Colombia made the treaty, and yet when the Colombian Congress was called to ratify it the vote against ratification was unanimous. It does not appear that the Government made any real effort to secure ratification.
"Immediately after the adjournment of the Congress a revolution broke out in Panama. The people of Panama had long been discontented with the Republic of Colombia, and they had been kept quiet only by the prospect of the conclusion of the treaty, which was to them a matter of vital concern. When it became evident that the treaty was hopelessly lost, the people of Panama rose literally as one man. Not a shot was fired by a single man on the Isthmus in the interest of the Colombian Government. Not a life was lost in the accomplishment of the revolution. The Colombian troops stationed on the Isthmus, who had long been unpaid, made common cause with the people of Panama, and with astonishing unanimity the new Republic was started. The duty of the United States in the premises was clear. In strict accordance with the principles laid down by Secretaries Cass and Seward … the United States gave notice that it would permit the landing of no expeditionary force, the arrival of which would mean chaos and destruction along the line of the railroad and of the proposed canal, and an interruption of transit as an inevitable consequence. The de facto Government of Panama was recognized in the following telegram to Mr. Ehrman:
"‘The people of Panama have, by apparently unanimous movement, dissolved their political connection with the Republic of Colombia and resumed their independence. When you are satisfied that a de facto government, republican in form and without substantial opposition from its own people, has been established in the State of Panama, you will enter into relations with it as the responsible government of the territory and look to it for all due action to protect the persons and property of citizens of the United States and to keep open the isthmian transit, in accordance with the obligations of existing treaties governing the relations of the United States to that territory.’
"The Government of Colombia was notified of our action by the following telegram to Mr. Beaupré:
"‘The people of Panama having, by an apparently unanimous movement, dissolved their political connection with the Republic of Colombia and resumed their independence, and having adopted a Government of their own, republican in form, with which the Government of the United States of America has entered into relations, the President of the United States, in accordance with the ties of friendship which have so long and so happily existed between the respective nations, most earnestly commends to the Governments of Colombia and of Panama the peaceful and equitable settlement of all questions at issue between them. He holds that he is bound not merely by treaty obligations, but by the interests of civilization, to see that the peaceful traffic of the world across the Isthmus of Panama shall not longer be disturbed by a constant succession of unnecessary and wasteful civil wars.’
"When these events happened, fifty-seven years had elapsed since the United States had entered into its treaty with New Granada. During that time the Governments of New Granada and of its successor, Colombia, have been in a constant state of flux.
[The President then gives a list, by date, of 53 more or less serious disturbances of the public peace on the Isthmus which United States consuls had reported to the Government at Washington between May, 1850, and July, 1902. From this he proceeds:]
"The above is only a partial list of the revolutions, rebellions, insurrections, riots, and other outbreaks that have occurred during the period in question; yet they number 53 for the 57 years. It will be noted that one of them lasted for nearly three years before it was quelled; another for nearly a year. In short, the experience of over half a century has shown Colombia to be utterly incapable of keeping order on the Isthmus. Only the active interference of the United States has enabled her to preserve so much as a semblance of sovereignty. Had it not been for the exercise by the United States of the police power in her interest, her connection with the Isthmus would have been sundered long ago. In 1856, in 1860, in 1873, in 1885, in 1901, and again in 1902, sailors and marines from United States war-ships were forced to land in order to patrol the Isthmus, to protect life and property, and to see that the transit across the Isthmus was kept open. In 1861, in 1862, in 1885, and in 1900, the Colombian Government asked that the United States Government would land troops to protect its interests and maintain order on the Isthmus. …
{469}
"The control, in the interest of the commerce and traffic of the whole civilized world, of the means of undisturbed transit across the Isthmus of Panama has become of transcendent importance to the United States. We have repeatedly exercised this control by intervening in the course of domestic dissension, and by protecting the territory from foreign invasion. In 1853 Mr. Everett assured the Peruvian minister that we should not hesitate to maintain the neutrality of the Isthmus in the case of war between Peru and Colombia. In 1864 Colombia, which has always been vigilant to avail itself of its privileges conferred by the treaty, expressed its expectation that in the event of war between Peru and Spain the United States would carry into effect the guaranty of neutrality. There have been few administrations of the State Department in which this treaty has not, either by the one side or the other, been used as a basis of more or less important demands. It was said by Mr. Fish in 1871 that the Department of State had reason to believe that an attack upon Colombian sovereignty on the Isthmus had, on several occasions, been averted by warning from this Government. In 1886, when Colombia was under the menace of hostilities from Italy in the Cerruti case, Mr. Bayard expressed the serious concern that the United States could not but feel, that a European power should resort to force against a sister republic of this hemisphere, as to the sovereign and uninterrupted use of a part of whose territory we are guarantors under the solemn faith of a treaty.
"The above recital of facts establishes beyond question: First, that the United States has for over half a century patiently and in good faith carried out its obligations under the treaty of 1846; second, that when for the first time it became possible for Colombia to do anything in requital of the services thus repeatedly rendered to it for fifty-seven years by the United States, the Colombian Government peremptorily and offensively refused thus to do its part, even though to do so would have been to its advantage and immeasurably to the advantage of the State of Panama, at that time under its jurisdiction; third, that throughout this period revolutions, riots, and factional disturbances of every kind have occurred one after the other in almost uninterrupted succession, some of them lasting for months and even for years, while the central government was unable to put them down or to make peace with the rebels; fourth, that these disturbances instead of showing any sign of abating have tended to grow more numerous and more serious in the immediate past; fifth, that the control of Colombia over the Isthmus of Panama could not be maintained without the armed intervention and assistance of the United States. In other words, the Government of Colombia, though wholly unable to maintain order on the Isthmus, has nevertheless declined to ratify a treaty the conclusion of which opened the only chance to secure its own stability and to guarantee permanent peace on, and the construction of a canal across the Isthmus.
"Under such circumstances the Government of the United States would have been guilty of folly and weakness, amounting in their sum to a crime against the Nation, had it acted otherwise than it did when the revolution of November 3 last took place in Panama. This great enterprise of building the interoceanic canal can not be held up to gratify the whims, or out of respect to the governmental impotence, or to the even more sinister and evil political peculiarities, of people who, though they dwell afar off, yet, against the wish of the actual dwellers on the Isthmus, assert an unreal supremacy over the territory. The possession of a territory fraught with such peculiar capacities as the Isthmus in question carries with it obligations to mankind. The course of events has shown that this canal can not be built by private enterprise, or by any other nation than our own; therefore it must be built by the United States.
"Every effort has been made by the Government of the United States to persuade Colombia to follow a course which was essentially not only to our interests and to the interests of the world, but to the interests of Colombia itself. These efforts have failed; and Colombia, by her persistence in repulsing the advances that have been made, has forced us, for the sake of our own honor, and of the interest and well-being, not merely of our own people, but of the people of the Isthmus of Panama and the people of the civilized countries of the world, to take decisive steps to bring to an end a condition of affairs which had become intolerable. The new Republic of Panama immediately offered to negotiate a treaty with us. This treaty I herewith submit. By it our interests are better safeguarded than in the treaty with Colombia which was ratified by the Senate at its last session. It is better in its terms than the treaties offered to us by the Republics of Nicaragua and Costa Rica. At last the right to begin this great undertaking is made available. Panama has done her part. All that remains is for the American Congress to do its part and forthwith this Republic will enter upon the execution of a project colossal in its size and of well-nigh incalculable possibilities for the good of this country and the nations of mankind.
"By the provisions of the treaty the United States guarantees and will maintain the independence of the Republic of Panama. There is granted to the United States in perpetuity the use, occupation, and control of a strip ten miles wide and extending three nautical miles into the sea at either terminal, with all lands lying outside of the zone necessary for the construction of the canal or for its auxiliary works, and with the islands in the Bay of Panama. The cities of Panama and Colon are not embraced in the canal zone, but the United States assumes their sanitation and, in case of need, the maintenance of order therein; the United States enjoys within the granted limits all the rights, power, and authority which it would possess were it the sovereign of the territory to the exclusion of the exercise of sovereign rights by the Republic. All railway and canal property rights belonging to Panama and needed for the canal pass to the United States, including any property of the respective companies in the cities of Panama and Colon; the works, property, and personnel of the canal and railways are exempted from taxation as well in the cities of Panama and Colon as in the canal zone and its dependencies. Free immigration of the personnel and importation of supplies for the construction and operation of the canal are granted. Provision is made for the use of military force and the building of fortifications by the United States for the protection of the transit. {470} In other details, particularly as to the acquisition of the interests of the New Panama Canal Company and the Panama Railway by the United States and the condemnation of private property for the uses of the canal, the stipulations of the Hay-Herran treaty are closely followed, while the compensation to be given for these enlarged grants remains the same, being ten millions of dollars payable on exchange of ratifications; and, beginning nine years from that date, an annual payment of $250,000 during the life of the convention."
_President's Message, December 7, 1903._
The text of the Treaty with Panama may be found in the Volume of "Papers relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States" for 1904, pp. 543-551.
In the view of a good many critics who are not of a captious disposition, the conduct of the Government of the United States in these transactions was not as unquestionable as it appeared to President Roosevelt. Professor Coolidge, of Harvard University, in his candid and broadly studied work on "The United States as a World Power" (prepared originally in the form of lectures delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris), remarks that "to forbid the landing of Colombian troops was to stretch the meaning of the old American right to maintain order along the line of the railway to an extent hardly justifiable in dealing with a friendly nation, and the haste with which the administration at Washington recognized the independence of the new republic and concluded a treaty with it appeared to many people indecent. The truth was the Americans did not feel that they were dealing with a friendly nation."
PANAMA CANAL: A. D. 1904-1905. Beginning and Organization of the Work of Construction.
"The treaty between the United States and the Republic of Panama, under which the construction of the Panama Canal was made possible, went into effect with its ratification by the United States Senate on February 23, 1904. The canal properties of the French Canal Company were transferred to the United States on April 23, 1904, on payment of $40,000,000 to that company. On April 1, 1905, the Commission was reorganized, and it now consists of Theodore P. Shonts, chairman, Charles E. Magoon, Benjamin M. Harrod, Rear-Admiral Mordecai T. Endicott, Brigadier General Peter C. Hains, and Colonel Oswald H. Ernst. John F. Stevens was appointed chief engineer on July 1 last. Active work in canal construction, mainly preparatory, has been in progress for less than a year and a half. During that period two points about the canal have ceased to be open to debate. First, the question of route; the canal will be built on the Isthmus of Panama. Second, the question of feasibility; there are no physical obstacles on this route that American engineering skill will not be able to overcome without serious difficulty, or that will prevent the completion of the canal within a reasonable time and at a reasonable cost. This is virtually the unanimous testimony of the engineers who have investigated the matter for the Government. The point which remains unsettled is the question of type, whether the canal shall be one of several locks above sea level, or at sea level with a single tide lock. On this point I hope to lay before the Congress at an early day the findings of the Advisory Board of American and European Engineers, that at my invitation have been considering the subject, together with the report of the Commission thereon; and such comments thereon or recommendations in reference thereto as may seem necessary.
"The American people is pledged to the speediest possible construction of a canal, adequate to meet the demands which the commerce of the world will make upon it, and I appeal most earnestly to the Congress to aid in the fulfillment of the pledge. Gratifying progress has been made during the past year and especially during the past four months. The greater part of the necessary preliminary work has been done. Actual work of excavation could be begun only on a limited scale till the Canal Zone was made a healthful place to live in and to work in. The isthmus had to be sanitated first.
See (in this Volume) PUBLIC HEALTH: PANAMA CANAL.
This task has been so thoroughly accomplished that yellow fever has been virtually extirpated from the Isthmus and general health conditions vastly improved. The same methods which converted the island of Cuba from a pest hole, which menaced the health of the world, into a healthful place of abode, have been applied on the Isthmus with satisfactory results. There is no reason to doubt that when the plans for water supply, paving, and sewerage of Panama and Colon and the large labor camps have been fully carried out, the Isthmus will be, for the Tropics, an unusually healthy place of abode. The work is so far advanced now that the health of all those employed in canal work is as well guarded as it is on similar work in this country and elsewhere.
"In addition to sanitating the Isthmus, satisfactory quarters are being provided for employees and an adequate system of supplying them with wholesome food at reasonable prices has been created. Hospitals have been established and equipped that are without superiors of their kind anywhere. The country has thus been made fit to work in, and provision has been made for the welfare and comfort of those who are to do the work. During the past year a large portion of the plant with which the work is to be done has been ordered. It is confidently believed that by the middle of the approaching year a sufficient proportion of this plant will have been installed to enable us to resume the work of excavation on a large scale."
_President's Message to Congress, December 5, 1905._
PANAMA CANAL: A. D. 1905-1909. Prosecution and progress of the work.
Mr. John L. Stevens was in charge of the work on the Canal, as Chief Engineer, until April 1, 1907, when he resigned, and it was then determined by the Government to place it under the direction of an army engineer. The officer chosen for the service was Lieutenant-Colonel George W. Goethals, of the Engineer Corps, with Major Gaillard and Major Siebert as assistant engineers, and this arrangement has been justified amply by results. At the same time a final determination was arrived at, against the placing of any part of the work under contract; and this, too, has been approved by experience in the undertaking since. Shortly before the occurrence of these changes Mr. Shonts had resigned the chairmanship of the Canal Commission, to take the presidency of the Interborough Co. of New York, and Colonel Goethals became Chairman of the Commission as well as Chief Engineer.
{471}
In June, 1906, the original design of a sea-level canal throughout, with no locks, was dropped, after much consideration and under weighty engineering advice. As described very tersely and clearly by an English writer on the subject, the new plan for locks is worked out as follows:
"Beginning at deep water in Limon Bay, on the Caribbean coast, there will be a tide-water channel 500 ft. wide and 6.70 miles long to Gatun. At Gatun there will be the vast dam, the ascent of which will be effected by means of two flights of locks. In each flight there will be three locks, each 1,000 ft. long, 110 ft. wide, and 41.3 ft. deep on the sills. These will give access to a lake formed by the impounded waters of the Chagres river, with a surface level 85 ft. above mean tide level. Through this lake will extend a channel from 500 ft. to 1,000 ft. wide for 23.59 miles to Bas Obispo, the entrance to the Culebra cut. Thence through that cut there will be a channel 300 ft. wide for 8.11 miles to Pedro Miguel, the surface level being the same as that of the lake. At Pedro Miguel there will be a dam with twin locks, side by side, by which descent of 30 ft. will be made to a smaller lake 55 ft. above tide-water. This lake, only 0.97 of a mile long, will be traversed by a channel 500 ft. wide to Miraflores, where there will be another dam, with twin flights of locks, two locks in each flight, bringing the canal down to tide level; and from Miraflores a channel 500 ft. wide will extend 8.31 miles to deep water in the Bay of Panama. The channel will nowhere, save on the lock sills, be less than 45 ft. deep, and the locks at Pedro Miguel and Miraflores will be of the same dimensions as those at Gatun."
This altered plan received much persistent criticism,—so persistent that, in January, 1909, after the election of Mr. Taft to the Presidency of the United States, but before his assumption of the office, the President-elect, who, as Secretary of War, had been the responsible administrator of the undertaking, went to the Isthmus with a selected committee of engineers, who were asked to examine and report on the plans and methods of the work. Their reports, made in February, endorsed both. In communicating them to Congress the President characterized them as showing that "the only criticism that can be made of the work on the isthmus is that there has sometimes been almost an excess of caution in providing against possible trouble. As to the Gatun dam itself, they show that not only is the dam safe, but on the whole the plan already adopted would make it needlessly high and strong, and accordingly they recommend that the height be reduced by twenty feet, which change in the plans I have accordingly directed." Of the engineers who made the report he remarked that they "are of all the men in their profession, within or without the United States, the men who are on the whole best qualified to pass on these very questions which they examined." The membership of the committee or board was as follows: Frederic P. Stearns, James D. Schuyler, Arthur P. Davis, Isham Randolph, Henry D. Allen, John R. Freeman, and Allen Hazen.
The engineers reported that "as the Gatun earth dam was the central point of discussion, they gave it under instructions from Mr. Taft first consideration in the light of all new evidences," and they added "that the type of dam under consideration is one which meets with our unanimous approval." Dams and locks, lock gates and all other engineering structures involved in the lock-canal project, are "feasible and safe," according to the engineers, "and can be depended upon to perform with certainty their respective functions."
Considering the cost and time of construction of a sea-level canal as compared with the lock type, they held that "most of the factors which have operated to increase the cost of the lock canal would operate with similar effect to increase the cost of the sea-level canal, and at the present time there are additional factors of even greater importance to be considered as affecting the time of completion and cost of a sea-level canal." One of these they found in the Gamboa dam. If work on this were to be started as soon as possible, they asserted it "could not be completed until after the time required for the completion of the lock-canal." Further than this, they said that "a change in the type would result in abandoning work which represents large expenditure." They claimed that by the change the river Chagres and the rivers on the Isthmus tributary thereto, "instead of being allies, would be enemies of the canal, and floods in them would greatly interfere with the work."
Replying to the criticism that "the canal region is liable to earthquake shocks, and that a sea-level canal would be less subject to injury by earthquakes than a lock canal," they asserted that "dams and locks are structures of great stability and little subject to damage by earthquake shocks," but that even if they could regard earthquakes as a source of serious damage to any type of canal on the Isthmus, "their effect upon the dams, locks and regulating works proposed for the sea-level canal would be much the same as upon similar structures of the lock canal."
Finally, they said: " We see no reason why the canal should not be completed, as estimated by the chief engineer, by January 1, 1915; in fact, it seems that a somewhat earlier date is probable, if all goes well."
PANAMA CANAL: A. D. 1909. Prohibition in the Canal Zone.
See (in this Volume) ALCOHOL PROBLEM: CASUAL OCCURRENCES OF SALOON SUPPRESSION.
PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION.
See (in this Volume) BUFFALO: A. D. 1901.
PAN-AMERICAN RAILWAY: Resolution of Third International Conference of American Republics.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
PANICS, Monetary, of 1903 and 1907.
See (in this Volume) FINANCE AND TRADE: A. D. 1901-1909.
PAN ISLAMISM.
See (in this Volume) SENUSSIA; also _Egypt_: A. D. 1905-1906.
PANKHURST, MRS. EMELINE.
See (in this Volume) ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
PANLUNG, THE CAPTURE OF.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905 (MAY-JANUARY).
PAN-LUN-SHAN REDOUBT, CAPTURE OF.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905 (MAY-JANUARY).
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PAPACY: A. D. 1902. Secession of the Independent Filipino Church.
See (in this Volume) PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1902.
PAPACY: A. D. 1903 (July-August). Death of Pope Leo XIII. Election of Pius X.
The Papal seat became vacant by the death of Pope Leo XIII. on the 20th of July, 1903. The Conclave of Cardinals for the election of his successor assembled on the 31st of the month, and its choice of Cardinal Sarto, Patriarch of Venice, was made known on August 3d. The new Pope assumed the name of Pius X.
PAPACY: A. D. 1904. Papal Prohibition of Civil Interference with the Election of the Roman Pontiff. The Civil Veto, in all forms, denounced.
In the first year of his pontificate, on the 20th of January, 1904, Pope Pius X. pronounced the following denunciation and prohibition of every kind of intrusion of civil authority or influence in the election of a Roman pontiff: "When first, all unworthy as we are, we ascended this chair of Peter, we deemed it a most urgent duty of our apostolic office to provide that the life of the Church should manifest itself with absolute freedom, by the removal of all extraneous interference, as her divine Founder willed that it should manifest itself, and as her lofty mission imperatively requires.
"Now if there is one function above all others in the life of the Church which demands this liberty it is certainly that which is concerned with the election of the Roman pontiff; _for when the head is in question, the health not of one member alone but of the whole body is involved_ (Gregory XV. Constit. Aeterni Patris in proem).
"To this full liberty in the election of the Supreme Pastor is opposed first of all that civil _Veto_ which has been more than once brought forward by the rulers of some states, and by which it is sought to exclude somebody from the supreme pontificate. If this has happened sometimes, it has never been approved by the apostolic see. On the contrary the Roman pontiffs, in their enactments on the conclave, have been in nothing perhaps more emphatic or more earnest than in their efforts to exclude the interference of all extraneous powers from the sacred senate of the Cardinals summoned to elect the pontiff. …
"But, and experience has shown it, the measures hitherto taken for preventing the civil _Veto_, or _Exclusive_, have not served their purpose, and on account of the changed circumstances of the times the intrusion of the civil power in our day is more clearly than ever before destitute of all foundation in reason or equity, therefore we, by virtue of the apostolic charge entrusted to us, and following in the footsteps of our predecessors, after having maturely deliberated, with certain knowledge and by our own motion, do absolutely condemn the civil _Veto_, or _Exclusive_ as it is also called, even when expressed under the form of a mere desire, and all interventions and intercessions whatsoever, decreeing that it is not lawful for anybody, not even the supreme rulers of states, under any pretext, to interpose or interfere in the grave matter of the election of the Roman pontiff.
"Wherefore, in virtue of holy obedience, under threat of divine judgment and pain of excommunication _latae sententiae_ reserved in a special manner to the future pontiff, we prohibit all and single the Cardinals of holy Roman Church, and likewise the secretary of the Sacred College of Cardinals and all others who take part in the conclave to receive, even under the form of a simple desire, the office of proposing the _Veto_ or _Exclusive_, or to make known this _Veto_ in whatever manner it may have come to their knowledge, to the Sacred College of Cardinals either taken as a whole or to the individual fathers Cardinals, either by writing, by word of mouth, whether directly and proximately, or indirectly and through others. And it is our will that this prohibition be extended to all the interventions above mentioned, and to all other intercessions whatsoever, by which the lay powers, of whatsoever grade and order, endeavor to intrude themselves in the election of the pontiff.
"Finally we vehemently exhort, in the same words as those used by our predecessors, that in the election of the pontiff, _they pay no attention whatever to the appeals of secular princes or other worldly considerations_ … but solely with the glory of God and the good of the Church before their eyes, give their votes to him whom they judge in the Lord better fitted than the others to rule the Universal Church fruitfully and usefully. It is our will also that these our letters, together with the other constitutions of the same kind, be read in the presence of all in the first of the congregations wont to be held after the death of the pontiff; again after entrance into the conclave; also when anybody is raised to the dignity of the purple, with the addition of an oath binding to the religious observance of what is decreed in the present constitution."
PAPACY: A. D. 1904. Amenities between the Vatican and the Quirinal.
See (in this Volume) ITALY: A. D. 1904.
PAPACY: A. D. 1904. Increased Participation of Catholics in the Italian Elections.
See (in this Volume) ITALY: A. D. 1904 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER).
PAPACY: A. D. 1905. Relaxation of the Withdrawal of Italian Catholics from Political Action.
See (in this Volume) ITALY: A. D. 1905-1906 .
PAPACY: A. D. 1905-1906. The Separation of Church and State in France.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1905-1906.
PAPACY: A. D. 1906. Anti-Clerical Movement in Spain. Proposed Associations Law.
See (in this Volume) SPAIN: A. D. 1905-1906.
PAPACY: A. D. 1906 (February). Encyclical "Vehementer Nos," to the Prelates, Clergy, and People of France, concerning the Separation Law.
The following are passages from the Encyclical known, from its opening words in the Latin text as "Vehementer Nos," which Pope Pius X. addressed to the French nation on the 19th of February, 1906, after the adoption of the Law separating the Church from the State:
"To the Archbishops, Bishops, Clergy and People of France. … Venerable Brethren, Well-Beloved Sons, Health and Apostolic Benediction.
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"Our soul is full of sorrowful solicitude and our heart overflows with grief when our thoughts dwell upon you. How, indeed, could it be otherwise, immediately after the promulgation of that law which, by sundering violently the old ties that linked your nation with the Apostolic See, creates for the Catholic Church in France a situation unworthy of her and ever to be lamented? That is, beyond question, an event of the gravest import, and one that must be deplored by all right-minded men, for it is as disastrous to society as it is to religion; but it is an event which can have surprised nobody who has paid any attention to the religious policy followed in France of late years. For you, Venerable Brethren, it will certainly have been nothing new or strange, witnesses as you have been of the many dreadful blows aimed from time to time at religion by the public authority. You have seen the sanctity and inviolability of Christian marriage outraged by legislative acts in formal contradiction with them; the schools and hospitals laicised; clerics torn from their studies and from ecclesiastical discipline to be subjected to military service; the religious congregations dispersed and despoiled, and their members for the most part reduced to the last stage of destitution. Other legal measures which you all know have followed—the law ordaining public prayers at the beginning of each Parliamentary session and of the assizes has been abolished; the signs of mourning traditionally observed on board the ships on Good Friday suppressed; the religious character effaced from the judicial oath; all actions and emblems serving in any way to recall the idea of religion banished from the courts, the schools, the army, the navy, and, in a word, from all public establishments. These measures and others still which, one after another, really separated the Church from the State, were but so many steps designedly made to arrive at complete and official separation, as the authors of them have publicly and frequently admitted.
"On the other hand, the Holy See has spared absolutely no means to avert this great calamity. While it was untiring in warning those who were at the head of affairs in France, and in conjuring them over and over again to weigh well the immensity of the evils that would infallibly result from their separatist policy, it at the same time lavished upon France the most striking proofs of indulgent affection. It had then reason to hope that gratitude would have stayed those politicians on their downward path, and brought them at last to relinquish their designs. But all has been in vain—the attentions, good offices and efforts of our predecessor and ourself. The enemies of religion have succeeded at last in effecting by violence what they have long desired, in defiance of your rights as a Catholic nation and of the wishes of all who think rightly. …
"That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him. Besides, it is an obvious negation of the supernatural order. It limits the
## action of the State to the pursuit of public prosperity during
this life only, which is but the proximate object of political societies; and it occupies itself in no fashion (on the plea that this is foreign to it) with their ultimate object, which is man’s eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course. …
"When the State broke the bonds of the Concordat and separated itself from the Church it ought, as a natural consequence, to have left her her independence and allowed her to enjoy peacefully that liberty granted by the common law which it pretended to assign to her. Nothing of the kind has been done. We recognize in the law many exceptional and odiously restrictive provisions, the effect of which is to place the Church under the domination of the civil power. …
"With the existence of the association of worship, the Law of Separation hinders the pastors from exercising the plenitude of their authority and of their office over the faithful, when it attributes to the Council of State supreme jurisdiction over these associations and submits them to a whole series of prescriptions not contained in common law, rendering their formation difficult and their continued existence more difficult still; when, after proclaiming the liberty of public worship, it proceeds to restrict its exercise by numerous exceptions; when it despoils the Church of the internal regulation of the churches in order to invest the State with this function; when it thwarts the preaching of Catholic faith and morals and sets up a severe and exceptional penal code for clerics—when it sanctions all these provisions and many others of the same kind in which wide scope is left to arbitrary ruling, does it not place the Church in a position of humiliating subjection and, under the pretext of protecting public order, deprive peaceable citizens, who still constitute the vast majority in France, of the sacred right of practising their religion? …
"In addition to the wrongs and injuries to which we have so far referred, the Law of Separation also violates and tramples under foot the rights of property of the Church. In defiance of all justice, it despoils the Church of a great portion of a patrimony which belongs to her by titles as numerous as they are sacred; it suppresses and annuls all the pious foundations consecrated, with perfect legality, to divine worship and to suffrages for the dead. The resources furnished by Catholic liberality for the maintenance of Catholic schools, and the working of various charitable associations connected with religion, have been transferred to lay associations in which it would be idle to seek for a vestige of religion. In this it violates not only the rights of the Church, but the formal and explicit purpose of the donors and testators. It is also a subject of keen grief to us that the law, in contempt of all right, proclaims as property of the State, departments or communes, the ecclesiastical edifices dating from before the Concordat. True, the law concedes the gratuitous use of them for an indefinite period, to the associations of worship, but it surrounds the concession with so many and so serious reserves that in reality it leaves to the public powers the full disposition of them. Moreover, we entertain the gravest fears for the sanctity of those temples, the august refuges of the Divine Majesty and endeared by a thousand memories to the piety of the French people. …
{474}
"Hence, mindful of our Apostolic charge and conscious of the imperious duty incumbent upon us of defending and preserving against all assaults the full and absolute integrity of the sacred and inviolable rights of the Church, we do, by virtue of the supreme authority which God has confided to us, and on the grounds above set forth, reprove and condemn the law voted in France for the separation of Church and State as deeply unjust to God, whom it denies, and as laying down the principle that the Republic recognizes no cult. We reprove and condemn it as violating the natural law, the law of nations, and fidelity to treaties; as contrary to the Divine constitution of the Church, to her essential rights and to her liberty; as destroying justice and trampling under foot the rights of property which the Church has acquired by many titles, and, in addition, by virtue of the Concordat. We reprove and condemn it as gravely offensive to the dignity of this Apostolic See, to our own person, to the Episcopacy and to the clergy and all the Catholics of France. Therefore, we protest solemnly and with all our strength against the introduction, the voting and the promulgation of this law, declaring that it can never be alleged against the imprescriptible rights of the Church."
_Pope Pius X., Encyclical Letter (American Catholic Quarterly Review, April, 1906)._
PAPACY: A. D. 1906. Commands forbidding French Catholics to conform to the Separation Law or the Associations Law.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1906.
PAPACY: A. D. 1906. Pacific Relations between State and Church in Mexico.
See (in this Volume) MEXICO: A. D. 1906.
PAPACY: A. D. 1906 (March). Declaration of the new French Ministry on the Church Separation Law.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1906 (JANUARY-MARCH).
PAPACY: A. D. 1906-1907. The Separation of Church and State in France. Further Measures and Proceedings. The Encyclical Gravissimo.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1906-1907.
PAPACY: A. D. 1907. Effects of the Separation Law in France. The Catholics lose all Legal Organization.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1907.
PAPACY: A. D. 1907 (September). Mandates of the Encyclical on Modernism.
The following passages contain the essential mandates of the Encyclical on Modernism, issued on the 8th of September, 1907:
"The office divinely committed to us of feeding the Lord’s flock has especially this duty assigned to it by Christ, namely, to guard with the greatest vigilance the deposit of the faith delivered to the saints, rejecting the profane novelties of words and oppositions of knowledge falsely so called. There has never been a time when this watchfulness of the supreme pastor was not necessary to the Catholic body; for, owing to the efforts of the enemy of the human race, there have never been lacking ‘men speaking perverse things’ (Acts xx., 30), ‘vain talkers and seducers’ (Tit. i., 10), ‘erring and driving into error’ (II. Tim. iii., 13). Still, it must be confessed that the number of the enemies of the cross of Christ has in these last days increased exceedingly, who are striving, by arts entirely new and full of subtlety, to destroy the vital energy of the Church, and, if they can, to overthrow utterly Christ’s kingdom itself. Wherefore we may no longer be silent, lest we should seem to fail in our most sacred duty, and lest the kindness that, in the hope of wiser counsels, we have hitherto shown them should be attributed to forgetfulness of our office.
"That we may make no delay in this matter is rendered necessary especially by the fact that the partisans of error are to be sought not only among the Church’s open enemies; they lie hid, a thing to be deeply deplored and feared, in her very bosom and heart, and are the more mischievous the less conspicuously they appear. We allude, venerable brethren, to many who belong to the Catholic laity, nay, and this is far more lamentable, to the ranks of the priesthood itself, who, feigning a love for the Church, lacking the firm protection of philosophy and theology, nay, more, thoroughly imbued with the poisonous doctrines taught by the enemies of the Church, and lost to all sense of modesty, vaunt themselves as reformers, … not sparing even the person of the Divine Redeemer, whom, with sacrilegious daring, they reduce to a simple, mere man.
"Though they express astonishment themselves, no one can justly be surprised that we number such men among the enemies of the Church, if, leaving out of consideration the internal disposition of soul, of which God alone is the judge, he is acquainted with their tenets, their manner of speech, their conduct. Nor, indeed, will He err in accounting them the most pernicious of all the adversaries of the Church. For, as we have said, they put their designs for her ruin into operation not from without, but from within; hence the danger is present almost in the very veins and heart of the Church, whose injury is the more certain, the more intimate is their knowledge of her. Moreover, they lay the axe not to the branches and shoots, but to the very root; that is, to the faith and its deepest fibres. And having struck at this root of immortality, they proceed to disseminate poison through the whole tree, so that there is no part of Catholic truth from which they hold their hand, none that they do not strive to corrupt. Further, none is more skilful, none more astute than they in the employment of a thousand noxious arts; for they double the parts of rationalist and Catholic, and this so craftily that they easily lead the unwary into error; and since audacity is their chief characteristic, there is no conclusion of any kind from which they shrink or which they do not thrust forward with pertinacity and assurance. To this must be added the fact, which indeed is well calculated to deceive souls, that they lead a life of the greatest activity of assiduous and ardent application to every branch of learning, and that they possess, as a rule, a reputation for the strictest morality. Finally, and this almost destroys all hope of cure, their very doctrines have given such a bent to their minds that they disdain all authority and brook no restraint; and, relying upon a false conscience, they attempt to ascribe to a love of truth that which is in reality the result of pride and obstinacy.
{475}
"Once, indeed, we had hopes of recalling them to a better sense, and to this end we first of all showed them kindness as our children, then we treated them with severity, and at last we have had recourse, though with great reluctance, to public reproof. But, you know, venerable brethren, how fruitless has been our action. They bowed their head for a moment, but it was soon uplifted more arrogantly than ever. If it were a matter which concerned them alone, we might perhaps have overlooked it; but the security of the Catholic name is at stake. Wherefore, as to maintain it longer would be a crime, we must now break silence, in order to expose before the whole Church in their true colors those men who have assumed this bad disguise.
"But since the modernists (as they are commonly and rightly called) employ a very clever artifice, namely, to present their doctrines without order and systematic arrangement into one whole, scattered and disjointed one from another, so as to appear to be in doubt and uncertainty, while they are in reality firm and steadfast, it will be of advantage, venerable brethren, to bring their teachings together here into one group, and to point out the connection between them, and thus to pass to an examination of the sources of the errors and to prescribe remedies for averting the evil. …
"Against this host of grave errors, and its secret and open advance, our predecessor, Leo XIII., of happy memory, worked strenuously, especially as regards the Bible, both in his words and his acts. But, as we have seen, the modernists are not easily deterred by such weapons; with an affectation of submission and respect they proceeded to twist the words of the Pontiff to their own sense, and his acts they described as directed against others than themselves. And the evil has gone on increasing from day to day. We therefore, venerable brethren, have determined to adopt at once the most efficacious measure in our power, and we beg and conjure you to see to it that in this most grave matter nobody will ever be able to say that you have been in the slightest degree wanting in vigilance, zeal or firmness. And what we ask of you and expect of you we ask and expect also of all other pastors of souls, of all educators and professors of clerics, and in a very special way of the superiors of religious institutions.
"I. In the first place, with regard to studies, we will and ordain that scholastic philosophy be made the basis of the sacred sciences, it goes without saying that if anything is met with among the scholastic doctors which may be regarded as an excess of subtlety, or which is altogether destitute of probability, we have no desire whatever to propose it for the imitation of present generations (Leo XIII. Enc. ‘Aeterni Patris’). And let it be clearly understood above all things that the scholastic philosophy we prescribe is that which the Angelic Doctor has bequeathed to us, and we, therefore, declare that all the ordinances of our predecessor on this subject continue fully in force, and, as far as may be necessary, we do decree anew and confirm and ordain that they be by all strictly observed. In seminaries where they may have been neglected let the Bishops impose them and require their observance, and let this apply also to the superiors of religious institutions. Further, let professors remember that they cannot set St. Thomas aside, especially in metaphysical questions, without grave detriment.
"On this philosophical foundation the theological edifice is to be solidly raised. Promote the study of theology, venerable brethren, by all means in your power, so that your clerics on leaving the seminaries may admire and love it, and always find their delight in it. For in the vast and varied abundance of studies opening before the mind desirous of truth everybody knows how the old maxim describes theology as so far in front of all others that every science and art should serve it and be to it as handmaidens. …
"With regard to profane studies, suffice it to recall here what our predecessor has admirably said: ‘Apply yourselves energetically to the study of natural sciences: the brilliant discoveries and the bold and useful applications of them made in our times, which have won such applause by our contemporaries, will be an object of perpetual praise for those that come after us’ (Leo XIII. Alloc., March 7, 1880). But this do without interference with sacred studies, as our predecessor in these most grave words prescribed: ‘If you carefully search for the cause of these errors, you will find that it lies in the fact that in these days, when the natural sciences absorb so much study, the more severe and lofty studies have been proportionately neglected; some of them have almost passed into oblivion, some of them are pursued in a half-hearted or superficial way, and, sad to say, now that they are fallen from their old estate, they have been disfigured by perverse doctrines and monstrous errors (_loco cit_.). We ordain, therefore, that the study of natural science in the seminaries be carried on under this law.’
"II. All these prescriptions and those of our predecessor are to be borne in mind whenever there is question of choosing directors and professors for seminaries and Catholic Universities. Anybody who in any way is found to be imbued with modernism is to be excluded without compunction from these offices, and those who already occupy them are to be withdrawn. The same policy is to be adopted towards those who favor modernism, either by extolling the modernists, or excusing their culpable conduct, by criticizing scholasticism, the Holy Father, or by refusing obedience to ecclesiastical authority in any of its depositories; and towards those who show a love of novelty in history, archaeology, Biblical exegesis, and finally towards those who neglect the sacred sciences or appear to prefer them to the profane. In all this question of studies, venerable brethren, you cannot be too watchful or too constant, but most of all in the choice of professors, for as a rule the students are modeled after the pattern of their masters. Strong in the consciousness of your duty, act always prudently, but vigorously.
"Equal diligence and severity are to be used in examining and selecting candidates for holy orders. Far, far from the clergy be the love of novelty. God hates the proud and the obstinate. For the future the doctorate of theology and canon law must never be conferred on anybody who has not made the regular course of scholastic philosophy, if conferred, it shall be held as null and void. The rules laid down in 1896 by the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars for the clerics, both secular and regular, of Italy, concerning the frequenting of the universities, we now decree to be extended to all nations. Clerics and priests inscribed in a Catholic institute or university must not in the future follow in civil universities those courses for which there are chairs in the Catholic institutes to which they belong. If this has been permitted anywhere in the past, we ordain that it be not allowed for the future. Let the Bishops who form the governing board of such Catholic institutes or universities watch with all care that these our commands be constantly observed.
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"III. It is also the duty of the Bishops to prevent writings infected with modernism or favorable to it from being read when they have been published, and to hinder their publication when they have not. No book or paper or periodical of this kind must ever be permitted to seminarists or university students. The injury to them would be equal to that caused by immoral reading—nay, it would be greater, for such writings poison Christian life at its very fount. The same decision is to be taken concerning the writings of some Catholics, who, though not badly disposed themselves, but ill instructed in theological studies and imbued with modern philosophy, strive to make this harmonize with the faith, and, as they say, to turn it to the account of the faith. The name and reputation of these authors cause them to be read without suspicion, and they are, therefore, all the more dangerous in preparing the way for modernism.
"To give you some more general directions, venerable brethren, in a matter of such moment, we bid you do everything in your power to drive out of your dioceses, even by solemn interdict, any pernicious books that may be in circulation there. …
"IV. But it is not enough to hinder the reading and the sale of bad books: it is also necessary to prevent them from being printed. Hence, let the Bishops use the utmost severity in granting permission to print. Under the rules of the Constitution ‘Officiorum,’ many publications require the authorization of the ordinary, and in some dioceses it has been made the custom to have a suitable number of official censors for the examination of writings. We have the highest praise for this institution, and we not only exhort, but we order that it be extended to all dioceses."
_Pope Pius X., The Doctrines of the Modernists (American Catholic Quarterly Review, October, 1907)._
See (in this Volume) TYRREL, FATHER GEORGE.
PAPACY: A. D. 1907-1909. Revision of St. Jerome’s Latin Translation of the Bible, known as "the Vulgate."
"In May, 1907, an announcement was made of the Pope's intention to revise the Latin Bible, and the work has already made such progress that the time has come to record not only the main lines upon which the revision is being carried out but also the actual completion of its preliminary preparations. … Pius X. … offered the honourable though costly and arduous task to the learned Order of the Benedictines, by whom it was accepted. A commission of revision was appointed, with Abbot Gasquet, the President of the English Benedictines, as its head, and the International College of the Order at San Anselmo in Rome was chosen as the headquarters of their work. It is here that Abbot Gasquet and his fellow-workers have already made a good start upon the vast labour which their Order has undertaken.
"The object of the Commission, according to the Pope’s definite instructions, is to determine and restore as far as possible the original text of St. Jerome’s Latin translation made in the fourth century. How far St. Jerome’s translation represents the Hebrew or Greek is another question which may be the subject some day for future criticism and another commission. … Pius X. has made it clear to the Commission that he desires their work of revision to be conducted on the most modern and scientific lines, and that neither money nor labour should be spared to make it as thorough as possible. An exhaustive search will be made through all the libraries of Europe in the hope of finding hitherto unrecognized manuscripts of the Vulgate. Already there are 15 collaborators at work in different centres, collating the best-known and most important manuscripts with the Clementine text, while another commission, with its assistants, is making a thorough examination of the libraries and cathedral archives of Spain in search of fresh material. …
"The method of work is as follows. For the purpose of collation copies of the Clementine text have been printed; each page being left blank for two-thirds of its surface, the text being printed on the remaining third with no capital letters, no stops, no word divided, so as to resemble manuscript as far as possible. When a reviser wishes to collate any manuscript he has only to correct this print like an ordinary proof-sheet and so reproduce every difference of the manuscript before him.
"The printing of these copies of the Vulgate, which are to form the basis of the collations, with the preparation of the texts and correction of proofs—no light matter—has been the work of the first year. Three hundred and sixty copies have been printed in all, one hundred upon the best hand-made paper, two hundred upon ordinary book paper, and sixty upon thin paper for the purpose of postage abroad. The Pope himself has defrayed the rather heavy cost of this production. Besides the printing of this Bible considerable progress has been made during the past year with the preparation of a hand list of all the Latin Biblical MSS. in the libraries of Europe, which, when completed, will be of great use to the revisers. As the collators finish their work in the various libraries or archives where Biblical manuscripts are found, they send their annotated copies to San Anselmo, where they are bound up and added to a collection which, when complete, will form a vast library of all the different versions of the Bible. Seven important collations have already been made, and at the present rate of work the number of these Volumes will increase very rapidly."
_Rome Correspondence of the London Times, July 21, 1909._
PAPACY: A. D. 1908. The new Apostolic Constitution of the Curia.
A change of far-reaching and great importance in the ecclesiastical constitution of the Roman Church was decreed by Pope Pius X. this year, by the promulgation of a new Apostolic Constitution of the Curia. It reorganized the numerous Congregations or departments of the Vatican Government which had exercised the judicial functions of the Curia for some generations past. The Pope now restores these functions to an ancient ecclesiastical court, the Rota, which had fallen out of use. The Rota is constituted as an international court, before which questions between priest and bishop, bishop and diocese, and the like, will have their hearing, and from which there is appeal to a tribunal of last resort, the Segnatura, composed of Cardinals alone.
{477}
The reorganization of the Congregation of the Propaganda by this new Constitution removes from that body the ecclesiastical jurisdiction it has exercised heretofore over the Church in Great Britain, Holland, the United States, Canada, and some other countries, thus taking them out of the Roman category of missionary lands.
PAPACY: A. D. 1908. The situation of the Church in France. No Organization that can hold Property.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1908.
PAPACY: A. D. 1909. Increased Participation by Catholics in the Italian Elections. Their Gain of Seats in Parliament.
See (in this Volume) ITALY: A. D. 1909 (MARCH).
PAPACY: A. D. 1909. Church Movement of Agricultural Labor Organization.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: ITALY.
PAPACY: A. D. 1909. Demonstration against the Religious Orders in Portugal.
See (in this Volume) PORTUGAL: A. D. 1909.
PAPACY: A. D. 1909 (April). The Beatification of Joan of Arc.
The ceremony of the Beatification of Joan of Arc was performed at St. Peter’s, in Rome, on the 18th of April, 1909. Proceedings which began about ten years before were brought by this ceremony to the end of their first stage, beyond which they must still be continued for possibly many years, before the Canonization of "the Maid" as a Saint becomes complete. The question of the Beatification had been under consideration in the Congregation of Rites for several years. The grounds on which that question is decided, in every case, were explained by _The Catholic Union and Times_, in connection with its account of the ceremony now referred to, as follows: The Congregation of Rites "may decide that the life of the person was a very worthy and very holy one, but they require much more than that. It must be proved to their satisfaction that ‘miracles’ have been performed. The Congregation of Rites requires evidence of not fewer than three miracles. In the case of ‘miraculous cures’ it must be shown that doctors have pronounced the cases hopeless, or that diseases have been cured which doctors call incurable. Usually the report contains particulars of a number of ‘miracles,’ from which the Congregation of Rites may make a selection. The three chosen among those attributed to Joan of Arc relate to the curing of nuns belonging to different communities, who are said to have obtained relief from their diseases by her intercession. One of these nuns had suffered for years from cancer and was on the point of death when, it was claimed, she was instantly cured by a prayer of Joan of Arc. When the Congregation of Rites has been satisfied as to the authenticity of three miracles they prepare their report, which is submitted to the Pope, who considers it. There is then a gathering at the Vatican, to which the public is admitted. Cardinals and bishops are present, and a lawyer of the papal court reads out the decision. After this, the ceremony of beatification generally takes place within a few months."
In January, 1910, it was announced in Paris that the ecclesiastical process for the Canonization would begin on February 9.
PAPACY: A. D. 1909 (May). Vote in British House of Commons for removal of remaining Catholic Disabilities.
See (in this Volume) ENGLAND: A. D). 1909 (MAY).
----------PAPACY: End--------
PAPER TRUST.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1906, and 1909.
PARAGUAY: A. D. 1901-1906.
## Participation in Second and Third International
Conferences of American Republics.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
PARAGUAY: A. D. 1902. A nearly bloodless Revolution. Deposition of President Aceval. Elevation of the Vice-President.
The following, translated from the Montevideo (Uruguay) _Dia_, of January 10, 1902, appears in the annual report of "Papers relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States," 1902, as transmitted by the United States Minister to Uruguay, and is probably an authentic account of the revolution described:
"Yesterday, at 10 o'clock in the morning, a revolutionary movement occurred in Asuncion del Paraguay, without bloodshed, without noise of arms, which immediately resulted in the imprisonment of the President of the Republic, Dr. Emilio Aceval, in the artillery barracks. A strange case—the chief magistrate of Paraguay has fallen, at least for the moment, on account of a revolution, inspired and carried into practice by two of his own ministers, Colonel Juan Antonio Escurra and Señor Fulgencio Moreno, who, although belonging to the same Colorado party as the President, differ in opinion at present, the former considering that a radical policy should be adopted against the liberals or civic accordists, Dr. Aceval not sharing this opinion, but being in favor of conciliatory measures, although this did not win for him the help of his traditional adversaries, who looked unfavorably on him, as is usually the way with those belonging to an opposite party."
In his note transmitting Montevideo newspaper reports, Minister Finch wrote of the occurrence: "It was, as will be seen, a bloodless affair; but out of it grew a discussion in the Paraguay Congress which was followed by shooting, one person being killed and several wounded."
PARAGUAY: A. D. 1904. Successful Revolution.
The beginning of a successful revolution was reported to Washington by the American Consul at Asuncion, in a despatch dated August 11, 1904, as follows: "I beg to confirm my telegram of to-day, stating that a revolution has broken out in this republic. … Revolutionary forces on the river and those of the Government have fought. … The Government forces were defeated, the Minister of the Interior, who led the forces, being taken prisoner. The state of siege as declared … places the entire country under military laws, and the Government, is amassing a large number of troops to suppress the revolution. It is impossible at present to say whether it will be of long or short duration. The revolutionary forces are proceeding up the river in boats, and the Government has placed or erected defenses along the river near the capital.
{478}
"Upon inquiries as to the cause of this revolution I am informed that the opposition to the Government is that the party in power is endeavoring to exclude entirely the liberal element from participation in the administration of affairs, assigning that said party, which is in power, which is denominated ‘Colorados,’ have not sufficient persons prepared for the administration of the Government. On the other hand, the ‘Colorados’ assign that the revolution is due to ambitious persons who form an opposition and are classed under the name ‘Azul,’ colorados meaning ‘reds’ and azul ‘blues.’"
It was not until four months later that the Consul could announce the return of peace, secured by the triumph of the revolution. The president, Colonel Ezcurra, was compelled to resign, and Señor Juan Gauna was elected in his place; the army was reorganized; a general amnesty was proclaimed.
PARDO, PRESIDENT JOSE.
See (in this Volume) PERU.
PARKER, Alton B.: Nominated for President of the United States.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1904 (MARCH-NOVEMBER).
PARKER, Edward Wheeler: On the Anthracite Coal Strike Arbitration Commission.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1902-1903.
PAROLE SYSTEM.
See (in this Volume) CRIME AND CRIMINOLOGY.
PARSONS, CHARLES A.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: TURBINE ENGINE.
## PARTIES:
Agrarian Socialists.
See (in this Volume) FINLAND: A. D. 1908-1909.
## PARTIES:
Anti-Revolutionnaire.
See (in this Volume) NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1905-1909.
## PARTIES:
Azul.
See (in this Volume) PARAGUAY: A. D. 1904.
## PARTIES:
Blues (Conservatives).
See (in this Volume) COLOMBIA: A. D. 1898-1902.
## PARTIES:
Boshin Club.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1909.
## PARTIES:
Cadets.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1905-1907.
## PARTIES:
Catholic Peoples’ Party.
See (in this Volume) AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1904.
## PARTIES:
Center, or Centrum.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1906-1907.
## PARTIES:
Centro Catolico.
SEE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1907.
## PARTIES:
Christian Workmen.
See (in this Volume) FINLAND: A. D. 1908-1909.
## PARTIES:
Christlijk.
See (in this Volume) NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1905-1909.
## PARTIES:
Civilistas.
See (in this Volume) PERU.
## PARTIES:
Clerical.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1903, and 1906; BELGIUM: A. D. 1904; GERMANY: A. D. 1906, and 1908-1909.
## PARTIES:
Colorados.
See (in this Volume) PARAGUAY: A. D. 1902, and 1904.
## PARTIES:
Confederates.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1909 (January-May).
## PARTIES:
Conservatives.
See (in this Volume) GERMANY: A. D. 1906, and 1908-1909.
## PARTIES:
Conservative-Unionist.
See (in this Volume) ENGLAND: A. D. 1905-1906, 1909 (April-December), and 1910.
## PARTIES:
Continental.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1904 (MARCH-NOVEMBER), AND 1908 (MARCH-NOVEMBER).
## PARTIES:
Constitutional Democrats.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1905-1907.
## PARTIES:
Daido Club.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1909.
## PARTIES:
Democratas.
See (in this Volume) PERU.
## PARTIES:
Democratic.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES; A. D. 1904 (MAY-NOVEMBER), and 1908 (APRIL-NOVEMBER).
## PARTIES:
Democristiana.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: ITALY.
## PARTIES:
Democratique and Gauche Democratique.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1906.
## PARTIES:
Doshi-shukai.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1903 (JUNE).
## PARTIES:
Fabian Society.
See (in this Volume) SOCIALISM: ENGLAND: A. D. 1909.
## PARTIES:
Fedakiarans.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1909 (JANUARY-MAY).
## PARTIES:
Federal Party, Filipino.
See (in this Volume) PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1901, and 1907.
## PARTIES:
Free Traders.
See (in this Volume) AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1905-1906.
## PARTIES:
Independents.
See (in this Volume) PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1907.
## PARTIES:
Independent Labor.
See (in this Volume) ENGLAND: A. D. 1905-1906.
## PARTIES:
Independistas.
See (in this Volume) PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1907.
## PARTIES:
Inmediatistas.
See (in this Volume) Philippine Islands: A. D. 1907.
## PARTIES:
Intransigentes.
See (in this Volume) PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1907.
## PARTIES:
Kossuth Party, or Independence Party.
See (in this Volume) AUSTRIA HUNGARY: A. D. 1902-1903.
## PARTIES:
Labor Party.
See (in this Volume) AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1903-1904, and after; ENGLAND: A. D. 1903, and 1905-1906; also SOCIALISM: ENGLAND.
## PARTIES:
League of Liberation.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1905-1907.
## PARTIES:
Liberal-Conservative Separatist.
See (in this Volume) AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1904.
## PARTIES:
Liberals.
See (in this Volume) CUBA: A. D. 1906, and after; ENGLAND: A. D. 1905-1906, 1909 (APRIL-DECEMBER), and 1910; TURKEY: A. D. 1909 (January-May).
## PARTIES:
Miguelistas.
See (in this Volume) CUBA: A. D. 1906-1909.
## PARTIES:
Moderates.
See (in this Volume) LONDON: A. D. 1909 (March); DENMARK: A. D. 1901, and CUBA: A. D. 1906, and after.
## PARTIES:
Moderate Republicans.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1909 (JANUARY).
## PARTIES:
Nacionalistas.
See (in this Volume) PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1907.
## PARTIES:
National Liberty.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1904 (MARCH-NOVEMBER ).
## PARTIES:
Nationalists.
See (in this Volume) France: A. D. 1906.
## PARTIES:
Octobrists.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1904-1905.
## PARTIES:
Old Finns.
See (in this Volume) FINLAND: A. D. 1908-1909.
## PARTIES:
Peoples, or Populist.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1904 (MARCH-NOVEMBER), UNITED STATES: A. D. 1908 (APRIL-NOVEMBER).
## PARTIES:
Progresistas.
See (in this Volume) PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1907, PORTUGAL: A. D. 1906-1909.
## PARTIES:
Progressists.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1906; JAPAN: A. D. 1909.
## PARTIES:
Progressives.
See (in this Volume) LONDON: A. D. 1909 (MARCH); SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1902-1904.
## PARTIES:
Prohibition.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1904 (MARCH-NOVEMBER), and 1908 (APRIL-NOVEMBER).
## PARTIES:
Protectionists.
See (in this Volume) AUSTRALIA: A.D. 1903-1904, and after.
## PARTIES:
Radicals and Radical Socialists.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1906.
## PARTIES:
Ralliés.
See (in this Volume) RALLIÉS.
## PARTIES:
Regeneradors.
See (in this Volume) PORTUGAL: A. D. 1906-1909.
## PARTIES:
Republican.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1904 (MAY-NOVEMBER), and 1908 (APRIL-NOVEMBER).
## PARTIES:
Rikken Seiyu-kai, or Seiyu-kai.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1902 (AUGUST); 1903 (JUNE), and 1909;
See in Volume VI., JAPAN: A. D. 1900.
## PARTIES:
Sinn Fein.
See (in this Volume) IRELAND: A. D 1905.
{479}
## PARTIES:
Social Democrats.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA A. D. 1905-1907; GERMANY: A. D. 1903; DENMARK: A. D. 1906; SOCIALISM: GERMANY, SOCIALISM: FRANCE, SOCIALISM: ENGLAND.
## PARTIES:
Social Revolutionists.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1905-1907.
## PARTIES:
Socialist, and Socialist Labor.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1904 (MARCH-NOVEMBER), and 1908 (APRIL-NOVEMBER).
## PARTIES:
Socialists, Radical. Socialists, Independent. Socialists Unified.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1906.
## PARTIES:
Sons of Liberal Ottomans.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1909 (JANUARY-MAY).
## PARTIES:
Union Republicaine.
See (in this Volume) France: A. D. 1906.
## PARTIES:
Yellows (Liberals).
See (in this Volume) COLOMBIA: A. D. 1898-1902.
## PARTIES:
Young Egypt.
See (in this Volume) EGYPT: A. D. 1909 (SEPTEMBER).
## PARTIES:
Young Finns.
See (in this Volume) FINLAND: A. D. 1908-1909.
## PARTIES:
Young Turks.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1908 (JULY-DECEMBER).
## PARTIES:
Yushin-kai.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1909.
## PARTIES:
Zayistas.
See (in this Volume) CUBA: A. D. 1906-1909.
PARTY REFORMS, Political.
See (in this Volume) ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: UNITED STATES.
PASSAY, FREDERIC.
See (in this Volume) NOBEL PRIZES.
PASSIONISTS: Forbidden to Teach in France.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1903.
"PASSIVE RESISTANCE," OF ENGLISH NONCONFORMISTS TO THE EDUCATION ACT OF 1902.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: ENGLAND: A. D. 1902, AND 1909 (MAY).
PASTEUR, Louis: Pronounced by Popular Vote to be the Greatest Frenchman of the Nineteenth Century.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1907-1908.
PATENTS OF INVENTION: GREAT BRITAIN: A. D. 1907. Patents and Designs Act.
A requirement of the manufacture of patented articles in the United Kingdom, introduced in an Act of the British Parliament passed and approved in August, 1907, which came into force August 28, 1908, seriously changed the operation of patents issued to foreigners. It is contained in the following sections:
"27.—(1) At any time not less than four years after the date of a patent and not less than one year after the passing of this Act, any person may apply to the comptroller for the revocation of the patent on the ground that the patented article or process is manufactured or carried on exclusively or mainly outside the United Kingdom.
"(2) The comptroller shall consider the application, and, if after enquiry he is satisfied that the allegations contained therein are correct, then, subject to the provisions of this section, and unless the patentee proves that the patented article or process is manufactured or carried on to an adequate extent in the United Kingdom, or gives satisfactory reasons why the article or process is not so manufactured or carried on, the comptroller may make an order revoking the patent either—(a) forthwith; or (b) after such reasonable interval as may be specified in the order, unless in the meantime it is shown to his satisfaction that the patented article or process is manufactured or carried on within the United Kingdom to an adequate extent: Provided that no such order shall be made which is at variance with any treaty, convention, arrangement, or engagement with any foreign country or British possession.
"(3) If within the time limited in the order the patented article or process is not manufactured or carried on within the United Kingdom to an adequate extent, but the patentee gives satisfactory reasons why it is not so manufactured or carried on, the comptroller may extend the period mentioned in the previous order for such period not exceeding twelve months as may be specified in the subsequent order.
"(4) Any decision of the comptroller under this section shall be subject to appeal to the court, and on any such appeal the law officer or such other counsel as he may appoint shall be entitled to appear and be heard."
Twelve months after the Act became effective the London _Times_ gave the following account of its working:
"During the year which has elapsed since Section 27 came into force, 69 applications for revocation of foreign patents have been made to the Comptroller-General. In 10 cases only were patents revoked by that official. In four of these cases the patentees appealed to the High Court, and in two cases relating to improvements in electric arc lamps, the decision of the Comptroller-General was reversed, evidence having been adduced which was not placed before the Comptroller-General, the effect of which was to show that the patented process was being adequately carried on in this country. The two other appeals to the High Court were unsuccessful, so that the number of patents finally revoked was eight. Those revoked related to the following articles or processes:—Artificial stone slabs and tiles (two patents), sewing-machines, umbrellas, adhesive stays or fastening straps used in box-making, the lubrication of gig-mills, a steam motor-car, and locks. In another case, that of a patent connected with the manufacture of china clay, the Comptroller-General made a conditional order of revocation.
"It is too early, as yet, to say whether this new power of revocation conferred by the Act of 1907 is likely to have any appreciable effect in reducing the number of foreign patents taken out in this country. In the first seven months of this year there were 17,869 such patents applied for—an increase of 1566 as compared with the corresponding period of 1908, though only an increase of 319 upon the larger figures for the first seven months of 1907. Sixteen fewer patents were taken out in 1909 by American subjects than in 1908, and 331 fewer than in 1907. The decrease in German patents has been consistent—2000 in 1907, 1822 in 1908, and 1735 in 1909, and the same may be said of Austrian patents—253, 234, and 192 respectively. French patents, which were 620 in 1907 and 670 in 1908, decreased to 560 in 1909.
PATENTS: Pan-American Convention.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
PAULHAN, M.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: AERONAUTICS.
PAUPERISM.
See (in this Volume) POVERTY.
PAWLOW, Ivan PETROVIE.
See (in this Volume) NOBEL PRIZES.
PAYNE, HENRY C.: Postmaster-General.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1905.
{480}
PAYNE-ALDRICH TARIFF.
See (in this Volume) TARIFFS: UNITED STATES.
PEACE.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST.
PEACE, International: Awards for the Promotion of.
See (in this Volume) NOBEL PRIZES.
PEACE CONFERENCE AT THE HAGUE, The Second International.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1907.
PEACE TREATY, BOER-BRITISH.
See (in this Volume) SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1901-1902.
PEACE TREATY OF PORTSMOUTH.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1905 (JUNE-OCTOBER).
PEARY, Robert E.: Exploration and Discovery of the North Pole.
See (in this Volume) POLAR EXPLORATION: ARCTIC.
PEASANT INSURRECTION IN THE BALTIC PROVINCES.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1905 (FEBRUARY-NOVEMBER).
PEASANTRY, CONDITION OF RUSSIAN.
See (in this Volume) Russia: A. D. 1901-1904, 1902, 1904-1905, 1905, and 1906.
PECANHA, Nilo: President of Brazil.
See (in this Volume) BRAZIL: A. D. 1909 (JUNE).
PEKING: A. D. 1902. Return of the Imperial Court.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1902.
PEKING-KALGAN RAILWAY.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: CHINA.
PELLAGRA.
See (in this Volume) PUBLIC HEALTH: PELLAGRA.
PENNA, DR. ALFONSO MOREIRA: President of Brazil.
See (in this Volume ) BRAZIL: A. D. 1906.
PENNA, DR. ALFONSO MOREIRA: Sudden death.
See (in this Volume) BRAZIL: A. D. 1909 (JUNE).
PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1906. Reform Legislation.
The popular revolt of 1905 in Philadelphia against the intolerable rottenness of municipal government under the dominant party "machine" had prompt effects in the State.
See (in this Volume) MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT.
"When the election, last November, and still more the reports made by working politicians in the best organized and informed machine in the land, showed that these classes wanted a change, the machine and its leaders changed instantly. A pliant governor was as prompt to call the Legislature in extra session as he had been to find reasons for the vilest excess of the political plunderers of the State. The same Legislature as before met, and in a brief session passed every measure for which reformers had been asking in vain for twenty-five years,—two of them in more drastic form than any one had yet proposed. Save that the Corrupt Practices Act is more precise and severe than any yet passed, except in Connecticut, and the separation and protection of the civil service of Philadelphia more complete than has yet been enacted for an American city, the new legislation follows the general trend of such measures in other States."
_Review of Reviews, April, 1906_.
PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1906-1908. Frauds in the Construction of the new State Capitol.
On the 4th of October, 1906, the new State House at Harrisburg was dedicated with imposing ceremonies, honored by the President of the United States as the principal speaker of the occasion. The State of Pennsylvania was then indulging more pride in the supposed honesty and economy with which it had been built than in the splendor it displayed; for announcement was made that the Commission charged with the work had saved about 10 per cent of the $4,000,000 appropriated for it. Very quickly, however, there came an humiliation of that honorable pride. Complete accountings showed that, while the naked structure of the building had cost but $3,600,000, a monstrous expenditure of more than $9,000,000 for alleged decoration and furnishing had been added to that sum, by the most audacious "graft," perhaps, that is recorded, even in the national history which included the exploits of the Tweed Ring. The arts of sculpture and painting in the decoration were dealt with most frugally; but royal emoluments went to gas-fitters and cabinet makers and their kind,—$2,000,000 for example, for the equipment of the building with chandeliers. For woodwork in one suite of rooms, which cost the contractor $16,089 the State had paid $94,208. For another, he had received $62,486, on an expenditure by himself of but $6,145.
The investigation of these monstrous frauds, in the fruits of which many people must have shared, resulted in the arrest of fourteen men. The arrests were made in September, 1907, and the accused were released on bail. In the following March four were convicted of defrauding the State, namely J. H. Sanderson, a contractor, W. P. Snyder, former Auditor-General of the State, W. L. Mathues, former State Treasurer, and J. M. Shumaker, former Superintendent of Public Grounds and Buildings. The execution of the sentence was suspended pending an appeal.
Sanderson and Mathues died (of nervous breakdown, it was said), while the appeal was pending. The conviction of Snyder and Shumaker was confirmed finally on the 7th of March, 1910, and their sentence to two years of imprisonment went into effect. At the same time suits were instituted by the State against all parties connected with the frauds, to recover some $5,000,000, estimated to be the amount of plunder taken. Meantime, seven in all of the alleged participants in the conspiracy of fraud had died.
PENOLOGY.
See (in this Volume) CRIME.
PENSIONS, FOR OLD AGE AND INFIRMITY.
See (in this Volume) POVERTY, PROBLEMS OF.
PENSIONS: Military.
See (in this Volume) GERMANY: A. D. 1902.
PENSIONS: United States: For Teachers.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1905-1908.
PENSIONS: For Railway Employees.
See (in this Volume) LABOR REMUNERATION: PENSIONS.
PEONAGE: In the United States.
The following extracts are from three reports of an official investigation of practices of peonage, conducted by the Assistant Attorney-General of the United States, Mr. Charles W. Russell, in 1906-1907:
"Under the criminal law as now in force the offense of peonage may be defined as causing compulsory service to be rendered by one man to another on the pretext of having him work out the amount of a debt, real or claimed. That is Mexican peonage proper, as defined by our highest court in the Clyatt case (197 U. S., p. 207). But, as fully explained in my report of October, 1907, and January, 1908, where there is no indebtedness either real or claimed, a _conspiracy_ to cause compulsory service of _citizens_ of the United States is punishable; and so, also, according to the only court that has directly passed upon the question, is the carrying or enticing any person from one place to another in order that he may be held in compulsory service.
{481}
"I use the words ‘compulsory service’ as equivalent to the constitutional phrase ‘involuntary servitude’ because the Supreme Court so treats them in the Clyatt case, and I say that a mere claim of debt is sufficient because several inferior courts have so decided, and because in the Clyatt case the indictment, to which no objection seems to have been made, alleged a mere claim of indebtedness."
For an illustration of peonage, Mr. Russell cites the following from evidence produced at the trial of a case occurring in Alabama which he took part in:
"It was proven that Harlan, the manager, had headquarters at Lockhart, where the mill was; that in his back yard were kept what were called bloodhounds—man-trailing dogs; that the object of keeping these was to send after escaping men; that they were so used, and men chased and brought back, one of them tied on the hind part of a buggy; that one of the men, the Bulgarian Jordmans, was unmercifully kicked and beaten by Gallagher for wandering off a few yards, his sore shins being exhibited to the jury as part of the evidence; that by means of telegraph, railroad, and telephone, a justice of the peace, and a deputy sheriff, the force of men were hemmed in so that escape was almost impossible; that the foremen constantly carried pistols and often made threats; that a rope was placed around the neck of one foreigner and thrown over a beam as an object-lesson to others and to frighten him, and that all this went on systematically'. …
"I have no doubt, from my investigations and experiences, that the chief support of peonage is the peculiar system of State laws prevailing in the South, intended evidently to compel service on the part of the workingman.
"It is hoped that an enlightened self-interest and the demand for labor made necessary by the expansion of old industries and the introduction of new will lead to the amendment or repeal of the State laws which are the chief support of peonage practices.
"These State laws take various forms and are used in various ways to uphold peonage and other kinds of involuntary servitude. Some of them are vagrancy laws, some contract labor or employment laws, some fraudulent pretense or false promise laws, and there are divers others. Some few of those in question, such as absconding debtor laws, labor enticing, and board-bill laws, were not originally passed to enslave workmen; but in view of the use to which they are put, need amendment in order that they cannot be so abused.
"These laws are used to threaten workmen who, having been defrauded into going to an employer by false reports as to the conditions of employment and the surroundings, naturally become dissatisfied as soon as they find how they have been defrauded. They are used before juries and the local public to hold the peons up as law-breakers and dishonest persons seeking to avoid their ‘just obligations’ and to convince patriotic juries that the defendants accused of peonage should not be convicted for enforcing, still less for threatening to enforce, the laws of their State.
"Until we began our work in October, 1906, the chief supply of peons came from the slums—i. e., foreign quarters of New York, and from Ellis Island, through the operations of licensed labor agents of New York. These were reaping a rich harvest from the price per head for laborers supplied to employers at a distance, and the temptations to fill all orders and outdo rival agents by a total disregard of truth and honesty in dealing with both laborer and employer was too great for a number of these brokers."
PEPPER, CHARLES M.: Delegate to Second International Conference of American Republics.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
PERDICARIS, ION: Ransomed from a Moorish Brigand.
See (in this Volume) MOROCCO: A. D. 1904-1909.
PEREIRA, JOSE HYGINO DUARTE: Vice-President of Second International Conference of American Republics.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
PERRY, COMMODORE MATTHEW CALBRAITH: Monument in Japan to commemorate his Advent there in 1853.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1901 (JULY).
----------PERSIA: Start--------
PERSIA: A. D. 1905-1907. Beginnings of the Revolutionary Movement, in the Life of Shah Muzaffer-ed-Din. The Taking of "Bast," and its effect. he Extortion of a Constitution and Election of a Representative Assembly. Death of the Shah.
The following account of conditions and events which opened, attended and followed the late constitutional revolution in Persia have been derived, partly from official correspondence of the period, between the British Legation at Teheran (or Tehran) and the Foreign Office at London, as published in Blue
## Book Cd. 4581, 1909, and partly from letters and despatches to
the leading journals of London and New York.
The Shah, Muzaffer-ed-Din, who came to the throne in 1896, on the assassination of his father, Nâsr-ed-Din (see, in Volume VI. of this work, PERSIA), was credited with a desire to reform the government of his kingdom, and made considerable effort to that end in the early years of his reign; but the adverse forces controlling his court were too strong for him, and he seems to have yielded to them completely at last. He was surrounded by a corrupt ring which lived on the spoils of government, and piled debt upon debt. Under the last of the Grand Viziers (Atabegs, or Atabeks) who ruled Persia in his name before the outbreak of revolution, "governments were put up for sale, grain was hoarded and sold at extortionate prices, the Government domains were stolen or sold for the benefit of the conspirators, rich men were summoned to Teheran (or Tehran) and forced to disgorge large sums of money, oppression of every sort was countenanced for a consideration; the property, and even the lives, of all Persian subjects were at their mercy. {482} Finally, there was every reason to believe that a conspiracy was on foot to dethrone the foolish and impotent Shah and to oust the Valiahd [heir to the throne]. In their place was to be put the Shooa-es-Sultaneh, the Shah’s younger son, who was a by-word even in Persia for extortion and injustice. The policy of the Atabeg and his friends had thus aroused the opposition of all classes in Persia: of the few more or less patriotic statesmen, who knew to what a goal the country was being led; of the priests, who felt that their old power and independence would perish with that of their country; and of the great mass of the population and the mercantile classes, who were the daily victims of the tyranny of their oppressors. In December [1905] the storm broke. The Governor of Tehran, without any just cause, ordered an aged Seyed to be cruelly beaten. A large number of the prominent Mujteheds took ‘bast’ [refuge] in the shrine of Shah Abdul Azim, near the capital."
The "taking of ‘bast,’" or refuge, in some sanctuary or other place of protection, is an old Persian mode of political protest or demonstration, to command attention to public discontents. In 1848 the chief persons of the Empire had taken refuge with the English and Russian Legations in order to obtain the exile of a tyrannical Minister, Mirza Aghassi, and since then it had been the custom of persons who had grievances against their own Government to take refuge under the shelter of a foreign Legation. The "Mujteheds" mentioned in the above quotation as having resorted to this expedient in December, are the higher and more influential of the Mohammedan priests in Persia, distinguished from the Mullahs or common priests, whose ranks are open to any believer who can read the Koran and who assumes to interpret its laws.
The Government used vain endeavors of bribery and intimidation to break up the "bast" at the shrine of Shah Abdul Azim. The refugees had stirred up the whole country by a published statement of grievances, appealing to the patriotism of the people, and the Shah surrendered to the effect produced. He made promises of a grant of popular representation, and of administrative reforms. By the end of January a promising state of affairs seemed to have been brought about. "The refugees were brought back to Tehran in the Shah’s own carriages, escorted by an enthusiastic crowd." But dissensions between the popular leaders and the Mujteheds soon arose. "No definite step was taken to give effect to the Shah’s promises, except a vague letter promising Courts of Justice and a new Code, and the appointment of a Council to consider the whole question of reforms. In this Council it soon became evident that the Government could control the leaders of the reform movement, and that the sympathies of the great Mujteheds were not heartily with the popular movement. All was outwardly quiet in Tehran, but in the provinces the people of Shiraz and Resht had taken violent measures to prevent the reappointment of the Shah’s sons as their Governors, and the movement in both cases was successful. In the capital itself the streets and the bazaars were quiet, but every day sermons were preached in the mosques, in which, as one of the popular party said, ‘What we hardly dared to think a year ago was openly spoken.’ The best-known preacher of Tehran, a Prince of the Imperial house, preached every Friday against the tyrannies and corruption of the Government. An order for his expulsion was issued. The chief Mujteheds, incited by the people, pressed the Government to withdraw the measure, and the Government had to yield."
In the middle of May the Shah had a paralytic stroke and was removed to the country. For some weeks there was a lull in the popular agitation. Then, early in July, the principal Mujteheds were roused by the conduct of the Grand Vizier to a fresh preaching of revolt. On the 11th the Vizier ordered the arrest of one of the preachers; a crowd of people attempted to rescue him, and was fired on by the troops. General rioting in the capital ensued, with victory, for a time, on the side of the people; but in the end the Government appeared to have won the day. "The town was in the hands of the troops. The popular leaders had fled. The Shah was in the hands of their opponents. For the popular party the outlook was a grave one."
In these circumstances the leaders had recourse again to the "bast," and this time in a Foreign Legation.
"On the evening of the 9th fifty Mullahs and merchants appeared at the Legation and took up their quarters for the night. Their numbers soon increased, and on the 2nd September there were about 14,000 persons in the Legation garden. Their conduct was most orderly. The crowd of refugees was organized by the heads of the guilds, who took measures to prevent any unauthorized person from entering the Legation grounds. Tents were put up and regular feeding places and times of feeding were provided for. The expense was borne by the principal merchants. No damage of a wilful character was done to the garden, although, of course, every semblance of a bed was trampled out of existence, and the trees still bear pious inscriptions cut in the bark. Colonel Douglas, the Military Attache, kept watch over the Legation buildings, but no watch was needed. Discipline and order were maintained by the refugees themselves.
"The Government sent answers to the popular demands, which they requested Mr. Grant Duff to read to the people. The Government communications were received with derision. At last there appeared to be no other resource than a personal appeal to the Shah. The people stated firmly that unless their demands were granted they would remain in the Legation, as it was their only place of safety, and they maintained that until the Shah knew what was the real situation their requests would never receive due consideration. Mr. Grant Duff obtained the consent of His Majesty’s Government, and announced to the Minister for Foreign Affairs that he demanded an audience. An audience was fixed for the 30th July. The audience, however, never took place. The Commander of several of the Tehran regiments, on whom the Minister of the Court and the Grand Vizier chiefly depended, made the fatal announcement that his troops would not serve against the people, and that they were on the point of themselves taking refuge in the British Legation. The Court party yielded. The Sadr Azam [Grand Vizier] resigned, and the Azad-ul-Mulk, head of the Kajar tribe [the tribe of the imperial dynasty], proceeded to Kum in order to inform the refugee Mullahs that the Shah had granted their demands for a National Assembly and for Courts of Justice.
{483}
"The chief difficulty which then confronted Mr. Grant Dull was that the people had entirely lost confidence in their own Government, and declined to treat with them except through the British Representative. When the Government made the announcement of the projected reforms, the people answered that they would not accept the promise of the Government unless it was confirmed and guaranteed by the Government of the King of England. This was naturally impossible. Acting under instructions, Mr. Grant Duff informed the refugees that he could do no more for them, and entirely declined to guarantee the execution of the Shah’s Decrees. The Government then attempted to come to an arrangement direct. It failed. The popular leaders rejected the Shah’s Decrees as vague or inadequate, and where posted up in the city they were torn down and trampled on. In this extremity the Government again appealed to Mr. Grant Duff and begged him for his assistance. At his suggestion a meeting took place at the residence of the new Grand Vizier, the late Minister for Foreign Affairs, between the Government and the popular leaders. After a long discussion, at which Mr. Grant Duff took no part except when questioned, an agreement was arrived at, and an amended Rescript published which definitely promised a National Representative assembly [in the Persian language a Mejlis or Medjliss] with legislative powers. The Rescript was read out in the British Legation to the assembled refugees and was received with enthusiasm. … On the night of the 16th the Mujteheds returned amid popular plaudits, and on the 18th a grand meeting was held in the Palace precincts as a sort of earnest of the National Assembly."
The Court party, however, had only suffered an appearance of defeat. It spent the next week "in gradually paring down all the Shah’s promises, and in the production of a Rescript in which the original project of the Constitution was hardly recognizable. The late Grand Vizier, who had lingered in the neighborhood, suddenly returned to his country seat near the Shah’s residence, and the Shah absolutely refused to sign the Regulations for the Assembly. The popular excitement was intense. Notice was served on Mr. Grant Duff that the people would again take refuge in the Legation, if necessary, by force. About twenty-five of the leaders actually did take up their quarters there. It seemed as if the disturbances were about to break out anew." But now the Russian Minister came into cooperation with Mr. Grant Duff, in representations to the Shah that overcame the evil influences by which he was swayed. Regulations for the election of delegates to the Assembly were now signed; but fresh difficulties arose from the refusal of provincial governors to carry them out. These in turn were overcome and the elections were held. "Meanwhile it had been decided, in order to avoid delay, that the Tehran Members of the Council should meet at once, without waiting for the provincial Delegates, and the first session of the new Assembly was opened [October 7, 1906] by the Shah himself, in the presence of the priests, the Court, and the foreign representatives. … The provincial Members arrived one by one as they were elected, and as yet there are many vacant places, the provinces not showing much alacrity in electing their Members. The Assembly soon showed its power. It refused absolutely to consent to the Anglo-Russian advance [of a preferred loan] on the ground that the public revenues ought not to be pledged to foreigners. It announced its intention of instituting reforms, especially in the finances of the country, and of providing itself the necessary funds for carrying on the Government by founding and endowing a National Bank. But, before taking any steps of this nature, it insisted on having a signed Constitution. A Committee was nominated to consider the terms of the Constitution, and, in consultation with a Committee named by the Government, a Constitution was drawn up and submitted to the Chamber." It did not satisfy the popular demand and scenes of confusion followed; but in the end it was amended and approved, and, on the 1st of January, 1907, the important instrument, ratified by the Shah and by the Valiahd—the heir to the crown—was delivered to the Assembly and received with joy. One week later, on the 8th of January, the Shah died.
The text of the Constitution, as translated for communication to the British Government, is given in this Volume under the heading—CONSTITUTION OF PERSIA.
PERSIA: A. D. 1907 (January-September). The new Shah, Mohammed Ali. His evil surroundings. Hostility between him and the Assembly. Prime Ministry of Atabeg-i-Azam. The Government without money. Inaction of the Assembly. Discouragement of the Atabeg. His assassination.
The new Shah, who assumed the crown under the name or title of Mohammed Ali Shah, professed acquiescence in the constitutional change which the nation had forced his father to accept; but those who knew him appear to have expected that he would act a perfidious part. That improved conditions in the country were far from settled became apparent very soon. As early as the 30th of January, Sir C. Spring-Rice, who had succeeded Mr. Grant Duff as the diplomatic representative of Great Britain, wrote to his Government: "I regret to state that the prospects of a good understanding between the Shah and the popular party are still remote. The _entourage_ of the Shah, especially his father-in-law, the Naib-es-Sultaneh, is personally interested in the continuance of the existing abuses; and their influence has certainly made itself felt to a regrettable extent, and has led to increasing agitation against the Shah himself. On the other hand the
## action of the popular Assembly has not been such as to lead to
conciliation."
The precariousness of the situation in the country, the paralysis of government and the prevalence of disorder during a number of months following, may be indicated sufficiently by a few passages from the despatches of Sir C. Spring-Rice and Mr. Charles M. Marling, Charge d’Affaires to the British Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Sir Edward Grey:
{484}
_February 27, 1907._ "It is clear that a national movement of a semi-political and semi-religious character does exist and is spreading. The great Mujteheds of Kerbela are now entering on the scene, and delegates are being sent out from the capital to the provinces to preach the principles of liberty. Patriotism, of a distinctive Persian type, has always been the characteristic of the Shiite believers. The present Shah of Persia has no religious status, and, in the view of the religious leaders, no fundamental right to the allegiance of the Persians, whose real chief is no living King, but the twelfth Imam, the coming Messiah, even now present on the earth, though unseen. The patriotism of the Shiite does not therefore centre in the person of the Kaliph, but is, or can be, of a highly revolutionary character."
_May 23._ An "important question has arisen in relation to an addition to the Constitution, guaranteeing equal treatment for all Persian subjects, irrespective of their creed. The mullahs protested. Of the three great Mujteheds, only one—Seyid Mohamed—declared in favour of it. The others, supported by a large body of the clergy, maintain that Mussulman law must be enforced in a Mussulman country. The clerical world is divided on the subject. A large number of the priests, headed by Seyid Mohamed and the popular preacher Sheikh Jamal-ed-Din, declare openly that the law of Mahommed is a law of liberty and equality, and that those who say otherwise are traitors to their country and unworthy of their religion. The representative of the Parsees informs me that he has great hopes that a decision will be taken favourable to toleration; but the matter is still in suspense."
"The Atabeg-i-Azam [about whom something will be told below] arrived at Tehran the 26th April, and was formally appointed President of the Council of Ministers and Minister of the Interior on the 2nd May. He proceeded to the National Assembly on the 4th May, accompanied by his whole Cabinet, and made a statement of policy."
"The tone of the local press is getting more and more democratic, and new papers are constantly appearing. There are at present nearly thirty papers published in Tehran alone, including several dailies. Papers are also published in nearly all the provinces, and a Persian paper of a very anti-dynastic tone is published at Baku and widely circulated in Persia. Anonymous pamphlets are also widely spread in Tehran as before. A number of them are printed at Baku, and are remarkable for their inflammatory character. The Tehran pamphlets are chiefly directed against the Atabeg-i-Azam and the Government."
_June 18._ "The financial condition of the Government is, if possible, worse than ever. The police of the capital are on strike; it has been found almost impossible to scrape together money enough to induce the Tehran troops to leave for the scene of the rebellion."
"The Government would, if it dared, borrow abroad to meet its present liabilities. But, in view of the popular sentiment, it does not resort to a foreign loan. It appeals to the Assembly for help, in the form of subscriptions to the proposed National Bank. The answer it receives is that the people will subscribe as soon as the rich nobles, who are known to have large sums of money, show the way. This the rich refuse to do. As to raising money by taxation, the Assembly appears to be convinced that as soon as the Government has any money in hand it will use it for the destruction of the Medjliss. Any effective control of expenditure is regarded as quite out of the question. The exasperation against the Shah is rapidly increasing."
"There is a considerable difference between the north and the south. In the south the popular movement has an almost farcical character; it turns on personal or pecuniary questions. In the north there appears to be a more or less definite political aim and a keen sense of patriotism. So far there is no sign of an anti-foreign outbreak."
_July 19._ "The general condition of the whole country is undoubtedly bad, and is probably slightly worse than last month. The disturbances at Tehran have been chiefly brought about by artificial means to serve the purposes of the reactionaries. There seems, however, no reason to regard it as dangerous, though the Government has every appearance of being bankrupt, and artificial demonstrations are of daily occurrence. There is so far no reason to fear an outbreak and consequent danger to foreign lives or property."
_August 15._ "The Assembly still continues to sit, and it celebrated the anniversary of the grant of the Constitution amid great scenes of popular enthusiasm. But it has done, and is doing, nothing of practical value. Its proceedings are disorderly, and it comes to no decision. The covert opposition of the Shah and his friends is conducted with considerable skill through a section of the priestly party, who are heavily subsidized. They have obtained some measure of success, and the reactionary forces show a considerable amount of vigour. But the popular leaders are not seriously afraid of these enemies, and confidently maintain that the restoration of autocracy in Persia is now impossible. The chief enemies of the Assembly are its own members."
"The Atabeg is in a state of great depression, is afraid for his life, distrustful of the Shah, and professes that he is anxious to resign. He is useful as a man holding a middle position between Shah and people, and possessing great experience and knowledge of the country, but he is quite incapable of organizing or administering a Government or of carrying out any thorough-going reform."
_September 13._ "On the evening of the 30th ultimo the Atabeg called on me and talked at length on the political situation. The general tenor of his observations was that the Shah would withdraw his opposition, the Medjliss would work with the Government, and that very shortly the Government would be able to put an end to the disorder which reigned in the country. I never saw him in better spirits.
"The next day [August 31] the Atabeg and the Ministers repaired to the Palace and requested the Shah to accept their resignations unless he would solemnly pledge himself to cooperate with the Government and the Medjliss. They obtained the promise in writing, and repaired in a body to the Assembly. The proceedings of the Assembly on that day were on the whole harmonious and satisfactory. The Atabeg read the Shah’s statement, and explained that the Government and the Assembly would now be able to proceed to the serious work of reform. There was some opposition, but it was overruled. The majority of the Members showed their sympathy with the Government.
{485}
"The Atabeg left the Assembly accompanied by the principal Mujtehed, Seyed Abdullah. They reached the outer door of the Palace inclosure, and had just parted when the Atabeg was shot and killed. One of his assailants was captured, but wounded his captor and escaped; another, finding himself surrounded, shot himself. …
"For some time lately rumours have been spread abroad through the local press and by word of mouth to the effect that the Atabeg was in secret collusion with the Shah, for the overthrow of the Assembly and the sale of the country to Russia. Statements to this effect reached me from Members of the Assembly. There can be no doubt as to the genuineness and intensity of the feeling against the Atabeg. A French doctor, who attended one of the assassins some time before the murder, assured Mr. Churchill that he and his friends were quiet and respectable persons of the middle class, imbued with the strongest feeling of patriotism, and ready to devote their lives to the service of their country. The attacks on the Atabeg had lately gained in virulence, and had attracted universal attention. … Popular sentiment approved the murder, and the assassins were regarded as saviours of their country. The streets of Tabreez were illuminated. The result of the Atabeg’s murder is for the time to disorganize the whole system of government."
In a recent book on Persia, by W. P. Cresson, the writer, an American, who had visited the country during the final Ministry of the Atabeg Azam, and had talked with him, describes him with admiration, having been especially impressed with his liberality of views and his knowledge of European and American affairs. In his periods of exile from Persia (which occurred several times in the course of his public life) he had visited both Europe and America and studied them well.
PERSIA: A. D. 1907 (August). Convention between Great Britain and Russia relative to Persia.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1907 (AUGUST).
PERSIA: A. D. 1907-1908 (September-June). A series of Political Overturnings. The Shah deserted. Temporary Supremacy of the Assembly. Nasr-ul-Mulk Premier. Addition to the Constitution. The Shah’s attempted Coup d’État and failure. Attempted Assassination of the Shah. His successful second Coup d’Etat. The Assembly dispersed and its dissolution proclaimed. New Elections promised.
The assassination of the Atabeg Azam was followed soon by a strange series of overturnings in the political situation, outlined, and but slightly explained in the following excerpts from despatches of the British Legation at Tehran:
_September 13, 1907._ "A deputation recently called on the Mushir-ed-Dowleh [former Grand Vizier] and asked him to take office. He refused unless he was provided with money. He said that he would not take the dangerous responsibility of accepting a foreign loan, and that unless the Persian people supplied the funds necessary to carry on the Government, or consented to the Government finding funds elsewhere, all government would be shortly impossible."
_October 2._ "Shah has been solemnly informed by a Committee composed of Princes, high military and civil officials, and great landlords, and including all the reactionaries of prominence, that, unless he maintains the Constitution and works with the Medjliss their support will be withdrawn from the throne. The usual reassuring answer was returned by His Majesty. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, whose position is very precarious owing to the strike in his own Department, is opposed to them, but the head of the new Government has promised them support. The members of the Committee yesterday took a solemn oath of fidelity to the Constitution in the Assembly, where they had repaired for the purpose. Excepting support of the Minister for Foreign Affairs the Shah is now practically isolated, though he is supposed still to entertain reactionary views."
_October 3._ "Saad-ed-Dowleh has been dismissed from post of Minister for Foreign Affairs."
_October 10._ "The Mushir-ed-Dowleh died very suddenly on the evening of the 13th September.
"On the 27th September the Princes and civil and military officials of note, who had up till then formed the reactionary party, presented an ultimatum to the Shah declaring their adhesion to the Constitution and the National Assembly, and threatening to sever all connection with the throne should His Majesty not cooperate with the National party. … There was little on the surface to indicate the sudden _volte-face_ of the reactionaries. The chief cause must undoubtedly be reckoned to be fear. The murder of the Atabeg … and the suspicion that the sudden death of Mushir-ed-Dowleh was not due to natural causes, had unquestionably produced a very deep effect. …
"The result of the first year’s work of the Assembly has been on the whole rather negative, but at least it has succeeded in asserting its will against the influence of the Shah and clergy, and has now a reasonable prospect of being able to start on the path of reconstruction."
_October 25._ "New Ministry has been formed under presidency of Nasr-ul-Mulk, reappointed Minister of Finance. Most important members are Mushir-ed-Dowleh, son of the late Mushir-ed-Dowleh, Foreign Affairs; Sanied-Dowleh, Interior; Mukhber-es-Sultaneh, Justice."
_November 27._ "I have the honor to transmit to you herewith a full translation of the text of the Constitutional Law as passed by the National Assembly and signed by the Shah on the 8th of October.
[This addition of articles to the Constitution signed by the Shah on the 30th of December, 1906, will be found, in this Volume, appended to that instrument, under CONSTITUTION OF PERSIA.]
The Law reduces the Sovereign to practical impotence, but by far its most important part is that defining the powers of the Tribunals. Articles 71 and the succeeding Articles, though ambiguously worded, intentionally so, will, if carried into execution, deal a deadly blow at the judicial powers of the Mollahs."
{486}
_December 15._ "Disorders are threatening here. Violent speeches, denouncing the Shah and demanding the exile of the Shah’s Chief Adviser and Agent, Saad-ed-Dowleh and Amir Bahadur Jang, were made yesterday at a popular meeting at the principal mosque. The Ministry has resigned, but the Shah refuses to accept resignation. This morning an excited crowd gathered outside the Assembly, but was dispersed by armed men sent by the Shah."
_December 15._ "Ala-ed-Dowleh, who was sent to the Palace by the Assembly with a message, and another brother of President of Assembly were arrested by the Shah at 3 o’clock this afternoon. Shah sent for Prime Minister at 5 p. m., put chains on him, and threatened to kill him five hours after sunset. I have sent to demand assurances for Nasr-ul-Mulk’s safety from the Palace, and am requesting co-operation of Russian Minister."
_December 16._ "Nasr-ul-Mulk is exiled, and leaves for Resht to-day. As he fears Shah will attempt his life on the way, he begged me to send a member of the Legation with him, as was done when the late Atabeg was sent to Kum in 1897. This, I said, I was for the moment unable to do. I am, however, sending two gholams. On his arrest the Assembly dispersed, and the Anjumans, on which its real power rested, remained inactive. The other Ministers have all resigned. They were summoned to the Palace and were practically under arrest there till they also left the Palace when Nasr-ul-Mulk was released by my demand on his behalf. … Armed partisans of Shah have occupied principal square since midday yesterday. For the present his coup d’état seems to be successful. The Committees are collecting armed round the Assembly this morning. There is no sign of danger to Europeans, and there has been as yet no fighting."
_December 17._ "More armed ruffians are being brought into the town and are congregating in Cannon Square, supported by troops and guns. … Round the Medjliss building the Anjumans [popular associations] are again assembling armed."
_December 18._ "No Government has been formed. The popular party is acting strictly on the defensive, and the Committees are still guarding the Assembly. The Shah last night conceded the Assembly’s demands, which are moderate."
_December 22._ "Russian Minister and I have just come back from the Palace. He laid the situation before the Shah with the utmost frankness, and the strongest assurances that he would respect and uphold the Constitution were given us by His Majesty. Steps are now being taken by us to let the Constitutionalists understand that it is incumbent upon the two Legations to see that the Shah observes the pledges he has given us."
_December 31._ "Meantime [after the interview, above reported, with the Shah], the general situation had become more threatening. The Tabreez Anjuman [local assembly or Committee] had succeeded in circulating throughout Persia the threat of deposing the Shah, and the larger cities, where the idea of constitutional government has taken root, appeared to be greatly excited. Telegrams promising armed support against the Shah had been received from Shiraz, Ispahan, Resht, Kazvin, Kerman, and Meshed, and signs of sympathy had come in from other quarters. In Tehran itself, despite unmistakable signs that the Shah must yield, as he did late in the afternoon, the excitement against His Majesty was, if anything, more marked."
"It has been difficult to find a method of conveying the Shah’s guarantee in a manner agreeable to the susceptibilities of the Assembly. However, on Friday Mushir-ed-Dowleh furnished M. de Hartwig with a rough draft of a declaration which we might each communicate to the President of the Assembly, and taking this as the basis we prepared a letter in French."
_January 2, 1908_. "Although Tehran is now relatively quiet, and the provinces have been much less affected than might reasonably have been apprehended by the knowledge of what was happening at the capital, I fear that relief is only temporary, and that Persia is drifting nearer and nearer to complete anarchy. The struggle between the Shah and his people has resulted in a complete victory for the latter, but I am not sanguine that the prospects of the establishment of constitutional government on a durable basis have been much improved thereby. For the moment, indeed, the Shah has been completely cowed, and is now retired into the Anderoon [harem]."
_January 29._ "In the early days of the month, though externally the town was quiet enough, it seemed as though another crisis might occur. The Shah, after a few days’ comparative inactivity, recommenced his campaign against the Assembly."
_February 28._ "The Shah, who had not been out of the Palace since he paid his state visit to the National Assembly on the 12th November, 1907, was proceeding at 3 p. m. to his country seat at Dochantapeh when a determined attempt was made on his life. The procession was formed of a motor-car in front and a carriage behind, with the usual escort of horsemen and running footmen. A little way past the house of the Manager of the Imperial Bank, and before reaching that of the Zil-es-Sultan, a fusillade was opened on the motor-car, in which it was supposed the Shah rode, by some persons from the adjoining roofs, who evidently could not see into the vehicles from their elevated position. Two bombs were then thrown at the motor-car completely shattering it, and killing two persons and wounding about seven others. The Shah, who was seated in the carriage behind the motor-car, immediately emerged and took refuge in a neighboring house."
_April 24._ "While … the general condition of Persia has been more tranquil, at the capital all the indications show but too clearly that the struggle between the Shah and the Enjumens [Committees or Associations] has lost none of its bitterness. I say advisedly the Enjumens, for in the last trial of strength, in which the Shah was again worsted, the Assembly played a very small part indeed."
_May 21._ "The condition of the country is going from bad to worse, and the feeble Government is absolutely unable to do anything to restore a decent degree of order, and even if money were forthcoming, it is in the last degree improbable that without foreign assistance any serious measure of reform can be undertaken."
{487}
_June 8._ "On Saturday morning, the 6th June, an apparent reconciliation between the Shah and the popular party took place, but the next morning it was reported to His Majesty that a telegram had been sent to Zil-es-Sultan [one of the royal princes, and an aspirant to the throne] at Shiraz by the Eujumens asking him to come to Tehran and assume the Regency. The same evening the Zil’s eldest son, also Serdar Mansur, Ala-ed-Dowleh, and Azad-ul-Mulk, the Head of the Kajar tribe [the imperial tribe] who took part in the agitation last week, were arrested by the Shah."
_June 23._ "About 6 o’clock this morning twenty Cossacks were sent by the Shah to arrest eight persons who were in the mosque adjoining the Assembly House. The demand for the surrender of these persons met with a refusal, and a shot was fired from the mosque. Fighting then started, and is still continuing. The number of people killed is said to be large. Guns are being used by the Shah’s troops."
_June 23._ "The Assembly building and the mosque have been cleared by the Shah’s forces, and the meeting-place of the Azerbaijan Enjumen has been destroyed. The Shah has arrested the Chief Mujtehed, Seyyid Abdullah, the Sheikh-ul-Reis, and some ten other alleged leaders of popular party. The Cossack Brigade has lost forty men. The loss on the other side is said to be very small, but the exact number is unknown. A state of siege has been proclaimed and the Enjumens have dispersed. Some shops and houses, including that of the Zil-es-Sultan, and the Assembly building, have been pillaged."
_June 25._ "The first shot was undoubtedly fired by the people in the mosque and Assembly, among whom some Deputies were included. I believe that every preparation had been made to clear the mosque by force if this proved necessary. In any case, the Shah had reasonable ground for taking strong measures, as the attack was made by the popular party on the troops. …
"Efforts are being made to catch Deputies, and several, including the President of the Assembly, have already been arrested. The Enjumens seem to be cowed; their supporters are falling away, and the Shah has complete mastery. Yesterday morning two prisoners were strangled at the Shah’s camp, and there are about thirty persons, other than Deputies, under arrest. There are now in the Legation fifty refugees.
"There has been fighting in Tabreez between the popular party and the Shah’s partisans. There is no sign from the other provinces, and the Zil-es-Sultan is trying to dissociate himself from the agitation."
_June 26._ "A Proclamation stating that the present Assembly is dissolved has been issued by the Shah. Proclamation announces that new elections will be held in three months, and a Senate will be formed."
PERSIA: A. D. 1908-1909. Final Hostilities between the Shah and the Supporters of the Constitution. Tabriz the Center of a Revolutionary Movement. Entrance of the Bakhtiari into the Struggle. Siege of Tabriz and its Relief by the Russians. Capture of Teheran by the Nationalists and Bakhtiari. Deposition of the Shah. A child enthroned.
The occurrences of June, narrated above, were at the beginning of the final outbreak of hostilities between the partisans of the Shah and the supporters of the Constitution, which soon ran into actual civil war.
When the Shah had established his authority at Teheran, Tabriz became the center of popular opinion on the side of the Constitutionalists, or Nationalists, and the main seat of their strength. Fighting began there on the 23d of June, simultaneously with the conflict at Teheran, and continued intermittently and indecisively throughout July and August, at the end of which time the Nationalists were said to be 10,000 strong. On the 24th of September the Royalists began a bombardment of the town, with five guns, to which the Nationalists responded vigorously with four. October 10th the Nationalists assumed the offensive, attacking the camp of the besiegers, routing their cavalry, and securing possession of a desirable bridge.
On the 24th of September, under pressure from the representatives of Great Britain and Russia, the Shah decreed that a Mejlis (National Assembly) "composed of religious and proper persons, will, by the help of God and the favor of the 12th Imam, be convoked by us for the 19th Shavval"—that is, November 14—and that a law of elections should be made known by October 27. The latter date passed without producing the promised election law and no elections followed in November; but on the 8th of the latter month the Shah’s partisans organized a "demonstration" at Teheran against the Constitution, on the strength of which the mendacious sovereign replied to British and Russian remonstrances against his faithlessness by saying that "a large section of the population regarded a constitutional regime as contrary to their religion." Presently, on the 22d of November, he issued a rescript proclaiming that the Ulema had declared such an institution as a Parliament to be contrary to Islam and therefore he would not convoke it.
Early in 1909 the revolt first organized at Tabriz became rife in many parts of the nominal Empire of the Shah, both north and south. On the 25th of January _The Times of India_, published at Bombay, where commercial and political interests in Persian affairs are equally keen, described the situation then existing as follows: The "news from Persia is extremely grave, because it indicates the collapse of the Shah’s authority from north to south. The Anjumans [Enjumens—a term which seems to be applied to local assemblies and to all political associations alike] of Astrabad and Lahidjan have repudiated the present regime. This means that the Caspian littoral is being lost to the Shah. What is of even greater consequence is that the spread of the revolt to Lahidjan may mean the cutting off of the trade with Teheran via Resht, which is now the principal route open to traffic. Then in the far south, almost on the Gulf littoral, the Nationalists of Laristan have thrown off all semblance of the Shah’s authority. Recently it was stated that the Bakhtiaris had risen in revolt, and had looted Isfahan. It was not to be expected that the Lars, of which the Bakhtiaris are an offshoot and who enjoy a modified independence, would remain quiescent under these conditions. Reuter is however in error in stating that these tribal fights ‘are interrupting’ communications between Bushire and Shiraz. {488} These have been interrupted for many months, and as we stated on Friday, the muleteers who usually ply between Bushire and Shiraz some time ago removed their animals to the Resht-Teheran road. The insecurity of this route is illustrated by the fact that the Derya Begi, the fount of Persian dignity at Bushire, was held up and robbed on his way from Teheran to his charge on the coast. All these straws point to the rapidity with which anarchy is spreading."
The Bakhtiari referred to in this account of affairs, and who now began to bear an important part in the Persian revolutionary conflict, are a semi-independent and nomadic tribe, occupying the region of the mountains which bear the same name, in western Persia, within the provinces of Luristan and Khuzistan. They claim, it is said, by descent from the Bactrians of remote antiquity, to represent the purest blood of ancient Iran. In connection with recent disturbances, they began to be mentioned in June, 1907. The head of one faction among them, Semsam-es-Sultaneh, had then been removed by the Persian provincial governor from the post of Ilkhani (a title surviving from the Mongol conquest of the 13th century,—see PERSIA: A. D. 1258-1393, in Volume IV. of this work), and his supporters were reported to be "out in every direction attacking caravans." The only mention of them in the following months was as pestilent bandits in the Ispahan quarter, holding the roads and breaking up commerce and travel; but they came at last into Persian history as allies of the Nationalists in the struggle for Constitutional Government.
Press reports from Tabriz in February were to the effect that the Shah’s forces, estimated at 12,000 in number, had closely invested the town; that the besieged Nationalists were provisioned for two months, and were making sorties daily. Also that Resht was full of armed Caucasian revolutionaries. At the middle of March a correspondent of the London _Times_ made his way from Teheran to Resht, and found that the revolutionary movement there was entirely "exotic." "If the Caucasian element was removed," he wrote, "nothing would remain. One can estimate fairly accurately that there are about 600 men under arms in the town and on the road. It is said that 5 per cent. of these are Persians. This morning I watched the departure of a contingent of men for the front. Greeks, Kurds, Armenians, Tartars, Russians—all the Caucasian peoples were represented, but not a single man of the race for the advancement of whose cause these men have taken arms."
This correspondent was led to suspect, as others have done, that the religious movement in Persia known as "Babism" (see, in Volume I. of this work, under BAB) had much to do, in a secret way, with the existing revolutionary undertaking. "Those who are in a position to judge." he said, "estimate the present proportion of Babis in the population of Persia at from 10 to 30 per cent. I have, indeed, heard the Persians estimate it as high as 50 per cent."
Before the end of March the Nationalists were in control of the ports of Bender Abbas and Bushire on the Persian Gulf. On the 30th of March the following went to the London _Times_ from Teheran: "In spite of numerous defections to the Nationalist side during the last fortnight, the situation at Teheran remains practically unaltered. The Cossack Brigade is still the premier factor, and there seems no reason to doubt either its allegiance to the Shah or its ability to deal with any element of disturbance likely to arise in the capital. The bazaars remain partially closed, but the business of the town proceeds without interruption.
"From outside there is nothing to apprehend for the present. The Bakhtiari have made no sign, though their position has been rendered materially more secure by the recent espousal of Nationalism by the most notable family at Shiraz. From Resht the revolutionaries continue to launch remonstrance, warning, and anathema at the Shah, but they are too wise to march on the capital without a lead from elsewhere.
"To-day’s news from Tabriz indicates that the situation of the town is extremely grave. A section of the Nationalists advocate negotiating with the besiegers, but Satar Khan has decided to continue his resistance. The stores of food are to be appropriated for the fighting men, and when the stock remaining is exhausted the inhabitants will have no alternative but to leave the town and run the gauntlet of the Shah’s lambs."
The Cossack Brigade referred to in the despatch above was a body of Persian Cossacks which had been for some time past in the service of the Shah, under the command of a Russian officer, Colonel Liakhoff. In the House of Commons, on the 24th of March, the British Secretary for Foreign Affairs was sharply questioned as to this employment of a Russian officer, and the alleged employment of others, in the Shah’s service, and asked whether they were serving the Shah or the Tsar. In reply he said: "It may be that in the events of the summer—what is called the coup d’État—Colonel Liakhoff, the Russian officer in command of the Persian Cossacks, who had been lent to the Shah for the purpose, I understand, of disciplining that body of Persian Cossacks, to provide a bodyguard for the Shah, and in case of need to preserve order in Teheran—it may be that he exceeded the limit of those purposes. If he did so I am convinced that it was not by the instructions, on the authority, or with the approval of the Russian Government; and since the coup d’Etat there has been no question, according to reports which we have received, that the Russian officers who remained in the service of the Shah have kept within the limits of the purposes for which they were lent to the service of the Shah, and have not taken part in anything that could be called political encounters in Persia. If Colonel Liakhoff exceeded the limits in Teheran, he acted directly under the Government of the Shah, and the question whether the Russian Government approve or disapprove his action is one between himself and them, and is not a matter on which we are called upon to express an opinion."
On the 5th of April it was reported that the sufferings of Tabriz "are increasing daily, and it is undoubted that a great tragedy is approaching. If Tabriz holds out, thousands must die of starvation, while, if it falls, probably tens of thousands will be massacred." A fortnight later, on the 20th. the Shah yielded to the insistence of the British and Russian Legations that he should allow an armistice at Tabriz of six days and the importation into the town of sufficient food for that period. {489} Meantime a detachment of Russian Cossacks, under General Snarsky, had crossed the frontier into Persia, and was marching to Tabriz with supplies. This Russian relief expedition, approved by the British Government, reached the beleaguered city without resistance on the 30th, and its presence brought the conflict at that point to an end. A correspondent of _The Times_, who had been in Tabriz throughout the siege, taking some leadership in the defence (in company with a teacher attached to the American Mission’s high school, Mr. Baskerville, who met death in the fighting) and who gave, two months later, a graphic narrative of the experience, said in concluding it:
"Tabriz was ultimately saved by the coming of the Russians. Their entry into the town was the direct cause of the opening of the roads, the dispersal of the disappointed armies of the Shah, the promulgation of the Constitution, and the appointment of a Constitutionalist Ministry. It saved Tabriz from a surrender which could not otherwise have been delayed for three days longer, and thereby it averted the complete collapse of the Constitutional movement."
With victory at Tabriz snatched from him, the Shah ostensibly threw up his hands. On the 5th of May it was announced that he had "signed an Imperial rescript acknowledging that the disorderly condition of the country imposed the necessity of taking measures to reorganize the administration. The rescript recognizes that this can only be secured through the constitutional principle, and his Majesty fixes July 19 for the election of a representative Assembly, for the formation of which electoral laws will soon be promulgated."
This revival of promises failed, however, to arrest the revolutionary movement. On the 7th of May the Nationalists expelled a royal force from Kazvin—less than a hundred miles from Teheran—and declared their intention to march on Teheran. "They are well-armed and well-mounted," said a correspondent who came from Kazvin, "and possessed of plenty of money. Their commander, a Sipahdar, and his second in command, an Afghan, are now at Kazvin, and everything points to the possibility of early action. The Bakhtiari, who have assembled at Ispahan and number 3,000, also declare their intention of marching on Teheran."
Of the Sipahdar, who now becomes the fighting leader of the Nationalists, a writer in the New York _Evening Post_ relates that "when a merchant in Tabriz, he offered the government his services in wiping out the brigands who scoured the provinces, and, selecting a picked band, went out to fight fire with fire, by the same methods of terrorizing that the robbers had employed. As a result, he made the provinces safe, at least."
Pressed by the Russian Legation to withdraw from Kazvin, pending the fulfilment of the Shah’s promises, the Sipahdar, commanding there, declared that he could not control his men. The situation was complicated by the presence of the Russians at Tabriz. As _The Times_ correspondent wrote: "The perfectly unambiguous declaration by Russia that her troops will be withdrawn from Tabriz the moment order is restored and danger to Europeans is past is valueless in the eyes of Persians while the troops are there."
The framing of a new electoral law, to the satisfaction of an electoral committee of the Nationalists, was finished on the 6th of June, and the Shah’s signature to it was expected in a few days. High hopes were placed on the coming of Nasr-ul-Mulk, the exiled statesman at Paris, who had been solicited to accept the Prime Ministry, and who seemed slow to take the proffered honor. But the wrecked structure of constitutional government could not so easily be set in motion. The revolutionaries at Kazvin became threatening again, and were in motion toward Teheran before the end of June, while the Bakhtiari began a simultaneous advance. On the 29th of June the Russian Government issued orders "to assemble a considerable force at Baku, to be held in readiness in case of a _coup de main_ against the Persian capital." Meantime the new electoral law had been signed, but not promulgated, "owing to the prevailing excitement," it was said.
On the 3d of July the Russian Government addressed a Circular Note on the situation in Persia to the Governments of foreign Powers, saying, in part:
"The Imperial Government, on consideration of the position of affairs, has come to the conclusion that the principle of absolute non-interference in the internal affairs of Persia and in the conflict between the Shah and the Persian people must remain, now as formerly, the basis of its policy in Persia. In this connexion we could not leave out of sight the fact that in the event of the Bakhtiari and revolutionaries entering Teheran the Russian and other European Legations and European institutions and subjects, as well as our road from Enzeli (on the Caspian Sea) to Teheran, might find themselves in an extremely dangerous position, and the more so because, according to information which has reached us, the only Regular troops at the Shah’s disposal consist of the Persian Cossack Brigade, which is at present so weakened that it is scarcely in a condition to maintain order in Teheran.
"This circumstance imposes upon the Imperial Government the moral obligation to take all measures in order that, in case of necessity, it may be possible to render effective aid to the above-mentioned (European) establishments and subjects and to ensure unrestricted traffic between Teheran and Enzeli in all circumstances. It has, therefore, been decided to send a force from Baku to Enzeli consisting of one regiment of Cossacks, one battalion of Russian infantry, and one battery of artillery. The force will not advance beyond Kazvin (86 miles from Teheran), and will ensure communication between Kazvin and the Caspian Sea.
"The further advance of a portion of the force depends upon the course of events. It can only ensue upon the demand of the Imperial Legation in Teheran in the event of the dangerous situation aforesaid arising."
{490}
The Russian and British Legations attempted mediation between the Sipahdar and the Shah, to check the former’s advance, but his demands made their intervention hopeless. The Shah’s forces pushed out to intercept the on-coming revolutionaries, encountered them on the 11th, 18 miles west of Teheran, and fighting went on at a distance from the city for two days; but forces which slipped between the defensive lines made their way into the capital on the morning of July 13th, and there was fighting in the streets until the 16th. The Shah then sought refuge at the Russian Legation, and the Russian officers of the Persian Cossacks, besieged in their barracks, made terms with the Nationalist leaders.
Four days later the Persian situation was stated to the British House of Commons by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Sir Edward Grey, as follows:
"The Shah, after taking refuge in the Russian legation, abdicated, and his son, Sultan Ahmed Mirza [a young child] has been proclaimed Shah by the Nationalist Committee under the regency of Azad-ul-Mulk, head of the Kajar tribe, pending the convocation of Parliament. The commanders of the Fedai and Bakhtiari, as temporary chiefs of the Persian Government, have accepted the services of the Persian Cossack brigade under their Russian officers, on condition that the latter are completely under the orders of the Minister of War. This arrangement was ratified at a meeting between the commanders and Colonel Liakhoff. Teheran is quiet, and the Persian Cossacks are already fraternizing with the Fedai. The Sipahdar has been appointed Minister of War, and the Sirdar Assad Minister of the Interior." Being asked if he would represent to the Russian Government the undesirability of advancing Russian troops to Teheran, Sir Edward added: "In view of the declarations already made by the Russian Government as to the circumstances under which alone Russian troops would be sent to Teheran and in view of the fact that no troops have been sent to Teheran during the recent troubles, in spite of the fact that at one time some apprehension, which happily proved to be unfounded, was expressed for the safety of Russian subjects, such representations would be most uncalled for."
On the 17th the Provisional Government gave notice to the Anglo-Russian legations of the selection of the new Shah, and asked that he should be delivered to their keeping; whereupon, wrote the _Times_ correspondent, "M. Sablin announced the request to the Shah, who replied that he thought his mother would not consent. The Shah then took M. Sablin to his mother and an affecting scene ensued. Both the mother and father broke down at the thought of parting with their favourite son and offered their second son in his place. M. Sablin replied that the selection had been made by the people and that he had no voice in the matter. The boy wept bitterly in sympathy with his parents and declined to leave his mother. Finally their Majesties were persuaded to agree. On receiving the Shah’s assent, the necessary proclamation was immediately promulgated and it was arranged that the Regent and a Nationalist deputation would receive the little Shah.
"An interested crowd witnessed his departure this morning from the custody of his natural guardians. During the morning Sultan Ahmed wept bitterly at the prospect of becoming a King, and it required a stern message to the effect that crying was not allowed in the Russian Legation before he dried his eyes. Then the little man came out bravely, entered a large carriage, and drove off alone, escorted by Cossacks, Sowars, and Persian Cossacks and followed by a long string of carriages. At Sultanatabad he was met by the Regent and the deputation and ceremoniously notified of his high position and of the hope entertained by the nation that he would prove to be a good ruler.
‘Inshallah, I will,’ replied the lad. Arrangements for the Coronation will be made hereafter. In the meanwhile the little Shah, who is guarded by a Bakhtiari, remains with his tutors at Sultanatabad, where his mother is free to visit him."
At Teheran, affairs settled quickly into quiet, but disorders were prolonged in various parts of the provinces, being especially serious at Shiraz. The deposed Shah remained for weeks at the Russian Legation, while negotiations with him for a pension or allowance in return for his surrender of jewels and money to the State went on, and the unhappy child who occupied his palace had more sorrow than he.
Early in August Colonel Liakhoff returned to Russia and was appointed to a regimental command. On the 1st of September a general amnesty, with a few exceptions, was proclaimed by the new government at Teheran. On the 9th of September the deposed Shah left the shelter of the Russian Legation and journeyed, with his queen, four younger children and several friends, under Russian escort, to a residence in Russia, at Odessa, which was his choice. Persia was still waiting for the able and much trusted constitutionalist statesman, Nasr-ul-Mulk, to return from his exile at Paris and accept the offered premiership in the government; but on the 21st of September the report went out that he had definitely declined the post. He returned to Persia, however, in October. On the 11th of October the Russian Government made known that it had decided to withdraw the greater part of the troops it had been keeping at Tabriz. A new Mejliss, for which the Regent had ordered elections, was assembled on the 15th of November. On the 7th of December the Mejliss unanimously approved the proposals of the Government with regard to borrowing abroad and the employment of Europeans in executive capacities for the reorganization of the Finance Department. This, no doubt, will improve the situation very greatly.
PERSIA: A. D. 1909 (January). Destructive Earthquake in Luristan.
See (in this Volume) EARTHQUAKES: PERSIA.
----------PERSIA: End--------
----------PERU: Start--------
PERU: A. D. 1899-1908. Outline of History.
The leading events of Peruvian history are recorded in Volume VI. of this work down to the election of President Eduardo de Romaña, in 1899. "Romaña was a member of a prominent family of Arequipa, and had been educated in England, at Stonyhurst. He further had studied for, and taken a degree as, an engineer at King’s College, London; and whilst he had not acquired much experience in politics, he nevertheless successfully filled the Presidential Chair throughout his term. He was alive to the necessity for the development of the resources of the country, and, fortunately, his administration was not embarrassed by disturbances other than some small political intrigues such as inevitably take place in a country which, as Peru, was evolving a _régime_ of civil government. {491} During this term there was some influx of North American capitalists, who acquired important interests, in the copper mines of Cerro de Pasco, and who commenced the construction of a railway line thereto. … The presidency of Señor Romaña uneventfully expired at its natural time; elections were held, and Señor Manuel Candamo, who had already provisionally been head of the State, was chosen as president in May, 1903. Candamo had been successful in quieting political animosities after the revolt against Caceres and in consolidating the political situation. Peru now showed real evidences of advancement. The old turbulent element was passing away; those leaders who had placed purely personal ambition before the true interests of their country had given place to the natural talent and ability of the best citizens, whom the times were calling to the front. Candamo’s rule promised well for the country. He was surrounded by able men, among whom, as chief cabinet minister, was Dr. Domingo Almenard, an upright lawyer. The fiscal revenue was increased by taxes, against which there were murmurings, but which the country was able to bear, and the tax on tobacco was set apart for the construction of new railways. Unfortunately, this able administrator, Señor Candamo, continued but a short time in office, for he was overtaken by illness, and died at Arequipa in May, 1904. This event left the country under the temporary leadership of the second vice-president, Señor Calderon, for the first vice-president had died also. An election was at once called according to law, the two candidates which were put forward being Dr. Jose Pardo, son of the former president of the same name, and Señor Nicolas Piérola, who had already been at the head of the Government on two occasions. Rivalry between the
## partisans of these two candidates became acute, and although
it was feared for a moment that some disturbance might occur, good sense prevailed, and the elections proceeded without interruption. Both contestants were good men—Piérola representing the party known as the _Democratas_, whilst Pardo headed the _Civilistas_. There were not very radical differences of principle underlying these distinctions of name; both were for civil government and for national progress. Piérola had done good work during his former term, whilst Pardo had the prestige of the good name and administration of his father, the former president of 1872-1876, and was also held in esteem personally among the best element of the country. The result of the election—held, probably, more fairly than ever in Peru before—fell to Dr. Pardo, who took the presidential scarf and office in September, 1904, and who still guides the affairs of his country in a manner which has won the esteem of the nation, in a general sense.
Dr. Pardo’s Cabinet was formed of some of the most capable men in the country, prominent among whom was the minister of Finance, Señor Leguia, to whose work is largely due the improved financial situation. At the present time—1908—the best elements of Peru are in the ascendant."
_G. Reginald Enock, Peru: Its Former, and Present Civilization, History and Existing Conditions,
## chapter 9 (Scribner’s Sons, New York)._
PERU: A. D. 1901. Broad Treaty of Arbitration with Bolivia.
See (in this Volume) ARBITRATION, INTERNATIONAL: A. D. 1901 (NOVEMBER).
PERU: A. D. 1901-1906.
## Participation in Second and Third International Conferences
of American Republics.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
PERU: A. D. 1903-1909. Boundary disputes in the Acre region with Bolivia and Brazil.
See (in this Volume) ACRE DISPUTES.
PERU: A. D. 1905. Arbitration Treaties with Colombia and Ecuador.
In a message to the Peruvian Congress, July 28, 1906, President Pardo communicated treaties of arbitration with Colombia, one general in its nature, the other special for the settlement of existing boundary questions. Of the latter the message said:
"As in former treaties of the same character which have been heretofore concluded with that Republic, the controversy is submitted to the decision, to be based upon considerations of equity, of His Holiness Pope Pius X. But as our question with Colombia is connected with the one with Ecuador, it has been agreed that the arbitration with Colombia shall only take place after the termination of the one in which we are now proceeding with Ecuador, upon the adjudication by the royal Spanish arbitrator to Peru of territories which are likewise claimed by Colombia."
PERU: A. D. 1906. Decree for the Encouragement of Immigration.
See (in this Volume) IMMIGRATION AND EMIGRATION: PERU.
PERU: A. D. 1907. Diplomatic Relations with Chile reëstablished. The Tacna and Arica questions remaining open.
See (in this Volume) CHILE: A. D. 1907.
PERU: A. D. 1908-1909. Seating of President Leguia. Attempted Revolutions defeated.
On the 27th of May, 1908, Augusto B. Leguia became President, succeeding Dr. Pardo. Señor Leguia had previously been Premier and Minister of Finance and Commerce; prior to which he had been managing director of a great English sugar company in Peru. A revolutionary movement had been attempted a few weeks before, in which Dr. Augusto Durand and Isaias Piérola were engaged, and which suffered defeat.
A year later, on May 29, a similar attempt was announced from Lima, and ascribed to the same "agitators," who, said the despatch, "made an assault upon the palace and seized President Leguia. The army, however, remained loyal and came to his support. The revolutionists were obliged to liberate the President, who immediately took measures to put down the movement. Within an hour, although firing was still heard in the streets, President Leguia seemed to be master of the situation. Many shots were exchanged between the troops and the revolutionists and it is believed that the casualties will be heavy."
This was contradicted a week later, so far as concerned Dr. Durand. "It has been proved," said the later statement, "that the revolutionary outbreak of last week was engineered entirely by the followers of the Piérola brothers. A committee of the Liberal party to-day visited President Leguia, and, declaring that neither Dr. Durand nor José Oliva had taken
## part in the movement, requested that these men be set at
liberty. The country is quiet."
----------PERU: End--------
PETER I., King of Servia: His Election.
See (in this Volume) BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: SERVIA.
{492}
PETIT, Archbishop Fulbert.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1905-1906.
PETROLEUM: The Supply and the Waste in the United States.
See (in this Volume) Conservation of Natural Resources.
PETROPALOVSK, SINKING OF THE.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (February-August).
PHAGOCYTES: THEIR DEPENDENCE ON OPSONINS.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: OPSONINS.
PHILADELPHIA: A. D. 1905. A Spasm of Municipal Reform.
See (in this Volume) MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT.
PHILADELPHIA: A. D. 1909. Defeat of Reform.
See (in this Volume) MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT.
----------PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: Start--------
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: Gains to Spain from their Loss.
See (in this Volume) SPAIN: A. D. 1898-1908.
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1900-1902. The Stamping Out of the Bubonic Plague.
See (in this Volume) PUBLIC HEALTH.
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1901. Second Report of the Second Philippine Commission. Collapse of the Insurrection. Peace in all but five Provinces. Organization of Provincial Governments. Native Appointments. Central Civil Government. Appointment of Governor Taft. Filipino Members added to Commission.
Down to the capture of Aguinaldo, leader of the Filipino insurgents, on the 23d of March, 1901, and his submission to "the sovereignty of the United States throughout the Philippine Archipelago," as announced in an address to his countrymen on the 19th of April, the history of American rule in those islands is recorded in Volume VI. of this work. The Second Philippine Commission, with the Honorable William H. Taft at its head, had entered on the performance of its extensive legislative duties on the 1st of the previous September, while the Military Governor continued to exercise administrative powers. The Commission had begun the organization of provincial and municipal governments, and the establishing of a system of public schools, as related in the Volume referred to. From its second report, covering ten months and a half, ending on the 15th of October, 1901, the following statements are drawn, to continue the outline of principal events and most important affairs down to that date:
"The collapse of the insurrection came in May, after many important surrenders and captures, including that of Aguinaldo. Cailles, in Laguna, surrendered in June, and Belarmino, in Albay, on July 4.
"There are four important provinces in which the insurrection still continues, Batangas, Samar, Cebu, and Bohol. Parts of Laguna and Tayabas adjoining Batangas in the mountain region are affected by the disturbances in Batangas. In Mindoro also, a thinly settled and almost unexplored island, there are insurrectos. … Outside of the five provinces named there is peace in the remainder of the archipelago. …
"The work of the commission since it began to legislate in September, 1900, has been constant. … We have passed since our last report, in addition to numerous appropriation bills, a municipal code, a provincial law, a school law, a law prescribing an accounting system, acts organizing the various bureaus of the central government, acts organizing the courts, an act to incorporate the city of Manila, a code of civil procedure for the islands, and a new tariff act. …
"The general provincial law provides for a provincial government of five officers—the governor, the treasurer, the supervisor, the secretary, and the fiscal, or prosecuting attorney. The governing board is called the provincial board, and includes as members the governor, the treasurer, and the supervisor. The prosecuting attorney is the legal adviser of the board and the secretary of the province is its secretary. The first function of the provincial government is to collect, through the provincial treasurer, all the taxes, with few exceptions, belonging to the towns or the province. Its second and most important function is the construction of highways and bridges and public buildings. Its third function is the supervision, through the governor and the provincial treasurer, of the municipal officers in the discharge of their duties. Within certain limitations, the provincial board fixes the rate of levy for provincial taxation.
"The governor has the power to suspend any municipal officer found failing in his duty, and is obliged to visit the towns of the province twice in a year, and hear complaints against the municipal officers. … Under the act the offices are all to be filled at first by appointment of the commission. The governor holds his office until February, 1902, when his successor is to be elected in a mass convention of the municipal councilors of the towns of the province. The secretary, treasurer, and supervisor after February next are brought under the civil-service act, and all vacancies thereafter arising are to be filled in accordance with the terms of that act. The fiscal is appointed for an indeterminate period, and is not subject to the civil-service law. …
"The commission reached the conclusion that it would aid in the pacification of the country; would make the members of that body very much better acquainted with the country, with the people, and with the local conditions, and would help to educate the people in American methods, if the commission went to the capital of each province and there passed the special act necessary to create the provincial government and made the appointments at that time. Accordingly, the commission visited thirty-three provinces. …
{493}
"The policy of the commission in its provincial appointments has been, where possible, to appoint Filipinos as governors and Americans as treasurers and supervisors. The provincial secretary and the provincial fiscal appointed have uniformly been Filipinos. It will be observed that this makes a majority of the provincial board American. The commission has, in several instances, appointed to provincial offices former insurgent generals who have been of especial aid in bringing about peace, and in so doing it has generally acted on the earnest recommendation of the commanding officer of the district or province. We believe the appointments made have had a good effect and the appointees have been anxious to do their duty. …
"The central government of the islands established in September, 1900, under the instructions of the President, with a military governor as chief executive and the commission as the legislative body with certain executive functions in addition, continued until the 4th of July, 1901. At that time Major General Adna R. Chaffee relieved Major-General MacArthur as commanding general of this division and military governor. By the order of June 21, previous, in all organized provinces the civil executive authority theretofore reposed in the military governor and in the commission was transferred on July 4 to a civil governor. The president of the commission was designated as civil governor. …
"By an order taking effect September 1, the purport of which was announced the 4th day of July, there were added to the commission, as a legislative body, three Filipinos, Dr. T. H. Pardo de Tavera, Señor Benito Legarda, and Senor José Luzuriaga. These gentlemen, the first two of them residents of Manila and the last a resident of the island of Negros, had been most earnest and efficient in bringing about peace in the islands. Dr. Tavera was the first president of the Federal party, had accompanied the commission in its trips to the southern provinces, and was most useful in the effective speeches which he delivered in favor of peace and good order at every provincial meeting. Señor Legarda had been valuable in the extreme to General Otis and to all the American authorities by the wisdom of his suggestions, and the courage and earnestness with which he upheld the American cause as the cause most beneficial to his country. Señor José Luzuriaga was a member of the first government of the island of Negros, organized while there was insurrection rife throughout the islands, as an independent government under the supervision of a military governor, and was most active in preventing the insurrection from gaining any foothold in that important island. …
"The theory upon which the commission is proceeding is that the only possible method of instructing the Filipino people in methods of free institutions and self-government is to make a government partly of Americans and partly of Filipinos, giving the Americans the ultimate control for some time to come. In our last report we pointed out that the great body of the people were ignorant, superstitious, and at present incapable of understanding any government but that of absolutism. The intelligence and education of the people may be largely measured by knowledge of the Spanish language. Less than 10 per cent of the people speak Spanish. With Spaniards in control of these islands for four hundred years and with Spanish spoken in all official avenues, nothing could be more significant of the lack of real intelligence among the people than this statement. The common people are not a warlike people, but are submissive and easily—indeed much too easily—controlled by the educated among them, and the power of an educated Filipino politically ambitious, willing to plot and use all the arts of a demagogue in rousing the people, is quite dangerous. The educated people themselves, though full of phrases concerning liberty, have but a faint conception of what real civil liberty is and the mutual self-restraint which is involved in its maintenance. They find it hard to understand the division of powers in a government, and the limitations that are operative upon all officers, no matter how high. In the municipalities, in the Spanish days, what the friar did not control the presidente did, and the people knew and expected no limit to his exercise of authority. This is the difficulty we now encounter in the organization of the municipality. The presidente fails to observe the limitations upon his power, and the people are too submissive to press them. In this condition of affairs we have thought that we ought first to reduce the electorate to those who could be considered intelligent, and so the qualifications for voting fixed in the municipal code are that the voter shall either speak, read, and write English or Spanish, or that he shall have been formerly a municipal officer, or that he should pay a tax equal to $15 a year or own property of the value of $250."
_Report of the U. S. Philippine Commission, from December 1, 1900, to October 15, 1901,
## part 1, pages 7-20._
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1901-1902. Report of Governor Taft. Civil Government established in all Christian Filipino Territory. The Moros. Destruction of the Carabao. Cholera. Ladrones. The Native Constabulary.
"When our last report was submitted there was insurrection in the province of Batangas, where the insurgent forces were commanded by General Malvar, and in the adjacent provinces of Tayabas and Laguna; in the province of Samar, where the insurgent forces were commanded by General Lukban; in Cebu, where the insurgent forces were under the insurgent leaders Climaco and Maxilom; in Bohol, where the insurgent forces were commanded by the insurgent leader Samson; and in the island of Mindoro. Vigorous campaigns were begun in November and December by General Bell, in Batangas, Laguna, Tayabas, and Mindoro, by General Smith in Samar, and by General Hughes in Cebu and Bohol. In November and December the insurgents in Cebu and Bohol surrendered, and conditions of peace were so completely established that the Commission soon after received the province of Cebu from the military authorities, and by act numbered 322, passed December 20, 1901, restored the civil government in that province to take effect January 1, 1902; in Bohol the province was delivered over to the Commission early in 1902, and the commission, by act of March 3, 1902, restored civil government there to take effect April 1, 1902. General Lukban, in Samar, was captured in February, 1902, and the entire force of insurgents in that island under General Guevara surrendered in April following.
{494}
"By an act passed June 17, 1902, Number 419, the Commission organized the province of Samar, and established civil government there. In April of 1902, General Malvar surrendered with all his forces in Batangas, and by act passed June 23, 1902, the Commission restored civil government to that province to take effect July 4, 1902. By act Number 424, enacted July 1, 1902, the province of Laguna was organized into a civil government. This completed the organization of all the provinces in which insurrection had been rife during the latter part of 1901, except Mindoro. There were, in addition, certain tracts of territory occupied by Christian Filipinos that had not received civil government, either because of the remoteness of the territory or the scarcity of population." The report then details the measures by which civil government was given to these tracts of territory, and proceeds:
"The question what shall be done with respect to Mindanao is one which has not been definitely decided, first, because so much has had to be done with respect to the northern and Filipino provinces, and, second, because at present there is an unsettled condition in the Lake Lanao country. The hostility to the Americans does not reach beyond the Lake Lanao Moros. The Moros of the Jolo group, of Zamboanga, and of the Rio Grande de Mindanao Valley are all quiet, and all entirely willing to submit to American supervision. It is very possible that an arrangement can be brought about by which the Sultan of Jolo can be induced to part with such rights as he claims to have in the Jolo Archipelago, and in this way questions which now present very perplexing difficulties with respect to ownership of privileges, rights, and lands may be obviated. … I think it wiser on the part of the Commission to postpone the consideration of the Moro question until we have passed legislation to meet needs that are more pressing throughout the northern part of these possessions of the United States. For a great many years to come there will be no question of popular government in the Moro country; the Moros do not understand popular government, do not desire it, and are entirely content with the control by their dattos. Possibly far in the future the control by dattos will cease. There is room for material and industrial development among the Moros, and with their material improvement may come a change in their political views. For the present, however, it is necessary only to provide a paternal, strong, but sympathetic government for these followers of Mohammed.
"The civil government has assumed responsibility for the preservation of order and the maintenance of law throughout the Christian Filipino territory of this archipelago at a time when the material conditions are most discouraging and present every conceivable obstacle to the successful administration of the affairs of 6,000,000 or 7,000,000 people. The war of six years since 1896 has greatly interfered with the regular pursuit of agriculture, which is almost the only source of wealth in the islands. Many years ago there was sufficient rice raised in the islands not only to feed the people but to export it to other countries. For a number of years before the American occupancy rice had been imported. The area of cultivation of the rice has been much lessened during the war and many fields which were formerly tilled are grown now with the cogon grass because of neglect.
"The greatest blow to agriculture has been the loss of the carabao or water buffalo, upon which the cultivation of rice, according to the mode pursued in these islands, is wholly dependent. The war in some degree, and the rinderpest in a much larger degree, have destroyed about 90 per cent of the carabaos; and the natives—never very active in helping themselves—have simply neglected the rice culture, so that now the islands are compelled to spend about $15,000,000 gold to buy food upon which to live. The carabao is not so necessary in the cultivation of the sugar crop or in the cultivation of hemp. …
"The cholera has swept over these islands with fatal effect, so that the total loss will probably reach 100,000 deaths. Whole villages have been depopulated and the necessary sanitary restrictions to avoid its spread have interfered with agriculture, with intercommunication, and with all business. The ravages of war have left many destitute, and a guerrilla life has taken away from many all habits of industry. With no means of carrying on agriculture, which is the only occupation of these islands, the temptation to the less responsible of the former insurgents after surrender to prey upon their neighbors and live by robbery and rapine has been very great. The bane of Philippine civilization in the past was ladronism, and the present conditions are most favorable for its growth and maintenance. … Many who were proscribed for political offences in the Spanish times had no refuge but the mountains, and being in the mountains conducted a free robber life, and about them gathered legions not unlike those of the Robin Hood days of England, so that they attracted frequently the sympathy of the common people. In the Spanish days it was common for the large estate owners, including the friars, to pay tribute to neighboring ladrones. Every Tagalog province had its band of ladrones, and frequently each town had its recognized ladrone whom it protected and through whom it negotiated for immunity. …
"The insurrection is over. It is true that the ladrones, though they live on nothing but cattle and rice stealing, and never attack American soldiers, and prey only upon their own people, do masquerade as insurrectos; but they recognize no authority and have no characteristics other than those of banditti. They have stirred up in some of the provinces the organization of so-called secret societies for the purpose of securing agencies with which successfully to conduct their robbery and to sell the fruits of it. … The picture that I have given of the depressed condition of agriculture, and the tendency to ladronize in the Tagalog provinces and in some of the Visayan provinces, does not apply to those provinces in which hemp is the chief product. They are wealthy and prosperous."
_Report of Governor W. H. Taft (Report of the Philippine Commission, 1902, part 1)._
{495}
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1902. Padre Aglipay’s Secession from the Roman Catholic Church. Organization of the Independent Filipino Catholic Church.
"Gregorio Aglipay is an Ilocano, and was an ordained priest of the Roman Catholic Church in these islands before the insurrection. During the insurrection he continued his priestly functions at Mabolos and took such action as to bring him into conflict with the hierarchy of the Church. What the merits of this controversy were I do not know. Subsequently he assumed the leadership of the insurrecto forces in Ilocos Norte and carried on a very active campaign in the mountains of that province. He was one of the last of the leaders to surrender with his forces in North Luzon. Since his surrender he has been quite active in spreading propaganda among the native priests against the so-called Friar domination of the church in these islands. The definite refusal of the Vatican to withdraw the Spanish friars from the islands was made the occasion for the formation of the Independent Filipino Catholic Church. Actively engaged with Aglipay in this movement was Isabelo de los Reyes, the former editor of an insurrecto paper, published in Madrid, called Filipinas ante Europa, and an agitator of irresponsible and irrepressible character. … Padre Aglipay has secured the active and open cooperation of a number of native priests, 15 of whom he has appointed bishops, himself having the title of archbishop. He has held mass in many different places in and about Manila; his services have attracted large gatherings of people. …
"In order to prevent constant recurrence of disturbances of the peace I have had to take a firm stand with the leaders of the movement by impressing upon them that forcible dispossession of a priest of the Roman Catholic Church, for years in peaceable possession of the church and the rector’s house, is contrary to law, and would be prevented by the whole police power. The leaders of the movement assure me that they have no desire to violate the law and wish to keep within it, but that their followers at times are hard to control. I have said to them that if they claim title to the churches they may assert it through the courts, and if successful will secure not only the confirmation of their title but actual possession. …
"I have taken occasion to say, whenever an opportunity occurred, that the insular government desired to take no part whatever in the religious controversies thus arising; that it would protect Father Aglipay and his followers in worshiping God as they chose just as it would protect the Roman Catholic Church and its ministers and followers in the same rights. But that, if the law was violated by either party, it would become the duty of the government to step in and restrain such lawlessness."
_Governor Wm. H. Taft, Report, 1902, pages 39-40._
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1902-1903. Governmental Purchase of the Friars’ Lands.
"As early as 1898, the Peace Commission, which negotiated the treaty of Paris, became convinced that one of the most important steps in tranquilizing the islands and in reconciling the Filipinos to the American Government would be the governmental purchase of the so-called friars’ agricultural lands in the Philippines, and the sale of these lands to the tenants upon long, easy payments. … The Secretary of War and the President concurred in the recommendations of the Commission. Accordingly in May, 1902, the writer, as civil governor of the Philippine Islands, was directed by the Secretary of War to visit Rome and to confer with the Pope or such agents as he might designate in respect to the question of buying the friars’ agricultural lands and other questions of a similar character which were pending between the Roman Catholic Church and the Government. The negotiations which were had on this subject in Rome were set forth in the correspondence published by the Secretary of War in his report to Congress for last year. In a word, the Pope approved the purchase of the agricultural lands of the three great religious orders that owned agricultural lands in the islands and appointed an apostolic delegate with as full powers as he could be invested with to bring about this result. …
"In order to determine the value of the estates, the representatives of the various companies and other interests were invited to attend a hearing, when various witnesses were called to testify. The apostolic delegate was also present. …
"In accordance with the agreement reached in Rome, I sent to the apostolic delegate a request for a statement of the exact interests retained by the religious orders in the Philippines in the lands which were the subject of negotiation. No formal answer to this letter was ever received, but informally it was stated to me by the delegate that the authorities in the Philippines had informed him that they had so disposed of their interests that they were unable to make a statement of what their interests were, if any. The value of the lands, as estimated according to the statements of the agents of the companies, aggregated a sum between thirteen and fourteen millions of dollars gold. The estimate of Villegas, the surveyor employed by the Commission, showed the valuation of the lands to be $6,043,000 gold, if his value in Mexican should be reduced to gold at the rate of two to one, which was the gold rate about the time of his survey and classification, though the Mexican dollar fell considerably after that. Considering the bad conditions which prevailed in agriculture, the loss of cattle, the dispute concerning title, and the agrarian question that must always remain in the management of these estates and embarrass the owner, I considered—and I believe the Commission generally agreed with me—that $6,043,000 gold was a full price for the lands. The sum, however, was scouted by the persons representing the owners, and there appeared to be very little prospect of reaching an agreement. …
"Not discouraged, however, by circumstances that seemed most discouraging, the apostolic delegate bent his energies to bringing the parties to a settlement. After some negotiation the delegate first stated that he thought he could arrange a sale for $10,500,000 gold. I told him there was no hope of bringing about a purchase at that figure. … Then followed a long and protracted discussion between the parties who were to be the venders as to how this sum should be divided, and there was much difficulty in arriving at a solution—so great a difficulty, indeed, that I was informed that unless $7,770,000 was paid there was no hope of reaching an agreement. With the approval of the Secretary of War and the Commission, I replied that $7,543,000 was our ultimatum, and that we would not give more than that, and this was ultimately the basis upon which the price was fixed."
_Report of the Civil Governor of the Philippine Islands, William H. Taft (Fourth Report of the Philippine Commission)._
{496}
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1905. Report of Committee on Methods of Dealing with the Sale and Use of Opium.
See (in this Volume) OPIUM PROBLEM.
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1906-1907. Resignation of Governor Ide. Appointment and Inauguration of Governor Smith. Complete Tranquility in the Islands. Change in the Constitution of Provincial Boards.
"On September 20, 1906, the resignation of the Honorable Henry Clay Ide as governor-general became effective, and on that date the Honorable James F. Smith was inaugurated as governor-general of the Philippine Islands. … Since April of this year complete tranquility has prevailed in every part of the archipelago, inclusive of the Moro province. In 21 of the provinces peace has reigned supreme during the entire year. In Bataan and Batangas there was some disturbance of the public order, caused in the case of the first-named province by the escape of some provincial prisoners, and in the second by the operations of six or seven brigands near the boundary line of the provinces of La Laguna and Tayabas. All of the escaped prisoners and all of the bandits with the exception of two in each party have been captured. …
"The convention of provincial governors held in Manila in October, 1906, recommended that the then existing law providing that provincial boards shall be composed of a provincial governor elected by the municipal councilors and vice-presidents of the various municipalities of the province and a provincial treasurer and a third member appointed by the executive be so amended as to permit of the election of the provincial governor and third member by direct vote of the people. This recommendation was submitted to the Secretary of War, and on receiving his approval thereof the provincial government act was amended accordingly. This innovation in the constitution and selection of provincial boards has been an advantage both to the insular and to the local government. On the one hand it has removed all cause for friction between the provincial governor elected by the people and the two members of the board named by the executive. On the other it has imposed upon the provincial governor and the third member the responsibility for the well-being of the province and has removed from the insular government much of the responsibility for conditions purely of local concern."
_Report of the Philippine Commission, December 31, 1907 (Abridgment, Message and Documents, 1907, pages 799-807)._
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1907. The Philippine Election Law. Election of a Popular Assembly. Political Parties participating in it. The first meeting of the Assembly. Presence of Secretary Taft. His account of the Assembly and of the Parties represented in it.
"In January, 1907, the Philippine Commission passed the Philippine election law. In framing this law the election codes of Massachusetts, New York, the District of Columbia, and California were consulted and features adopted from each, modified in such a way as to meet insular conditions and to avoid the mistakes and abuses that have arisen in some provincial and municipal elections in the islands. The aim has been to provide a law sufficiently explicit and not too complicated for easy comprehension. Every effort has been made to afford the necessary safeguards and machinery to insure purity, secrecy, certainty, and expedition, without causing too great a drain upon the resources of municipal and provincial governments. The prominent features of this law as amended are the division of those provinces not inhabited by Moros or other non-Christian tribes into 78 assembly districts, each province to constitute at least one district and the more populous being divided into more districts, in the ratio of 1 to every 90,000 of population and major fraction thereof remaining. In accordance with this apportionment there will be 80 delegates, two of whom will represent the city of Manila, which is considered as a province, within the meaning of the act of Congress, and divided into two districts."
_Report of the Chief of the Bureau of Insular Affairs, October 31, 1907 (Abridgment, Message and Documents, 1907, page 781)._
"On the 28th of March, 1907, the Commission by resolution, unanimously adopted, certified to the President that for two years following the publication of the census of the islands a condition of general and complete peace had prevailed and then existed in the territory of the islands not inhabited by Moros or other non-Christian tribes. … By virtue of this certificate and in accordance with the provisions of the act of Congress of July 1, 1902, the President on March 28, issued a proclamation directing the Philippine Commission to call a general election for the choice of delegates to a popular assembly. Accordingly on the 30th of March, 1907, the Commission passed a resolution ordering that an election be held for delegates on July 30 and directing the governor-general to issue a proclamation announcing the election for that date. The proclamation was issued on April 1. By a strange coincidence the day of the month fixed for holding the election was the same as that on which the first legislative body in America, the house of burgesses, met in the year 1619. Under the general election law the delegates to the assembly elected at the elections held on July 30th, 1907, and seated by the Philippine assembly, will serve until January 1, 1910. Subsequent elections for delegates will be held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, 1909, and on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November in each odd-numbered year thereafter, delegates to take office on the 1st day of January next following their election and to hold office for two years, or until their successors are elected and qualified.
"The basis of representation in the Philippine assembly is one delegate for every 90,000 of population and one additional delegate for a major fraction thereof: Provided, however, that each Christian province shall be entitled to at least one delegate and that the total number of delegates shall at no time exceed 100. Provinces entitled to more than one delegate are divided into districts. The law declares Manila to be a province within the meaning of the act of Congress authorizing the assembly, and, it is allowed the same representation as other provinces. Thirty-four provinces are represented in the Philippine assembly, which is composed of 80 members.
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"The act of Congress requires that delegates to the assembly shall be qualified electors of the election district in which they may be chosen, 25 years of age, and owing allegiance to the United States. The act of Congress prescribes that the qualifications of electors shall be the same as those prescribed for electors in municipal elections under laws in force at the time of the passage of the Congressional enactment. As the municipal election laws in force at the time of the passage of the act of Congress have undergone some change in regard to the qualifications of electors, the strange anomaly is presented of having certain qualifications exacted from municipal and provincial officials which are not required for delegates to the assembly. One of the results is that felons, victims of the opium habit, and persons convicted in the court of first instance for crimes involving moral turpitude, but whose cases are pending on appeal, are not eligible for election to any provincial or municipal office, but may become delegates to the assembly.
"As announced by provincial governors the elections for assemblymen held on the 30th of July, 1907, resulted in the election of 32 Nacionalistas, 4 Independistas, 7 Inmediatistas, 16 Progresistas, 20 Independents, and 1 Centro Catolico. The total number of voters registered for the assembly elections was 104,966. The number of voters registered for the provincial and municipal elections will be very much larger than that for the assembly elections. The difference in registration and votes cast at the two elections seems to show with considerable certainty that there was far more interest in the elections for provincial and municipal officials than there was in the election for assemblymen. …
"The delegates to the Philippine assembly, in accordance with the call of the governor-general as prescribed by the act of Congress, met at the Grand Opera House in the city of Manila on the 16th day of October at 9 o’clock A. M."
_Report of the Philippine Commission, December 31, 1907 (Abridgment, Message and Documents, 1907, pages 810-811)._
The Honorable William H. Taft, United States Secretary of War, former Governor-General of the Philippine Islands, made the long journey to the Islands on this occasion for the purpose of opening the meeting of the Assembly and personally inspecting the state of affairs. After returning, in the following December, he made an extended report to the President, in which he discussed the character of the Assembly and of the parties represented in it at considerable length. Recurring to the formation of the first political party that arose in the Islands after they came under the control of the United States, he said of it:
"It is a mistake to suppose that the war by the Filipinos against the Americans had the sympathy of all the Filipinos. On the contrary, there were many intelligent and conservative men who favored American control and who did not believe in the capacity of their people immediately to organize a government which would be stable and satisfactory, but in the face of a possible independence of the Islands, they were still. Upon Mr. McKinley’s second election many of these persons reached the conclusion that it was time for them to act. Accordingly, they formed the Federal Party, the chief platform of which was peace under American sovereignty and the acceptance of the American promises to govern the Islands for the benefit of the Filipinos and gradually to extend popular self-government to the people. The Federal Party received accessions by thousands in all parts of the Islands and in every province, so that the Commission was enabled during the year 1901, and under the auspices, and with the aid of, the Federal Party, to organize civil government in some 32 or 33 provinces, or in substantially all of them. … The main purpose and principle of the party was peace under the sovereignty of the United States. In drafting a platform its leaders had formulated a plank favoring the organization of the Islands into a Territory of the United States, with a view to its possibly becoming a State. From this plank it took its name. In the first two or three years after its successful effort to bring on peace, many prominent Filipinos having political ambition became members, and in the gubernatorial elections the great majority of governors elected were Federals. And so substantially all who filled prominent offices in the government by appointment, including the judges, were of that party. Then dissension arose among prominent leaders and some withdrew from the party. The natural opposition to a government party led to the organization of other parties, especially among those known as Intransigentes [Irreconcilables]. The Federal Party had founded an organ, the Democracia, early in its existence. The opponents of the government looking to immediate independence founded a paper called the Renacimiento. The latter was edited with especial ability and with a partisan spirit against the American Government.
"For two years before the election of the Assembly the Filipinos who sympathized with the _Renacimiento_ were perfecting their organization to secure a majority in the assembly. Many groups were formed, but they all were known as the Partido Nacionalista. There was some difference as to whether to this title should be added the word ‘inmediatista,’ but the great majority favored it. The party is generally known as the Nacionalista Party. During much of these same two years, the Federal Party was dormant. …
"Some six months before the elections, there sprung from the ashes of the Federal Party a party which, rejecting the statehood idea, declared itself in favor of making the Philippines an independent nation by gradual and progressive acquisition of governmental control until the people should become fitted by education and practice under American sovereignty to enjoy and maintain their complete independence. It was called the Partido Nacionalista Progresista. It is generally known as the Progresista Party. …
{498}
"The campaign in the last two or three months was carried on with great vigor. The Nacionalistas had the advantage of being understood to be against the government. This, with a people like the Filipino people, who had been taught to regard the government as an entity separate from the people, taxing them and prosecuting them, was in itself a strong reason for popular sympathy and support. The Progresistas were denounced as a party of office-holders. The government was denounced as extravagant and burdensome to the people. In many districts the Nacionalista candidates promised that if they were returned immediate independence would follow. There were quite a number of candidates in country and remote districts where the controversy was not heated who did not declare themselves on the main question, and maintained an independence of any party. They were known as Independientes. Then, there were other Independientes who declared themselves independent of party, but in favor of immediate independence.
"The total vote registered and cast did not exceed 104,000, although in previous gubernatorial elections the total vote had reached nearly 150,000. The high vote at the latter elections may be partly explained by the fact that at the same elections town officers were elected, and the personal interest of many candidates drew out a larger number of electors. But the falling off was also in part due, doubtless, to the timidity of conservative voters, who, because of the heat of the campaign, preferred to avoid taking sides. This is not a permanent condition, however, and I doubt not that the meeting of the assembly and the evident importance of its functions when actually performed will develop a much greater popular interest in it, and the total vote will be largely increased at the next election.
"I opened the assembly in your name. The roll of the members returned on the face of the record was called. An appropriate oath was administered to all the members and the assembly organized by selecting Señor Sergio Osmeña as its speaker or presiding officer. Señor Osmeña has been one of the most efficient fiscals, or prosecuting attorneys, in the Islands, having conducted the government prosecutions in the largest province of the Islands, the province and Island of Cebu. He was subsequently elected governor, and by his own activity in going into every part of the island, he succeeded in enlisting the assistance of all the people in suppressing ladronism, which had been rife in the mountains of Cebu for thirty or forty years, so that to-day there is absolute peace and tranquillity throughout the island. He is a young man, not 30, but of great ability, shrewdness, high ideals, and yet very practical in his methods of dealing with men and things. The assembly could have done nothing which indicated its good sense so strongly as the selection of Senor Osmeña as its presiding officer. …
"As a shibboleth—as a party cry—immediate independence has much force, because it excites the natural pride of the people; but few of their number have ever worked out its consequences, and when they have done so they have been willing to postpone that question until some of the immediate needs of the people have been met. I may be wrong, but my judgment is that the transfer of real power, by giving to the people part of the legislative control of the Christian provinces, sobers their leaders with the sense of responsibility and teaches them some of the practical difficulties of government I do not for a moment guarantee that there will not at times be radical action by the Assembly, which cannot meet the approval of those who understand the legislative needs of the Islands, but all I wish to say is that the organization and beginning of the life of the Assembly have disappointed its would-be critics and have given great encouragement to those who were responsible for its extension of political power."
_Special Report of William H. Taft, Secretary of War, to the President on the Philippines, January 23, 1908 (60th Cong. 1st Session, Senate Doc. No. 200)._
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1909. Change in the Governor-General’s Office.
General James F. Smith was succeeded as Governor-General by the Vice-Governor-General, Mr. W. Cameron Forbes, in November, 1909.
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1909. Philippine Tariff Act.
A special Message, transmitting a Philippine Tariff Bill recommended by the Secretary of War, was sent to Congress, April 14, by President Taft. "This measure," wrote the President, "revises the present Philippine tariff, simplifies it and makes it conform as nearly as possible to the regulations of the customs laws of the United States, especially with respect to packing and packages. The present Philippine regulations have been cumbersome and difficult for American merchants and exporters to comply with. Its purpose is to meet the new conditions that will arise under the section of the pending United States tariff bill which provides, with certain limitations, for free trade between the United States and the islands. It is drawn with a view to preserving to the islands as much customs revenue as possible and to protect in a reasonable measure those industries which now exist in the islands.
"The bill now transmitted has been drawn by a board of tariff experts, of which the insular collector of customs, Colonel George R. Colton, was the president. The board held a great many open meetings in Manila, and conferred fully with representatives of all business interests in the Philippine Islands. It is of great importance to the welfare of the islands that the bill should be passed at the same time with the pending Payne bill, with special reference to the provisions of which it was prepared."
The Bill was passed, but certain tobacco interests secured an important amendment in their favor.
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1909 (November). Success of the Nationalists in the Election.
"Practically complete returns from the recent election indicate that the Assembly will be composed of sixty Nationalists, fifteen Progressists, and five Independents. The Nationalists also gained four provincial Governors over the number elected by that party at the last election. Similar gains in other offices have been made by the Nationalists. Some of the returns are still missing, but they are not likely to make any material change in the figures given."
_Press Report from Manila, November 5, 1909._
----------PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: End--------
PICKETING: The Labor Strikers’ Right. Its limit.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: ENGLAND: A. D. 1906 (MARCH).
PICQUART, GENERAL.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1906.
PIEROLA, NICOLAS.
See (in this Volume) PERU.
PINCHOT, GIFFORD: Chief of the United States Forest Service.
See (in this Volume) CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES.
PINCHOT, GIFFORD: On Threatened Water Power Trust.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL, &c.: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909.
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PIOUS FUND QUESTION. Its Decision by the Hague Tribunal.
See (in this Volume) MEXICO: A. D. 1902 (MAY).
PITTSBURG: A. D. 1906-1908. Under a Reforming Mayor.
See (in this Volume) MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT.
PITTSBURG: A. D. 1907. Enlargement and Rededication of the Carnegie Institute.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1907.
PITTSBURG: A. D. 1907-1908. The Pittsburg Survey. A remarkable Investigation of Living Conditions.
See (in this Volume) SOCIAL BETTERMENT: UNITED STATES.
PIUS X., POPE.
See (in this Volume) PAPACY.
PLAGUE, Bubonic.
See (in this Volume) PUBLIC HEALTH.
"PLAN OF CAMPAIGN," THE.
See (in this Volume) IRELAND: A. D. 1907.
PLATT AMENDMENT.
See (in this Volume) CUBA: A. D. 1901-1902.
PLAYGROUND MOVEMENT, THE.
The first convention of the Playground Association of America, held at Chicago in June, 1907, was a very notable gathering, in the character of the men and women assembled,—in the quality of the discussion they gave to the subject of child-development by wholesome play,—in the spirit imparted to it by the wonderful exhibit that Chicago could make of achievement in this new civic undertaking, and in the great impetus it gave to the playground movement throughout the country. The proceedings and incidents of the convention were reported very fully in the August number of Charities and Corrections that year.
"From one article, ‘How They Played at Chicago,’ by Mr. Graham Romeyn Taylor, we learn that in connection with the convention there was held a festival of sport and play, in which from first to last ‘the play spirit was ascendant.’ More than 5000 persons participated, and among them were President Gulick, of the national association, and Dr. Sargent, of Harvard. The play spirit, says he, captivated every one. ‘Play, according to students of it, means not only a good time, but from the child’s point of view it is serious business: moreover, it has vital significance in educational development.’ This meeting, he claims, marks the transition of playground activity from a more or less sporadic and disconnected series of efforts in our larger cities to a firmly established and well organized national movement. A better understanding of the playground issue means better citizenship and community-life.
"President Roosevelt, honorary president, had requested that delegations be sent to this convention from many cities, ‘to gain inspiration from this meeting, and to see the magnificent system that Chicago has erected in its South Park section,—one of the most notable civic achievements of any American city.’ They came, and returned to their home cities with photographs of the playgrounds and recreation centers in Chicago. On these the city of Chicago has expended during the last four years $6,500,000, and has recently appropriated $3,000,000 additional. Moreover, it has authorized $1,500,000 for similar facilities for children on the north and west sides as well. Each center costs about $30,000 annually. These centers recognize that human needs transcend all other things, and tend to develop a social spirit that one day must permeate our commingled races."
_American Review of Reviews, September, 1907._
"According to the new Year Book [for 1910] of the Playground Association of America, 336 municipalities in the United States are maintaining supervised playgrounds. The actual number of playgrounds operated in 267 of these cities last year was 1,535. About 56 per cent. are in the area of greatest density of population, in the North Atlantic States. The number of cities in those States maintaining playgrounds is 149, and the number of playgrounds established in 123 of them is 873. Massachusetts has led in the movement.
"In about 49 per cent. of the cities operating public playgrounds, the managing authority, wholly or in part, is the city itself, which is working through its board of education, its park department, or other municipal bureau—or by combining the activities of two or more departments. In fifteen cities the Mayors have appointed special commissions, organized, as city departments for the administration of playgrounds, which are no longer left to the philanthropist.
"In fifty-five of the larger cities, local playground associations have been established, and many of the smaller towns have organized committees that will be converted into permanent organizations. Churches, women’s clubs, Young Men’s Christian Associations, Associated Charities, and public-spirited men and women have contributed their help.
"An index of the interest in the movement is afforded by a survey of figures representing the yearly expenditures for sites, equipment, and the maintenance of playgrounds. In many cases specific information on this point is not available, but 184 cities have sent reports stating definitely what it costs them to operate their grounds. The total amount expended in the year by these 184 cities is $1,353,114. In 18 per cent, of the cities the amount of money set apart for playgrounds was appropriated entirely by the municipality, while in 23 per cent. the cities combined with private organizations."
_New York Evening Post, January 5, 1910._
In England, or in London, at least, the movement has been set on foot by an "Evening Play Centres Committee," of which Mrs. Humphry Ward is Chairman. The object of the Committee, as stated by Mrs. Ward, is "to open the school buildings in winter for play, exercise, and handwork, as an alternative to the streets, to children after school hours; and in summer to organize the playgrounds, as is now so largely done in America and Canada"; but thus far its success appears to have been mostly in the opening of indoor play centres for evening entertainment.
PLAZA, GENERAL LEONIDAS: President of Ecuador.
See (in this Volume) ECUADOR.
PLEHVE, M. V. de: Defence of Russian Measures in Finland.
See (in this Volume) FINLAND: A. D. 1901.
PLEHVE, M. V. de: Russian Minister of the Interior. His atrocious administration. His assassination.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1901-1904.
PLURAL VOTING, BELGIAN.
See (in this Volume) BELGIUM: A. D. 1902 and 1904.
See in Volume VI., BELGIUM: A. D. 1894-1895.
See in Volume I., CONSTITUTION OF BELGIUM.
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POBIEDONOSTZEFF, CONSTANTINE: On Russian Discontent.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1902.
POBIEDONOSTZEFF, CONSTANTINE: Resignation.
See (in this Volume) Russia: A. D. 1904-1905.
POBIEDONOSTZEFF, CONSTANTINE: Death, March 23, 1907.
POGROMS: Massacres.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1906.
POLAR EXPLORATION: Arctic: A. D. 1901-1910. Three Expeditions of Commander Peary. His Final Triumph. The astounding Imposture of Dr. Cook, Pretender to an attainment of the Pole a Year in Advance of Peary. Other Arctic Explorations of the Decade.
When the record of Polar Exploration was closed in Volume VI. of this work, on its going to press in the spring of 1901, Commander Robert E. Peary had been working within the Arctic Circle for three years, with no respite, and the Peary Arctic Club was sending a vessel, the _Erik_, to make inquiries about him. He was found to have proved that Greenland is surrounded by water at the north, and to have further undertakings in hand. He remained another year, in the course of which he made the nearest approach to the Pole that had yet been accomplished, going directly north from Cape Hecla and reaching latitude 84° 17'. Returning to the coast, he was met and brought home, after an absence of four years. In July, 1905, he sailed northward again, equipped with a vessel, the _Roosevelt_, built expressly for his use. After wintering on the north coast of Grant Land, he started once more with sledges and dogs toward the Pole, and this time pressed his way to 87° 6' of latitude, or within a little more than 200 miles of the Arctic hub. Then he was forced to turn back, with scant supplies, killing his dogs for food. Once more, in July, 1908, Commander Peary set his face Arcticward, on the staunch _Roosevelt_, with two scientific companions, and equipped himself at Etah with Eskimos and dogs for another journey across the ice-fields, from some point on the Grant Land coast.
Two expeditions were fitted out in 1901 and 1903, by Mr. Ziegler, of New York, the former under Evelyn B. Baldwin, the latter under Anthony Fiala. The latter reached latitude 82° 13', remaining in the Arctic regions until the summer of 1905. In June, 1903, Captain Roald Amundsen, of Norway, sailed from Christiania in the small sloop Gjoa, beginning a voyage which carried him entirely through the Northwest Passage from Baffin Bay to Bering Strait and which occupied three years. Much of that time, however, was devoted to studies and searches of great value in determining the location of the Magnetic Pole. In 1905 the ranks of the Arctic explorers were joined by the Duke of Orleans, who sailed from Christiania in May, in the Belgica, commanded by Lieutenant de Gerlache. In 1907, Mr. John R. Bradley, of New York, supplied Dr. Frederick A. Cook with equipments for an attempt to reach the North Pole, and accompanied him in a schooner yacht to Annatok, a little north of Etah, in North Greenland, where the Doctor, with one white man, Rudolph Francke, were landed, with their supplies, to begin the undertaking. Several attempts were made in successive years by Mr. Walter Wellman to make the journey to the Pole from Spitzbergen by a dirigible airship. Each of them, down to 1909, was frustrated by misfortunes of circumstance or weather. A tragically ended survey of the northeast coast of Greenland was accomplished in 1906-1907 by Dr. Mylius Erichsen and Lieutenant Hagen-Hagen, who perished while groping their way southward in the growing darkness of the approaching winter. These fill out the important items of the record of Arctic exploration, since April, 1901, down to the 1st of September, 1909.
On that day the whole world was startled and excited by a message, flashed first to Lerwick, in the Shetland Islands, from a passing Danish steamer, the Hans Egede, and thence to all corners of the earth, saying:
"We have on board the American traveller, Dr. Cook, who reached the North Pole April 21, 1908. Dr. Cook arrived at Upernivik (the northernmost Danish settlement in Greenland, on an island off the west coast) in May of 1909 from Cape York (in the northwest part of Greenland, on Baffin Bay). The Eskimos of Cape York confirm Dr. Cook’s story of his journey."
The next day brought a cabled announcement from Dr. Cook himself, to the New York _Herald_, briefly telling of his triumph, "after a prolonged fight against famine and frost," and describing the emotions with which he had found himself at the goal which so many had striven vainly to attain. "What a cheerless spot," he moralized, "to have aroused the ambition of man for so many ages! An endless field of purple snows. No life. No land. No spot to relieve the monotony of frost. We were the only pulsating creatures in a dead world of ice."
Two days later the hero was landed at Copenhagen, and all the excited world devoured graphic descriptions of his reception by the enthusiastic Danes: by the Crown Prince, who hastened to welcome him before he had stepped from the ship; by the crowds who cheered him; by the King, who dined him; by the University of Copenhagen which awarded him an honorary degree, and whose faculty he made happy and proud by the promise that it should be the first to examine the record of his observations and the proofs in general that he had reached the Pole.
Two more days passed, and then the climax of this world-spread excitement and astonishment was marked by another radio-electric flash of news out of the Arctic North,—this time from the American North,—proclaiming another conquest of the icy fortress of the Pole. It spoke "to the Associated Press, New York," from "Indian Harbor, via Cape Ray, Nova Scotia," saying: "Stars and Stripes nailed to North Pole. Peary." It reached New York a little after noon of September 6th, and before night, everywhere, people in all languages were asking each other: "Is it possible that two men have suddenly done what none have been able to do before?"
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Other messages from Commander Peary which soon followed the first one fixed the date of his attainment of the Pole as having been April 6, 1909,—being fifteen days less than a year after Dr. Cook claimed to have planted the American flag at the same spot. They brought angry denunciations, too, of Cook’s pretension, which Peary had learned of from the Esquimaux in the North. "Cook’s story," he said in one despatch, "should not be taken too seriously. The two Esquimaux who accompanied him say he went no distance north and not outside of land. Other members of the tribe confirm their story." In another he declared: "Cook has sold the public a gold brick." Dr. Cook, meantime, gave out expressions as to Peary’s achievement very different in temper and tone. He had no doubt that Commander Peary had reached the Pole; but he, Cook, had been fortunately the first to enjoy the favorable conditions which gave success to them both. His magnanimity, his coolness, his easy self-confidence, in contrast with Peary’s words and bearing, won public admiration and sympathy, and the majority in most communities inclined strongly, for a time, to the judgment that both explorers had done what they said they did, but that Cook, in character, was the more estimable man. When he arrived in New York, on the 21st of September, that city gave him almost as wild a hero worship as Copenhagen had done. Commander Peary was then just landing at Sydney, Nova Scotia, and it was some weeks before he would proceed to New York, or put himself at all in the way of receiving any public demonstrations of honor.
But grounds of skepticism as to Dr. Cook were acquiring a rapid multiplication. When he published his story in detail, or told it in lectures, it started questions which people having critical knowledge insisted that he must answer if he could; but he made no attempt. He was in no haste to produce the records which he had insisted would prove his claims beyond a doubt. He required weeks of time to prepare them for examination, and they must go to the University of Copenhagen before any other tribunal of science could see them. Meanwhile, he was harvesting large gains from lectures and newspaper publications, and seemed more interested in that pursuit than in the vindication of his questioned honor. Hence, suspicion of him grew, until it made itself heard and felt at last with a force which drove the Doctor to put his professed proofs in shape and send them by the hand of his secretary, Mr. Lonsdale, to Copenhagen. Before they reached their destination he, himself, disappeared mysteriously from public view, nervously shattered, it was said, and seeking some hidden place of refuge abroad. Reports of him from various places in both Europe and South America have not been verified, and his whereabouts are still (March, 1910) a mystery.
On the 21st of December the report of the scientific committee of Copenhagen University, to which the records forwarded by Dr. Cook were submitted, was made public by the University Council. "The report, which was sent in by the committee on December 18, states that the following papers were submitted to it for investigation:—
"1. A type-written report by Mr. Lonsdale on Dr. Cook’s Arctic voyage, consisting of 61 folios.
"2. A type written copy of 16 folios, made by Mr. Lonsdale, comprising the note-books brought back by Dr. Cook from his journey and covering the period from March 18 to June 13, 1908, stated to have been written on the way from Svartevaag to the Pole and back until a place west of Heibergsland was reached. …
"The committee points out as a result of its investigations that the aforementioned report of the journey is essentially identical with that published some time ago in the _New York Herald_, and that the copy of the note-books did not contain astronomical records, but only results. In fact, the committee remarks that there are no elucidatory statements which might have rendered it probable that astronomical observations were really taken. Neither is the practical side —namely, the sledge journey—illuminated by details in such a way as to enable the committee to form an opinion. The committee therefore considers that from the material submitted no proof can be adduced that Dr. Cook reached the North Pole.
"The council of the University accordingly declares as a result of the committee’s report that the documents submitted to Copenhagen University contain no observations or explanations to prove that Dr. Cook on his last Polar journey reached the North Pole."
That Commander Peary had accomplished at last the object of his indomitable striving was never in doubt. His own testimony to the fact had sufficed from the beginning, and the decision rendered on the 3d of November by a committee of the National Geographic Society, which examined the records of his march to the Pole, added nothing to the public belief. But his laurels had been lamentably blighted by the atmosphere of scandal, wrangle, and disgust with which Cook’s monstrous imposture had vulgarized the whole feeling that attended the exploit.
The incidents of the final Peary expedition, from start to finish, were summarized by the Commander in a message from Battle Harbor to the London _Times_, September 8, as follows:
"The _Roosevelt_ left New York on July 6, 1908. She left Sydney on July 17th; arrived at Cape York, Greenland, on August 1st; left Etah, Greenland, on August 8th; arrived at Cape Sheridan, Grant Land, on September 1st, and wintered at Cape Sheridan. The sledge expedition left the _Roosevelt_ on February 15th, 1909, and started north of Cape Columbia on March 1st. It passed the British record on March 2d; was delayed by open water on March 2d and 3d; was held up by open water from March 4th to March 11th; crossed the 84th parallel on March 11th and encountered an open lead on March 15th; crossed the 85th parallel on March 18th; crossed the 86th parallel on March 22d and encountered an open lead on March 33d [23d?]; passed the Norwegian record on March 23d; passed the Italian record on March 24th and encountered an open lead on March 26th; crossed the 87th parallel on March 27th; passed the American record on March 28th and encountered a lead on March 28th; held up by open water on March 29th; crossed the 88th parallel on April 2d; crossed the 89th parallel on April 4th, and reached the North Pole on April 6th.
"On returning we left the pole on April 7th; reached Camp Columbia on April 23d, arriving on board the _Roosevelt_ on April 27th. The _Roosevelt_ left Cape Sheridan on July 18th, passed Cape Sabine on August 8th, left Cape York on August 26th and arrived at Indian Harbor.
"All the members of the expedition are returning in good health except Professor Ross G. Martin, who unfortunately drowned on April 10th, 45 miles north of Cape Columbia, while returning from 86 degrees north latitude in command of a supporting party."
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POLAR EXPLORATION: Antarctic: English, German, Swedish, and Scottish Expeditions. The Successes of Lieutenant Shackleton.
When the account of Polar Exploration in Volume VI. of this work was closed, in April, 1901, several expeditions to the Antarctic region were reported as being under preparation, in England, Germany, and Sweden. The English expedition, for which the ship _Discovery_ was being fitted out, sailed on the 6th of August, 1901, under the command of Captain Robert F. Scott, with Lieutenant Ernest H. Shackleton of the British Navy as second in command. Its object was a further exploration of the great mountainous region named Victoria Land, which Captain James Ross had discovered half a century before. This coast the _Discovery_ reached in January, 1902, and followed it southward, to and beyond the Erebus volcano, skirting the Great Ice Barrier which stretches far eastward, seeming to forbid a penetration of the frozen territory it hems in. In this survey the British explorers reached an unvisited section, which they named King Edward Land. They wintered that year near Mount Erebus, pushing sledge expeditions southward over the snow fields, finding a more upheaved and broken surface of land, less ice-capped, than is the common feature of the Arctic polar zone. In the longest of these sledge-trips the latitude of 82° 17' S. was attained,—far beyond any previous approach to the southern pole, but still more than 500 miles from that goal. Through a second winter the _Discovery_ was held fast in the ice, with considerable sickness among officers and men, notwithstanding which important additions to their survey of the region were made. In January, 1904, they were reached by two relief ships, and escaped from the ice in the following month, arriving at New Zealand not long after.
The German expedition commanded by Dr. Drygalski, left Kiel August 11, 1901, borne by the steamer _Gauss_, built specially for battling with ice. In January, 1902, it took on stores at Kerguelen Island, and proceeded thence to a point in the Antarctic Circle far eastward of that chosen by the British explorers, being within the region of the discoveries made by Captain Wilkes, about sixty years before, and indefinitely named Wilkes Land. It was the purpose of Dr. Drygalski to establish a station on the section of this unexplored territory known as Termination Land and from thence make thorough surveys. He failed, however, to find the supposed land in its expected place, and was unfortunately frozen in for a year, with sledge expeditions baffled by the violence of winter storms. In geographical exploration the _Gauss_ party seem to have accomplished little, but they made rich collections of scientific data. As soon as they were freed from the ice they received orders from Berlin to return home.
The Swedish expedition, under Dr. Otto Nordenskjöld, left Europe in October, 1901, in the ship _Antarctic_, destined for Graham Land, south of the South American continent. There, on the east coast of that land, in Admiralty Inlet, Dr. Nordenskjöld established winter quarters in February, 1902, and the _Antarctic_ was sent to South America, to return thence some months later.
A Scottish expedition, under Dr. W. S. Bruce, in the steamer _Scotia_, was sent out in October, 1903, for special oceanographic investigations in Weddell Sea,—south of the Atlantic Ocean.
All previous Antarctic explorations were eclipsed, in 1908-1909, by that of Lieutenant Shackleton, commanding the barkentine Nimrod, a converted whaling vessel, much smaller than the _Discovery_, on which Lieutenant Shackleton had accompanied Captain Scott to the same region some years before. The Nimrod sailed from England in July, 1907, and from New Zealand on New Year Day, 1908, going to the same section of the Arctic Circle that the _Discovery_ had sought. Winter quarters were established at a point about twenty miles north of the spot where Scott and Shackleton had wintered in 1902-1903. One of the first achievements of the party was the ascent of Mount Erebus by six of the scientists of the expedition, who began their difficult climb on the 5th of March. Caught in a blizzard on the second day of their undertaking, they had to lie in their sleeping bags for thirty hours; but they made their way to the summit and looked down into the live fire of the crater. The party making this ascent were Lieutenant Adams, R. N. R. (geologist). Sir Philip Brocklehurst (surveyor and map maker), Professor David, of Sydney University, Mr. A. Forbes Mackay, assistant surgeon, Mr. Eric Marshall, surgeon and cartographer, and Mr. Marson a scientist of Adelaide. Early in the spring the sledging journeys were begun.
Speaking at a reception given to him by the Royal Geographical Society, on his return to England in June, 1909, Lieutenant Shackleton gave a brief account of the most important of these journeys, led by himself, with Lieutenant Adams, geologist, Surgeon Eric Marshall, and a third companion named Wild. The march of the party was directly toward the Pole:
"On December 3 they climbed a mountain 4,000 feet high, and from its summit saw what they believed to be a royal road to the Pole—an enormous glacier stretching southwards. There was only one pony left at this time, and, taking this animal with them, they started the ascent of the glacier, which proved to be seamed with crevasses. Progress became very slow, for disaster threatened at every step. On December 7 the remaining pony was lost down a crevasse, very nearly taking Wild and a sledge with it. Finally the party gained the inland plateau, at an altitude of over 10,000 feet, and started across the great white snow plain towards the Pole.
"They were short of food, and had cut down their rations to an absolute _minimum_; the temperature at the high altitude was extremely low, and all their spare clothing had been deposited lower down the glacier in order to save weight. On January 6, [1909], they reached latitude 88' 8" south [88° 8'?], after having taken the risk of leaving a depot of stores on the plateau, out of sight of all land. Then a blizzard swept down upon them, and for two days they were unable to leave their tent, while, owing to their weakened condition and the intense cold, they suffered from frostbite even in their sleeping bags. When the blizzard moderated on January 9 they felt that they had reached their limit of endurance, for their strength was greatly reduced and the food was almost done. They therefore left the camp standing, and pushing on for five hours, planted Queen Alexandra’s flag in 88' 23" south [88° 23'?], took possession of the plateau for the King, and turned their faces north again.
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"Mr. Shackleton described the difficulties of the journey back to the coast, when the men were desperately short of food and nearly worn out, and attacks of dysentery added to their troubles. … One day on the Barrier they were unable to march at all, being prostrated with dysentery, and they reached each depot with their food finished. On February 23, however, they reached a depot prepared for them by a party from the ship, and on March 1 Mr. Shackleton and Wild reached the _Nimrod_. Mr. Shackleton at once led a relief party back to get Adams and Marshall, the latter having been unable to continue the march owing to dysentery, and on March 4 all the men were safe on board."
"Lieutenant Shackleton has essentially solved the problem of the position of the South Pole," said the London _Times_ in comments on the expedition; "he may be said, indeed, to have been actually within sight of it on a dreary plateau some 10,000 ft. above sea level. He has been as successful in solving the problem of the South Pole as Nansen was in solving that of the character of the ocean which surrounds the North Pole."
An expedition to complete what Lieutenant Shackleton came so near to accomplishing is being prepared in Great Britain, with intention to sail in July, 1910. It will be commanded by Captain Scott, of the expedition of 1901. The British Government contributes $100,000 to the cost. American and German expeditions are also being prepared.
POLES, THE: Germany: A. D. 1902-1908. Measures for Germanizing the Polish Provinces of Prussia.
See (in this Volume) GERMANY: A. D. 1902 (MARCH-MAY), 1906-1907, and 1908.
POLES, THE: Russia: A. D. 1904-1905. Revolutionary Disturbances in.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1904-1905.
POLES, THE: A. D. 1906. Their Present Condition.
"The Polish question … resolves itself into a struggle between the local Russian Government, the Patriot, and the Socialists. The local Government though harassed and worried by the Socialists, is secure from any great disaster until the latter have won over all the troops, or the Russian soldier forgets his hatred for the Pole. The Socialists, well organised and energetic, are carrying out their programme with a tenacity which would be astonishing were it not for the fact that the Jewish element predominates in their ranks.
"The Polish Patriot seems to be in the worst case of all; for his hopes are centred on the programme of a party which is without efficient leaders and without the slightest chance of obtaining its demands from the existing Russian Government. The one ray of light on his political horizon is the fact that liberal Russia has expressed sympathy for his wrongs, and promised to redress them as soon as circumstances will allow, but even the most sanguine Patriot admits that his new ally has many battles to win before this promise can be fulfilled. Meanwhile, he is engaged in an unequal struggle with the Socialists and their allies, the anarchists."
_B. C. Baskerville, The Present Condition of Poland (Fortnightly Review, October, 1906)._
POLK, Van Leer: Delegate to Third International Conference of American Republics.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
POLLARD PLAN, OF JUDICIAL DEALING WITH DRUNKARDS.
See (in this Volume) ALCOHOL PROBLEM: INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS.
POLTAVA PROVINCE, Peasant Doings in.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1901-1904, and 1902.
POOLING, OF RAILWAY RATES.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1890-1902.
POOR LAWS, WORKING OF THE ENGLISH.
See (in this Volume) POVERTY.
POPES.
See (in this Volume and Volume IV.) PAPACY.
PORT ARTHUR: A. D. 1904-1905. Siege and Capture in the Russo-Japanese War.
See(in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (February-July) and (February-August); also A. D. 1904-1905 (May-January).
PORTER, HORACE: Commissioner Plenipotentiary to the Second Peace Conference.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1907.
PORTER, HORACE: Search for and Recovery, at Paris, of the Remains of John Paul Jones.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1905 (FEBRUARY-JUNE).
PORTLAND, OREGON: A. D. 1905. The Lewis and Clark Exposition.
"The Lewis and Clark Centennial and American Pacific Exposition and Oriental Fair" (to give its full of fecial title), conducted at Portland from the beginning of June until the middle of October, 1905, in commemoration of the first exploration of the American Continent from the Mississippi to the Pacific, was one of the most interesting and attractive of the undertakings of its kind in the last decade. Specially as an exhibit of the wonderful natural resources of the great Northwest, and of the more wonderful rapidity of their exploitation, it seemed wholly satisfying to all who visited it. The reclamation work of the United States Government, shown elaborately by models and otherwise in the Irrigation Building of the extensive national exhibit, afforded a feature of uncommon attractiveness. The associated Forestry Building, with its walls of mighty logs and its grand pillars of firs and cedars, six and seven feet in diameter, was a piece of unique architecture that drew all eyes. "The Oregon Cathedral," it came to be called. In metals, minerals, fruits and grains, the wealth of the Northwest was astonishingly displayed; and the Japanese from the farther side of the Pacific made the most of the opportunity to spread their artistic wares before American buyers.
The scenic setting of the Exposition grounds, on the border of a lake and with a background of hill rising from Willamette River, was a theme of praise in all reports of it.
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PORTO RICO: A. D. 1901-1905. Change of Qualifications for the Elective Franchise.
The fundamental provisions of the Act of Congress, approved April 12, 1900, under which the government of Porto Rico as a dependency of the United States was organized, will be found in Volume VI of this work.
See PORTO RICO: A. D. 1900 (APRIL).
The Act has received amendment since, making one important organic change. The Executive Council which it created was authorized to fix the qualifications of voters for the first election of a Legislative Assembly. The suffrage in that election, held in 1900, was conferred by the Council on every male citizen of twenty-one years, resident in the island for one year and for six months in his municipal district, "who is able to read and write, or who, on September 1, 1900, owned real estate in his own right and name, or who on said date was a member of a firm or corporation or partnership, or who on September 1, 1900, owned personal property in his own right or name not less in value than twenty-five dollars." The results of the election held under that rule, and a brief summary of the doings of the Legislative Assembly at its first session, which opened on the 3d of December, 1900, and closed on the 31st of January, 1901, are given in Volume VI.
"At its second session, in 1902, the Legislative Assembly availed itself of the power given to it by the organic act and passed a law for the government of future elections. This act followed closely the provisions of the orders that had been issued by the executive council. The system created is similar to that in the American States which have adopted the Australian ballot. As regards the franchise, the only change made was that the provision which gave the right to vote to persons owning personal property to the value of twenty-five dollars was dropped and in its place was substituted the provision conferring the franchise upon those persons meeting the conditions as regards age and residence who on the day of registration are able to produce to the board of registry tax receipts showing the payment of any kind of taxes for the last six months of the year in which the election is held. The law also provided that all persons who were registered during the year 1900 would not be required to register anew or have to meet the new requirements of the law. This was the law under which the second election in 1902 was held. In 1904 the law underwent a very important alteration as regards the qualifications for the enjoyment of the electoral franchise. By this new law the three conditions—ability to read and write, ownership of real estate, or payment of taxes—any one of which qualified a male citizen of Porto Rico who had resided in the island one year and in the district in which he offered to register for six months immediately preceding, to vote, were until July 1, 1906, wiped out, leaving only the conditions regarding sex, age and residence to be met in order to qualify a voter. After that date the additional qualification of being able to read and write must be met. The result of this amendment to the law is to provide for universal manhood suffrage until July 1, 1906, after which no new name can be added to the registration list unless its owner is able to read and write. Those persons, however, who are properly registered before that date are not required to offer themselves for registration, but continue to enjoy the full rights of the franchise."
_W. F. Willoughby, Territories and Dependencies of the United States. page 95 (Century Company, New York, 1905)._
PORTO RICO: A. D. 1905. Extension of Local Government asked for.
A convention of municipal delegates, chosen by the elective municipal councils of the island, assembled at San Juan in July, 1905, formulated a request to the Government of the United States for a broadening of the fundamental law of 1900, which "would largely transfer the control of the local government to their own people. The Governor would remain a Presidential appointee, but the appointments by the Governor would be subject in many cases to revision by a locally elected Senate, except the courts, which would remain as now, for the most part, under our direct control. In other words, the legislative, and largely the administrative functions, subject to the limitations of the Organic Act, would be exercised by the Porto Ricans. The courts, of our own choosing, would construe limitations on these powers, and the Governor, with his police and militia, would be solely responsible for order and the lawful execution of lawful mandates."
PORTO RICO: A. D. 1906. Visited by President Roosevelt. His account of it.
"On November twenty-first I visited the island of Porto Rico, landing at Ponce, crossing by the old Spanish road by Cayey to San Juan, and returning next morning over the new American road from Arecibo to Ponce; the scenery was wonderfully beautiful, especially among the mountains of the interior, which constitute a veritable tropic Switzerland. I could not embark at San Juan because the harbor has not been dredged out and cannot receive an American battle ship. I do not think this fact creditable to us as a nation, and I earnestly hope that immediate provision will be made for dredging San Juan Harbor.
"I doubt whether our people as a whole realize the beauty and fertility of Porto Rico and the progress that has been made under its admirable government. …
"I stopped at a dozen towns all told, and one of the notable features in every town was the gathering of the school children. The work that has been done in Porto Rico for education has been noteworthy. The main emphasis, as is eminently wise and proper, has been put upon primary education; but in addition to this there is a normal school, an agricultural school, three industrial and three high schools. Every effort is being made to secure not only the benefits of elementary education to all the Porto Ricans of the next generation, but also as far as means will permit to train them so that the industrial, agricultural and commercial opportunities of the island can be utilized to the best possible advantage. It was evident, at a glance, that the teachers, both Americans and native Porto Ricans, were devoted to their work, took the greatest pride in it, and were endeavoring to train their pupils not only in mind, but in what counts for far more than mind in citizenship—that is, in character.
"I was very much struck by the excellent character both of the insular police and of the Porto Rican regiment. They are both of them bodies that reflect credit upon the American administration of the island. The insular police are under the local Porto Rican government. The Porto Rican regiment of troops must be appropriated for by the Congress. I earnestly hope that this body will be kept permanent. There should certainly be troops in the island, and it is wise that these troops should be themselves native Porto Ricans. It would be from every standpoint a mistake not to perpetuate this regiment. …
{505}
"There is a matter to which I wish to call your special attention, and that is the desirability of conferring full American citizenship upon the people of Porto Rico. I most earnestly hope that this will be done. I cannot see how any harm can possibly result from it, and it seems to me a matter of right and justice to the people of Porto Rico. They are loyal, they are glad to be under our flag, they are making rapid progress along the path of orderly liberty. Surely we should now show our appreciation of them, our pride in what they have done, and our pleasure in extending recognition for what has thus been done by granting them full American citizenship. …
"The Porto Ricans have complete and absolute autonomy in all their municipal governments, the only power over them possessed by the insular government being that of removing corrupt or incompetent municipal officials. This power has never been exercised save on the clearest proof of corruption or of incompetence such as to jeopardize the interests of the people of the island; and under such circumstances it has been fearlessly used to the immense benefit of the people. It is not a power with which it would be safe, for the sake of the island itself, to dispense at present. The lower house is absolutely elective, while the upper house is appointive. This scheme is working well; no injustice of any kind results from it, and great benefit to the island, and it should certainly not be changed at this time. The machinery of the elections is administered entirely by the Porto Rican people themselves, the governor and council keeping only such supervision as is necessary in order to secure an orderly election. Any protest as to electoral frauds is settled in the courts."
_Theodore Roosevelt, Message to Congress (Congressional Record, December 11, 1906)._
PORTO RICO: A. D. 1908. Ten Years of Progress.
"Ten years ago exports from Porto Rico to the United States were valued at $2,414,356, while in the fiscal year ending June 30, 1908, they were $25,891,261. The new figures show a probable further increase for 1909. In 1898, less than $3,000,000 worth of sugar was exported, and to-day shipments are more than $14,000,000. In coffee, once the leading staple, increase is also marked, although sugar now holds first place.
"Four hundred and thirty-five miles of macadamized roads, in good repair, now make communication easy between San Juan and Ponce and cities on the west coast. Two-thirds of the roads have been built since the occupation. The railroad around the island, projected by the Spanish, but delayed year by year, is now built, and harbor improvements have been made in San Juan and Ponce. More than a thousand public schools are educating the Porto Rican children—and sometimes their parents. The net public debt is now less than $3,000,000 or less than 21 per cent. of the assessed valuation, and the bulk of this money has been spent in public improvements."
_Porto Rico Correspondent New York Evening Post, March 27, 1909._
PORTO RICO: A. D. 1909. Modification of the Fundamental Act.
In a special Message to Congress, May 10, 1909, President Taft called attention to the failure of the Legislative Assembly of Porto Rico to pass the usual appropriation bills, leaving the government of the island without support after the 30th of the next June. In his opinion, the situation indicated that the United States had proceeded too fast in extending political power to the Porto Ricans, and that the full control of appropriations should be withdrawn from those "who have shown themselves too irresponsible to enjoy it." He suggested, therefore, an amendment of the fundamental act, known as the Foraker Act, to provide that when the legislative assembly shall adjourn without making the appropriation necessary to carry on the government, sums equal to the appropriations made in the previous year for the respective purposes shall be available from the current revenues, and shall be drawn by the warrant of the auditor on the treasurer and countersigned by the Governor. Such a provision applies to the Legislatures of the Philippines and Hawaii and "it has prevented in those two countries any misuse of the power of appropriation." An amendatory Act was passed in accordance with the President’s suggestion.
PORTO RICO: A. D. 1909. Change in the Governorship.
In September, 1909, Governor Regis H. Post resigned his office, and was succeeded by Mr. George R. Colton, who had had previous experience, both civil and military, in the Philippines and in Santo Domingo. The Secretary of the island underwent a change, also, Mr. Willoughby being called to Washington to take the duties of Assistant Director of the Census, and his place in Porto Rico being filled by Mr. George Cabot Ward.
PORTSMOUTH, Peace Treaty of: Circumstances and Text.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1905 (JUNE-OCTOBER).
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1906. At the Algeciras Conference on the Morocco question.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1905-1906.
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1906-1909. A "rotative" system of Party Government and its results. King Carlos assumes dictatorial authority. His Minister, Senhor Franco. Murder of the King and Crown Prince. Succession of King Manuel. Recent Ministries.
For many years prior to 1906 Portugal had been governed by two political parties, calling themselves the Regeneradors and the Progressistas, who, it has been said, "relieved one another in office, and in the spoils of office, at decent intervals, by a tacit arrangement between their leaders." This regular ministerial rotation led to the popular nickname of Rotativos, applied to both parties, and significant of the contempt in which they were held. The rotative system of party government, "while ensuring a comfortable livelihood to a class of professional politicians, was of no conspicuous benefit to the country, and it was with a view to ending it that King Carlos summoned Senhor João Franco, in May, 1906, to form a ministry. Senhor Franco, who belonged to neither of the recognized
## parties, set his hand zealously to the work of reform, but his
attempts to purge the Administration soon brought him into conflict with powerful vested interests; and in May, 1907, the politicians whose livelihoods he was reforming away united against him in a policy of obstruction which made Parliamentary government impossible. {506} He then dissolved the Cortes, and with the approval of the King assumed the position of dictator. His work of reform thenceforth proceeded apace. Drastic decrees, each aimed at some abuse, followed one another with amazing rapidity. Strong in the support of the King and of the best elements in the country, execrated by the politicians whom he had spoiled, and by the Press which he had done nothing to conciliate, he continued on his headlong course, and at the end of January, 1908, he signed a decree practically amounting to a suspension of civil liberties."
_Lisbon Correspondence, London Times._
A tragedy followed quickly. On the 1st day of February, 1908, the King, Dom Carlos, and the Crown Prince, Luiz Felipe, as they rode through the streets of Lisbon, with the Queen and a younger son in the same carriage, and attended by an escort, were attacked by a throng of assassins and killed. The younger prince was wounded; the Queen escaped by a miracle, one of the assassins having been shot at the instant his pistol was aimed at her. The two princes fought bravely, and the Queen threw herself in front of her husband, attempting vainly to shield him.
Prince Manuel, whose wound was not serious, succeeded to the throne; but "the shots that killed Dom Carlos and Dom Luiz on February 1 swept away the dictatorship of Senhor Franco and the whole fabric which he had built up at so much cost during 18 months. Within a few hours of the murder Senhor Franco resigned, under pressure, it is said, and left the country, declaring that he had done with politics for ever. From being the saviour of his country, the admiration of all enlightened men, both at home and abroad, he became a pariah. His supporters became mute and his system vanished. From that day to this his followers have had no more than three or four seats in the Chamber, where they have remained voiceless and without influence on the course of events.
"That a seemingly vulgar crime should have so disproportionate an effect was strange, and no less strange was the attitude of the country. Whether owing to the widely entertained suspicion that the murderers of the King were the tools of more important personages whom it would not be safe to discover, or to the fear of a Republican rising felt by the moderate and respectable members of the community, is still a matter of opinion; the fact remains that society lost its nerve. No burst of indignation, no adequate expression of sympathy for the Royal Family was heard; no steps were taken to trace the authors of the crime. … The disappearance of Senhor Franco left the two old ‘rotativist’ parties in presence, the Progressistas under Senhor Luciano de Castro, and the Regeneradores under Senhor Vilhena, the recently elected successor of the veteran Hintze Ribeiro. Compared to these, neither the Republicans, whose strength was supposed to be considerable in the country, nor the ‘dissident’ Progressistas, under Senhor Alpoim, were of any account as Parliamentary factors. A coalition Government was formed on March 4, under Admiral Ferreira do Amaral, consisting of two Regeneradores, two Progressistas, and two so-called Independents, personal adherents of the Premier, who resembled him in having no marked political ideals or convictions. The elections, which took place in April, returned 62 Regeneradores and 59 Progressistas, thus starting the Government on its career with the handsome following of 121 in a House of 155. The matters with which the Government had to deal were mainly three—namely, the revision of the decrees issued by Senhor Franco as Dictator, the question of the Civil List and of the advances made by the nation to the Royal Family, and electoral reform. The Civil List was successfully settled, but little progress had been made with the remainder of the programme when the first serious defection occurred. During the recess the Government announced that the municipal elections, which had been suspended by Senhor Franco in favour of nominated councils, would be held again in November, a decision bitterly attacked by Senhor Vilhena, who announced that the Regeneradores could no longer support the Government. The elections were duly held, and, owing to the deliberate abstention of the Monarchist parties, the Republicans captured unopposed every seat on the Lisbon council. The unpopularity incurred by the Government on account of this unnecessary gift to the common enemy brought about a Government crisis. Admiral Amaral referred the matter to the Council of State, who, to his great surprise and annoyance, advised the resignation of the Government. The Premier and his two independents accordingly retired, and the Cabinet was reconstituted under Senhor Campos Henriques, who together with Senhor Wenceslao de Lima, Minister of Foreign Affairs, continued to represent the Regenerador party. The late Premier’s ‘Independents’ made way for the Progressistas, who thus held five seats in the Cabinet to two held by the Regeneradores. Senhor Vilhena, who had brought about the fall of the late Government, was not offered a seat in the new one, and he immediately resumed his opposition; but on this occasion he only carried two-thirds of his party with him, 22 members deciding to support the Government. This defection of the Regeneradores under Senhor Vilhena, the first serious indication of a return to the old system of ‘rotativism,’ was shortly followed by that of the late Premier and his ‘Independents,’ so that when the Cortes met on March 1, [1909], the imposing Government majority of a year before had dwindled to 10 or 15."
Then followed daily scenes of disorder and obstruction in Parliament until Senhor Campos Henriques surrendered, at the end of March. As _The Times_ correspondent expressed it, "as soon as the Opposition in the Lower House expressed its impatience by a banging of desks, while its leader in the House of Peers solemnly affirmed the ‘incompatibility’ of his party with the Government, Ministers determined to avoid all further unpleasantness by resigning." The resignation was accepted by the King, and three party leaders in succession made attempts in the next month to conduct the Government, without success. Senhor Sebastiäo Telles held the reins for three weeks, and then passed them to Senhor Wenceslao de Lima, who framed up a nominally non-party Ministry on the 13th of May. Senhor De Lima conducted the Government until the following December, when, on the 19th, he resigned, and a "Progressist Ministry" was formed, under Senhor Beirao.
_London Times Correspondence of various Dates._
{507}
Writing from Lisbon on the 5th of January, 1910, the _Times_ correspondent said:
"It is the Republicans who alone seem to be making progress. Their activities are unceasing, their newspapers the best informed and most ably conducted, their meetings, held all over the land, the most largely attended and most enthusiastic. At the same hour as that of the Royal reception on New Year’s Day the Republican municipality of Lisbon held a like function, not only largely and most influentially attended, but to the distinct diminution of the attendance in the Royal Palace."
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1909. Demonstration against the Religious Orders.
The following despatch to the Press was sent from Lisbon August 3, 1909:
"Freethinkers from all political parties in Portugal, represented by a Liberal committee, to-day presented to the Cortes a petition for the suppression of the religious orders in Portugal and the abrogation of the existing laws against freedom of conscience. This step was an outcome of the meeting held in this city yesterday.
"The committee was accompanied to the Houses of Parliament by an immense crowd, and some wild scenes ensued. Among other things the petitioners asked for the abrogation of the recent law permitting religious associations to acquire landed property, a procedure which up to the present time has been illegal. Senhor Camacho moved the consideration of the subject, and when the motion was voted down the galleries broke out in protestation. There was considerable violence on the floor of the House. The Deputies engaged in a struggle in which desks and chairs were overturned, and the Chamber had to be cleared twice. The tumult was continued in the streets, but without serious results."
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1909. Offer of Dom Miguel to renounce his Claim to the Throne.
Dom Miguel, son of the Dom Miguel who, from 1828 to 1833 held the throne of Portugal in defiance of the rights of Maria da Gloria, his elder brother’s daughter (see, in Volume IV., PORTUGAL: A. D. 1824-1889), had kept up his father’s pretensions to the crown until the spring of 1909, when he offered to renounce it, if permitted to live in Portugal as a citizen. The permission was refused, for the reason that his return, with that of a number of nobles of his party, "would be regarded as a challenge to the rising tide of Liberalism."
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1909 (April). Earthquake in and around Lisbon.
See (in this Volume) EARTHQUAKES: PORTUGAL.
PORTUGUESE AFRICA.
See (in this Volume) AFRICA: PORTUGUESE.
POSTAGE, BEGINNING OF INTERNATIONAL PENNY.
The postal treaty establishing two-cent or penny postage on letters between Great Britain and the United States went into effect October 1, 1909.
POSTAL SERVICE, IN CHINA.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1908.
POSTAL SERVICE STRIKE, IN FRANCE.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: FRANCE: A. D. 1909 (MARCH-MAY).
POSTAL AND TELEGRAPHIC STRIKE, IN RUSSIA.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1904-1905.
----------POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: THEIR PROBLEMS: Start---
POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: Old Age Homes, in Vienna.
"In most towns there is a tendency, in this our day, to deal more generously with destitute children than with destitute men and women. In Berlin and New York, for instance, both money and thought are lavished on the young whom the community supports; while as for the aged, what is given to them is given only of necessity. In Vienna it is otherwise; there the arrangements for the relief of the old people are better—both more carefully considered and more liberal—than those for the relief of children, a fact that says more, perhaps, for the hearts than for the heads of the authorities.
"If a man—or a woman—above 60 is without money wherewith to provide for himself, or the strength to earn the money, he applies to the Guardian of his ward for help. Then, if he has a home to live in, and someone to take care of him, or is able to take care of himself, he is granted out relief, a money allowance if he can be trusted to spend it wisely, otherwise relief in kind. Supposing, however, he is homeless, feeble and ‘alone-standing,’ he is sent to a Versorgungshaus, or old-age home, if there is a vacant place there; and, if not, to a small poor-house until there is.
"Versorgungshäuser are the distinctive feature of the Austrian Poor Relief system so far as the aged are concerned. Already in the days of Joseph II. Vienna had two if not more of these homes, and at the present time it has six. One of them is reserved exclusively for Citizens; another, that at Mauerbach, is reserved for persons who, owing to their perverted notions as to what is seemly, cannot be accorded the full liberty the old people in the other homes enjoy. In all the six together there is space for more than 6,000 inmates. As the Versorgungshäuser are looked upon by classes and masses alike as the homes of the aged poor, the place where they have a right to be, no disgrace is attached to going there. …
"Although in Vienna much is done for the poor, the burden entailed by Poor Relief is by no means overwhelming. In 1903 the full cost of indoor relief, outdoor relief and sick relief, together with the cost of administration, was only £942,870, and of this £250,672 was obtained from private sources. At that time the town was providing 31,000 adults—old men and women for the most part—with allowances ranging in amount from 30 kronen to 6 kronen a month; it was maintaining 6,790 more in old-age homes and other institutions; and was defraying the cost of the Asyl and workhouse. It was supporting, or contributing to the support of, 10,260 children who were either with their own relatives or were boarded out; and was maintaining 3,246 in orphanages, etc. It defrayed the cost of the 27,000 babies who passed through the Foundling Hospital, and of the 19,085 children who were temporarily in institutions. It also provided 77,000 boys and girls with school books, and contributed generously to many private philanthropic societies. Roughly speaking, the cost to the town of Poor Relief in Vienna per head of the population is 8s. 4d."
_Edith Sellers, Poor Relief in Vienna (Contemporary Review, December, 1900)._
{508}
POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: Pensions, &c.: Denmark: A. D. 1907. Old Age Pensions.
Some interesting details of the working of the Danish old-age pensions system are contained in a British Consular report issued in May, 1909. The latest available statistics show that on March 31, 1907, 70,445 persons over 60 years of age were in receipt of pensions, which amounted in the aggregate to £451,000 [$2,255,000] for the financial year 1906-1907. The number of pensioners on March 31, 1906, was 68,800, and the amount distributed in the financial year 1905-1906, £420,444. Both the number of pensioners and the average amount of the pensions are increasing. The ages of the "principal" pensioners (_i. e._, of the actual recipients of pensions apart from wives and children dependent on them) were, on March 31st, 1906, as follows: 60 to 65 years of age—3,173 men, 4,239 women; 65 to 70 years—5,831 men, 6,756 women; 70 years and over—13,974 men and 17,037 women.
About a quarter of the population over 60 years of age is in receipt of pensions, the women especially availing themselves of their benefits. The average amount distributed to each "principal" recipient was £6 5s. in 1905-1906 and £6 11s. in 1906-1907.
POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: England: A. D. 1908. Old Age Pensions Act. The Working of the Law. Its Pitiful and Appalling Disclosures.
The Act of the British Parliament, "to Provide for Old Age Pensions" (August 1, 1908), declares in its first section that "the receipt of an old age pension under this Act shall not deprive the pensioner of any franchise, right, or privilege, or subject him to any disability." The second section defines the "statutory conditions for the receipt of an old age pension by any person" to be: the person must have attained the age of seventy; must satisfy the pension authorities that he has been a British subject and resident in the United Kingdom for at least twenty years; that his yearly means, as calculated under the stipulations of the Act, do not exceed thirty-one pounds ten shillings. But, notwithstanding the fulfilment of these statutory conditions, a person is disqualified while he is in receipt of any poor relief, other than medical or surgical assistance on the recommendation of a medical officer, or relief rendered by means of the maintenance of a dependent in an asylum, infirmary, or hospital, or any relief that by law is expressly declared not to be a disqualification for any franchise, right, or privilege. Furthermore, any person is disqualified for the receipt of an old age pension "if, before he becomes entitled to a pension, he has habitually failed to work according to his ability, opportunity, and need, for the maintenance or benefit of himself and those legally dependent upon him: Provided that a person shall not be disqualified under this paragraph if he has continuously for ten years up to attaining the age of sixty, by means of payments to friendly, provident, or other societies, or trade unions, or other approved steps, made such provision against old age, sickness, infirmity, or want or loss of employment as may be recognized as proper provision for the purpose by regulations under this Act, and any such provision, when made by the husband in the case of a married couple living together, shall, as respects any right of the wife to a pension, be treated as provision made by the wife as well as by the husband."
Disqualification exists, also, during detention in a lunatic asylum; and not only during any penal imprisonment that has been ordered "without the option fine," but for ten years thereafter.
Specific rules are given in the Act for "calculating the means of a person" who seeks the pension; and the rate of weekly pension to be paid is proportioned inversely to such ascertained means, as follows: "Where the yearly means of the pensioner as calculated under this Act: Do not exceed £21.,—5s. 0d.; exceed £21, but do not exceed £23, 12s. 6d.,—4s. 0d.; exceed £23 12s. 6d., but do not exceed £26 5s.,—3s. 0d.; exceed £26 5s., but do not exceed £28 17s. 6d.,—2s. 0c2.; exceed £28 17s. 6d., but do not exceed £31 10s.,—1s. 0d.; exceed £31 10s., no pension."
The Act became operative on the 1st of January, 1909. At that time the persons recommended for pensions, throughout the Kingdom, numbered 490,028, with somewhat over 148,000 pending claims. The original estimate, on the discussion of the measure, had been that the eligible pensioners would not exceed 500,000, and that the cost of the undertaking, to begin with, would be about £6,000,000. It was evident, therefore, before pension payments began, that these estimates were much too low.
From Ireland it was reported by the Press on the opening day of pension payments that "more than 4,000 persons will to-day receive old-age pensions in the city of Dublin. Claims continue to be received in large numbers, and the pension authorities estimate that, inasmuch as the last census of the city showed that there were 6,800 persons over 70 years of age then alive, at least 1,200 eligible persons have not yet made application. Yesterday afternoon it was stated that in all 5,600 claims had been lodged.
"Of the 209,000 claims lodged altogether in Ireland, it is estimated that 50,000 will be disallowed, and that £30,000 weekly will be required to satisfy those which have been held to be good. So far as Dublin is concerned, less than 90 per cent, of the inhabitants who are over 70 years of age have claimed pensions, so that the rural districts are responsible for the larger percentage of claimants in Ireland as compared with England and Scotland."
From Scotland it was reported that "in Glasgow, the number of persons of 70 years and over is 13,160, and fully half of those made claims. A rough estimate places the number of full pensions granted at about 5,550. In addition, a number of allowances of the smaller amounts, ranging from 4s. to 1s., have been made."
In London, on the 1st of January, 1908, there had been 39,043 claims considered, of which 36,108 were allowed. Of these, 31,327 were for 5s., 1,701 for 4s., 1,827 for 3s., 797 for 2s., and 456 for 1s.
{509}
Speaking in Parliament on the 1st of March, with deep feeling, of the working of the Pension Act and of the revelation of poverty it had made, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Lloyd-George, said: "The pension officers, especially in Ireland, had been appalled at the amount of undisclosed poverty, and that was why he was not disposed to criticize too harshly the administration of the Act in that country, even if it had resulted in addition of a considerable sum to the estimate of the Government. The details of poverty in Ireland were perfectly horrifying. It was a disgrace to any civilized country that reasonable human beings should be allowed to live under such conditions. But the same condition of things was found in Great Britain also in many cases. He made a special point of investigating the matter, and pension committees and pension officers all told the same story of people facing poverty and privation for years with resignation, fortitude, and uncomplaining patience, and all asked the same question and asked it in vain—How on earth could those poor people have managed to keep body and soul together on such slender resources? They had not understated their resources; on the contrary, there were cases in which they had overstated them from a feeling of pride.
"What struck one in such cases was how the people had fought against the horror of the Poor Law. There were 270,000 people over 70 years of age in receipt of Poor Law relief. The Old-Age Pensions Act had disclosed the presence in the community of over 600,000 people the vast majority of whom were living in circumstances of great poverty, and yet disdained the charity of the Poor Law."
In the report of the Local Government Board for 1908, the inspector of poor-law administration in the eastern counties of England reported a substantial decrease in pauperism during the year, and attributed this mainly to the passing of the Old-Age Pensions Act. Persons verging on the age of 70 were doing everything possible to preserve their qualifications for pensions, and their sons and daughters, in the hope that the old folk will be able to stand alone, are maintaining them till the pensions are due in order that they may not be forfeited by parish relief.
POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: France: A. D. 1909. State Railway Servants Pensions.
In July, 1909, the Chamber of Deputies adopted a Bill for pensioning the railway employees of the State which had already passed the Senate. It applies to some 308,000 persons, who will be pensioned in several classes at ages ranging from 50 to 60 years, and the estimated annual cost will exceed $5,000,000. The Minister of Public Works, M. Barthou, described the measure as an acknowledgment on the part of the country of a debt which it owed to a deserving body of public servants, who for the last 11 years had waited patiently for the fulfilment of a promise and upon various trying occasions during that period had not abused the confidence which had been reposed in their good sense and public spirit.
POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: France: A. D. 1910. General Old-Age Pension Law.
A general measure for the pensioning of workmen in old age, which had been pending in the French Parliament for nearly three years, became law in April, 1910. Passed in the first instance by the Chamber of Deputies in 1907, it was held in the Senate, undergoing an extensive remodeling, until the 12th of February, 1910, when that body gave it an unanimous vote. In the Chamber of Deputies its exaction of compulsory contributions from the wages of workmen to the pension fund was opposed by a section of the Socialists, but supported by the Socialist leader Jaures, as well as by the Briand Ministry, and carried by a decisive vote on April 1st. "Workingmen, domestic servants, clerks, and farm laborers to the number of nearly 12,000,000, whose annual earnings are below 3,000 francs, are placed under a system of compulsory insurance. For the farmer and small proprietor whose income ranges between 3,000 and 5,000 francs, an optional form of insurance is provided. Of this class there are nearly six million men and women in the country." In all, about 18,000,000 of the population of France are beneficiaries of the Act.
POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: The German System of State-aided Pensions, compared with other systems.
The following is from the report of a lecture on State-aided Pensions for the Poor, given in London, on the 3d of February, 1909, by the Honourable W. P. Reeves, Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science. It is an admirable summary of facts that exhibit the working, down to the present time, of the German system of working men’s insurance adopted between 1883-1889.
See (in Volume IV. of this work) SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1883-1889.
See (in Volume VI. of this work) GERMANY: A. D. 1897-1900, in Volume VI.):
"The subject, said the lecturer, fell into three groups—contributory pensions, free State universal pensions, and free State limited pensions. Germany, France, and Belgium afforded examples of the contributory pensions, and Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom of the limited free pensions. The universal free pensions were likely to remain an ideal. The Belgian superannuation for the poor, provided by voluntary contributions on the part of the insurer and by State bonuses, had encouraged thrift, but it yielded an average pension of only £3 a year. It could not, therefore, be pronounced to be a success, and the State had recognized its failure by inaugurating a system of free old-age pensions for the utterly destitute. A similar superannuation scheme in France, also maintained principally by voluntary contributions, had only attracted 8 per cent. of the class for which it was intended, and there, too, it had been found necessary to introduce free old-age pensions. There was also a voluntary system in Germany, but that was a kind of side show to the great national system of insurance by compulsory contributions. This latter system was a gigantic experiment, and it really did deserve the name of national. Professor Ashley had shown that of the 10,700,000 men who were insurable under this scheme 8,857,000 actually were insured; and of the 5,800,000 women who were qualified to provide for pensions 4,524,000 were actually paying their contributions. The system had been in operation for 26 years, and the amount paid out in that time must have exceeded £300,000,000, while 70 or 80 million persons had been benefited by it from first to last. The number of persons affected yearly by the system was 25,000,000; and in 1907 nearly £30,000,000 was spent in the three divisions of the triple system—old age, sickness, and accidents. He had only to deal with one division—old age and infirmity. The accumulated funds in this division amounted to about £70,000,000; and the amount paid out to the insurers in 1906 was nearly £8,300,000, and in 1907 £8,400,000. The population liable to insure was about 14¼ millions, and the number of pensions in force at the end of 1907 was 979,000.
{510}
"Under this German scheme the class compulsorily insured consisted of men and single women earning less than £100 a year. The funds were provided in equal contributions by employers and employed—the principle underlying the system being that of deferred wages. It was a question whether it was encouraging thrift to withhold from such wage-earners 2 per cent. of their wages. The State bore the cost of management, and added to every pension a bonus of £2 10s. a year. For the working of the system the wage-earners were divided into five grades:
(1) Those who earn up to £17 10s. a year; (2) those who earn any sum between £17 10s. and £27 10s.; (3) those who earn any sum between £27 10s. and £42 10s.; (4) those who earn any sum between £42 10s. and £57; and (5) those who earn any sum between £57 and £100.
The lowest wage-earners paid seven-eighths of a penny per week for their old-age pension, and the highest wage-earners about 2¼d. No special consideration was shown for a married man. The five grades of pensions were:
(1) £5 10s. a year; (2) £7; (3) £8 10s.; (4) £10; and (5) £11 10s.
If the labourer died after subscribing for 200 weeks his wife and children were entitled to receive what he had subscribed, but nothing more.
"The lot of the widows and orphans was one of the black features of the system. A married woman could not qualify for an old-age pension. The amount of the weekly contribution was fixed for ten years. In 1906 the receipts exceeded the expenditure by £6,000,000; the cost of administration was only £850,000. But that was only the minor part of the provision made for elderly people in Germany. The main provision was made under the head of infirmity or invalidity occurring before the pension age—70. If the insurers, after having subscribed for not less than four years, broke down and were unable to earn wages, they were entitled to more generous treatment. If curable they were cured in State sanatoriums and received temporary sickness pensions. If incurable they received a pension which was regulated by the number of years they had subscribed, and varied from a _minimum_ of £5 16s. in the lowest grade for four years’ subscriptions to £22 10s. in the highest grade for 50 years’ subscriptions. The insurer began to pay his contributions at the age of 17, and for an old-age pension he had to subscribe 50 weeks a year for 24 years—1,200 weeks in all. Though the system had not checked Socialism or militant trade unionism, it had attained its real purpose, for it had conferred an enormous boon upon the poor."
At the time when the remark quoted above, touching the defective provision of the German law for widows and orphans, was made, the Imperial Government was preparing to amend it. The London _Times_ of April 17, 1909, gave, in its correspondence from Berlin, the account of a draft Bill, just made public, which the Imperial Ministry of the Interior had prepared for presentation to the Federal Council, the object being to combine and coordinate "the seven compulsory insurance laws of 1883 to 1899," together with certain amendments and additions. "It is understood," wrote the correspondent, "that the Bill will not reach the Reichstag before the autumn of this year. Whereas many authorities … have favored a thorough unification of the three systems of invalidity and old age, accident, and sick insurance, the immediate proposals of the Government would leave the three systems separate and distinct, while codifying the law and the regulations which are common to all branches of compulsory insurance, and establishing a joint and threefold system of higher administration." The main purpose of the bill was to rectify that lack of proper provision for widows and orphans which was noted above. "The need of solving this problem," said the correspondent, "is really the immediate occasion of reform, and the proposed solution is the most important feature of the reform scheme. An essential feature of the tariff law of 1902 was the ear-marking—by the so-called Lex Trimborn—for widows and orphans’ insurance of the surplus revenue from the increased Customs duties on corn and cattle. The Lex Trimborn takes effect on January 1, 1910, but the surplus revenue is lacking. For the financial year 1906 there was no surplus. For 1907 there was a surplus of about £2,000,000. For the financial year 1908 there will be no surplus, although £2,650,000 was estimated for. In these circumstances the Government—while apparently still cherishing the hope that, upon the average of a long period of years, the revised tariff will do what was expected of it—proposes to provide for widows and orphans insurance by a simple all-round extension of the system of invalidity and old-age insurance. That is to say, the ‘contributions’ of employers and employed are to be raised, and an Imperial subsidy, of fixed amount, without regard to the annual revenue from Customs, is to be added to the contributions.
"It is at present proposed that the weekly 'contributions' to invalidity and old-age insurance shall, in order to provide funds for widows and orphans’ pensions, be increased—upon the mean average of the contributions of the five classes of wage-earners—by one-fourth, and that the Empire shall add a subsidy of £2 10s. a year to each widow’s pension and a subsidy of £1 5s. a year to each orphan’s pension."
In February, 1909, a Parliamentary Committee of the British Trades Union Congress, composed of men representing the Labor Party in Parliament, reported the results of a visit to Germany which the Committee had made in the previous November, to examine conditions in that country, especially with reference to the operation of the state system of insurance. In their report they said: "The State assistance has acted as an incentive and encouragement to workmen to make additional provision for themselves and families through their trade unions and private sick clubs. This is especially the case in invalidity and old age. It has always been the workman’s complaint, as well as that of the organizations, that the assistance obtainable under the workman’s insurance system is quite out of proportion to the subscriptions paid, and quite insufficient for the maintenance of the pensioner. {511} In this connexion, it is interesting to note that in 1907 the 'Free' or Socialist unions, with a membership of 1,866,000, granted £174,000 in sick pay and £19,000 in invalidity pay; the State subsidies to invalidity and old-age pensions amounting in 1906 to £2,437,000. The insurance pensions are continually increasing; and it is stated that the invalidity pensions will eventually reach a _maximum_ in the lowest wages class of £9 5s., and in the highest one of £22 10s. The funds accumulated in the hands of the Invalidity Pension Offices amounted at the end of 1907 to about 70 million pounds, and the workmen maintain that the time has now arrived when either the pensions paid should be increased, or the contributions levied decreased, as provided for by law."
"The members of the deputation were struck by the absence of slums in the manufacturing quarters of the towns visited. Nowhere did they see any quarter that could be classified under the heading ‘slum.’ The cleanliness prevailing throughout all the towns visited was also remarkable. No beggars, feeble or emaciated men in tatters and rags were encountered in the streets. Hundreds upon hundreds of unemployed were seen by the deputation, but they seemed to lack that dejection and absolute misery that is so frequently met with in the streets of English towns.
"Workmen throughout Germany do not complain of any compulsory deductions made by their employers from their wages for the purpose of workmen’s insurances. Many of the largest employers are favourably disposed towards these laws, and pay willingly. On the other hand, probably the majority do complain of the cost, although not opposed to the laws in principle."
POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: Poor Laws: England: A. D. 1896-1906. Report of Royal Commission. Increasing Pauperism.
In December, 1905, a Royal Commission, composed of nineteen men and women of distinguished ability and of special qualifications for the service, was appointed in Great Britain, "to inquire—(1) Into the working of the laws relating to the relief of poor persons in the United Kingdom; (2) into the various means which have been adopted outside of the Poor Laws for meeting distress arising from want of employment,
## particularly during periods of severe industrial depression;
and to consider and report whether any, and, if so, what modification of the Poor Laws or changes in their administration or fresh legislation for dealing with distress are advisable."
After three years of laborious investigation, making "more than 800 personal visits to unions, meetings of boards of guardians, and institutions in England, Scotland, and Ireland," as well as examining over 1300 witnesses, the Commission submitted an elaborate report in February, 1909. Its findings as to the present working of the poor-laws and the relief-systems of the United Kingdom, and its recommendations for reform, cannot be summarized with any clearness in such space as can be given to the subject here; but there is a startling significance in what it shows of the increase of pauperism and of the public cost of poor relief in late years.
It appears from the returns of the Local Government Board that the mean number of paupers in 1906, 1907 and 1908, was at a higher level than it had been for 31 previous years. Excluding, however, these three especially bad years, it is found that throughout the period 1896-1906 there were 24,000 more paupers than in the period 1888-1896, and 7000 more than in the period 1880-1888. In discussing the report the London _Times_ remarks: "Further examination even diminishes the meagre consolation these figures afford as to the results of a generation of effort at reducing pauperism. Comparing the period 1896-1906 with 1871-1880, there has been a decrease of 3.9 per cent. in the total number of paupers, but this decrease has been accompanied by a large increase of male pauperism and is due entirely to the large decrease in the number of children, whose numbers have decreased by 18 per cent., and a small reduction in the number of women, whose numbers have increased by 2 per cent. The decrease in these two classes so affects the total as entirely to conceal an absolute increase of 18 per cent, in the number of male paupers. Even in regard to the children, at any rate during the last 15 years, the decrease has been almost wholly in rural unions, and in the children of widows, and there has been a general increase in the number of children of able-bodied men.
"Further, so far as figures are available, they show a greater proportionate increase in the number of paupers during the working years of life than in the very young or the very old. Taking only the able-bodied in health, we find that in the period 1896-1906 in metropolitan unions the indoor paupers have increased by 38 per cent. and the outdoor by 137 per cent.; in urban unions the indoor by 24 per cent. and the outdoor by 133 per cent.; and in the whole of England and Wales the indoor by 21 per cent. and the outdoor by 49 per cent. In London alone 15,800 more paupers are being maintained than in the eighties, and the rate per 1,000 of the population, which used to be below that for England and Wales, has risen above it."
As for expenditure, it was some £8,000,000 in the year 1871-1872, and £14,000,000 in the year 1905-1906. Summing up the general situation with regard to this expenditure, the Commission says: "We find that, whilst the expenditure per inhabitant has increased from 7s. ¼d. to 8s. 2£d. since 1871-1872, and is only 7£d. less than it was in 1834, the expenditure per pauper has increased from £7 12s. 1d. to £15 12s. 6d. in the same period. The country is maintaining a multitude of paupers not far short of the numbers maintained in 1871-1902, and is spending more than double the amount upon each individual. The increased expenditure has done little towards diminishing the extent of pauperism. Such advance as the nation has made has been accomplished at an enormous cost, and absorbs an annual amount which is now equivalent to nearly one-half of the present expenditure upon the Army. It may be urged that the rate of pauperism has diminished from 31.2 per 1,000 in 1871-1879 to 22.2 per 1,000 in 1896-1905, and this is certainly a matter for congratulation, but it has been the result of the large increase in the population rather than of any considerable reduction in the number of paupers."
{512}
This discouraging result has occurred notwithstanding the fact that the nation is spending £20,000,000 more in education than in 1831, and £13,000,000 more in sanitation and the prevention of disease than in 1841; notwithstanding the fact "that money wages in the nineties were 10 per cent. above those of the eighties, and 30 per cent, above those of the sixties," and notwithstanding the fact that "there has been a considerable flow of the working classes from the lower paid occupations to the higher paid industries."
The recommendations of the Commission include a scheme for a permanent system of public assistance for the able-bodied, which contemplates the establishment in every district of four coöperating organizations:
(a) An organization for insurance against unemployment, to develop and secure (with contributions from public funds) the greatest possible benefits to the workmen from coöperative insurance against unemployment;
(b) a labor exchange established and maintained by the Board of Trade to provide efficient machinery for putting those requiring work and those requiring workers into prompt communication;
(c) a voluntary aid committee to give advice and aid out of voluntary funds especially to the better class of workmen reduced to want through unemployment;
(d) a public assistance authority representing the county or county borough and acting locally through a public assistance committee to assist necessitous workmen under specified conditions at the public expense. The report adds that it must be a fundamental principle of the system of public assistance that the responsibility for the due and effective assistance of all necessitous persons at the public expense shall be in the hands of one, and only one, authority in each county and county borough—viz., the public assistance authority.
POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: Small Holdings Act of Great Britain.
See (in this Volume) ENGLAND: A. D. 1907-1908.
POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: Starvation Poverty in India.
See (in this Volume) INDIA: A. D. 1905-1908.
POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: Underfed School Children: Provision for Meals to them. How it is done in Various Cities.
In March, 1905, the British Foreign Office undertook, at the request of the Board of Education, to obtain information regarding the methods adopted in the great Continental and American cities for dealing with ill-fed school children. The facts collected were tabulated and published subsequently in a Parliamentary Paper (Cd. 2926-1906) from which the following statements are derived:
Generally, in the larger cities of Western Europe, some system was found to be in operation for feeding ill-fed children in the schools. Commonly this is conducted unofficially, by private charitable organizations, but sometimes in indirect connection with the municipality, and frequently with help from municipal funds. In Berlin, however, the municipality takes on itself the responsibility of not only feeding but clothing properly the necessitous children attending its elementary schools. This made one of the functions of a municipal department, the Städtisrhe Schuldeputation, which is assisted by a "Society for Feeding Poor Children" in the supplying of meals at the elementary school buildings of the city. The committee which conducts the work of that auxiliary society is appointed by the Government. As a rule, breakfasts only are given in Berlin, and only during the winter months; but four meals are supplied to such children as are thought by the head-masters of the schools to require them. No steps are taken to collect from parents any part of the cost of meals furnished in the schools.
In Paris the organization which installs and conducts cantines scolaires in schools belonging to the city, called the _Caisse des Écoles,_ is privately constituted, but presided over by the mayor. This connects it with the municipality, and in 1905 it had been receiving a municipal subvention of 1,000,000 francs yearly for three years, but this was not to be depended on as a permanent grant. It was necessary for the _Caisse des Écoles_ to seek voluntary contributions. The City, however, undertakes to supply the necessary accommodations and all utensils for the school canteens, which are in operation throughout the year, every day of the week, but generally for a noon meal only; though soup is distributed in some arrondissements at the opening and closing of school. All children are entitled to feed at the canteen, but the meals are supplied gratis only to the children of poor families. The others pay a small sum which does not exceed 15 centimes (about 2 cents). In 1904 the total cost of meals furnished at the school canteens was 1,461,305 francs, of which 359,093 francs was paid by parents, who buy tickets for the purpose. All meals are supplied on the presentation of tickets, and nothing shows whether the tickets have been bought or received as gifts.
In Vienna meals for poor school children are provided by a central Association, indirectly connected with the municipality, the Burgomaster being its president, and financial assistance being given to it from both imperial and municipal funds. Dinners only are provided, on every week day from November 16 to March 31, partly in the school buildings,
## partly in certain restaurants and kitchens. As in Paris,
parents can buy tickets for these meals, but it is said to be rarely done. The total cost is about $23,000 per year. Once a year, in the autumn, the Association makes an appeal for funds, and all classes of people respond, the Emperor giving 4,000 crowns and the Town Council voting 8,000.
Information on the subject was obtained by the British Foreign Office from thirty-eight cities, in all, of Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States. Some systematic provision, more or less adequate, for securing proper food to the children of the schools by private or public organization, was reported from more than thirty. The reports from New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago, in the United States, showed less undertakings in this direction than in any other cities of considerable size.
{513}
POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: In England: Provision of Meals Act.
An order from the English Local Government Board on the subject of providing food for underfed school children was published on the 29th of April, 1905. It applied only to children under sixteen who were neither blind, deaf or dumb, and who were living with a father not in receipt of relief. Application in each case must be made by school managers, or by a teacher empowered by the managers, or by an officer empowered by the education authorities. The relief might be granted in the ordinary way or as a loan, the father being allowed the opportunity of making the needful provision himself. If he failed to do so, the poor-law guardians were empowered to make it and to recover the cost, as if it were a loan. In no case could the relief be given in money, or continued on a single application for more than a month. Where possible, arrangements should be made with local charitable organizations for the issue of tickets for meals.
The above mentioned tentative order was followed, in the next year, by the passage of an Act which authorizes any "local education authority" in England and Wales to "take such steps as they think fit for the provision of meals for children" at any public elementary school, and for that purpose to "associate with themselves any committee on which the authority are represented, who will undertake to provide food for those children." Such education authority may aid the committee by furnishing necessary land, buildings, furniture and apparatus, and necessary officers and servants; but, "save as hereinafter provided, the authority shall not incur any expense in respect of the purchase of food to be supplied at such meals."
POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: Unemployment: Belgium: A. D. 1900-1904. Municipal Organizations of Insurance against Unemployment. The Ghent System.
The following is abridged from a report on "Agencies and Methods for Dealing with the Unemployed in certain Foreign Countries," made to the British Board of Trade, in 1904, by Mr. David F. Schloss:
During the last few years the Public Authorities of certain Belgian towns and Provinces have organised a system, to which the name of Insurance against Unemployment is given, and under which the efforts of workmen to secure for themselves the means of tiding over periods of unemployment are assisted by the grant of subsidies provided out of public moneys, which form a supplement to the sums derived from the contributions of these work-people. This system is now in force at Ghent, Brussels, Antwerp, Bruges, Liege, Malines, and Louvain, and in the Provinces of Liege and Antwerp. In details it has been varied somewhat in different places, but the general scheme is the same, and it will be sufficient to give some account of it as organized in Ghent, where it was first worked out.
The Unemployed Fund at Ghent was initiated as the result of the recommendations made by a Special Commission on the question of unemployment, which on April 10, 1900, presented a Report, advising the creation of a Municipal Unemployed Fund under the conditions specified in a set of rules, which they submitted for consideration. The annual subvention to the Fund by the City was fixed, for three years, at $4000. Expenses of the administration of the Fund to be borne by the City. Administration of the Fund to be entrusted to a committee of ten citizens named by the municipal authority, but one half of whom must be members of those organizations of workmen which affiliate themselves with the Fund. The Fund may be augmented by subscriptions, donations, moneys collected by fêtes, etc. "The intervention of the Special Fund shall consist either
(_a_.) in providing a supplement to sums paid to their members as unemployed benefit by workmen’s organisations, or
(_b_.) in supplementing any provision made by individual thrift for the specific case of unemployment. The Special Fund will supplement the unemployed benefits paid by workmen's organisations by the payment of a subsidy, which may be equal to, but shall not be greater than, the amount of such benefits."
"Strikes and lock-outs, or the results attendant upon such disputes, sickness and physical incapacity for labour shall in no case give rise to the payment of an indemnity out of the monies of the Unemployed Fund."
"All workmen’s organisations desiring that their members shall
## participate in the subsidies provided by the Fund will be
required to send in each month a return showing the number and amount of all payments on account of benefits made by them, and to furnish every year their balance-sheet, also their rules and regulations."
"Workmen not being members of any Trade Union which enjoys
## participation in the Fund, are at liberty to join a Thrift
Fund specifically constituted to meet the case of unemployment." By this rule, it will be seen, the scheme provides, under distinct branches, for Trade Unionists and non-Unionists.
POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: England: A. D. 1905-1909. Unemployed Workmen Act, and its operation.
In the summer of 1905 a Bill brought into Parliament by the President of the Local Government Board, to provide for an organization to assist unemployed workmen, was carried through both houses with little opposition. It sought to bring about a careful discrimination between workmen who were accustomed to regular employment in ordinary circumstances, but temporarily unemployed through circumstances beyond their control, and the needy, on the other hand, who were proper objects of ordinary Poor Law relief. Its provisions were for the former entirely, and their purpose was to establish both local and central bodies, which should organize and maintain labor exchanges and employment bureaus, assist migration and emigration, and acquire, equip, and maintain farm colonies; the latter to operate continuously, for the training of persons to agricultural pursuits, preparing them for emigration or for permanent transfer from city to country life. The local bodies contemplated were not empowered to provide work at public expense. That power was entrusted discretionally to the central bodies, which could draw on the rates for the purpose to a limited extent. Voluntary contributions were to be looked to in part for the necessary funds. The measure was decidedly conservative and tentative.
A report on the applications for relief and the relief given in England and Wales under this Act during the year ending March 81, 1909, compared with the previous year, shows as follows: The total number of applications received was 196,757, of which 49,239 were made to 29 committees in London, and 147,518 to 95 committees in other parts of the country.
{514}
The applicants belonging to the general or casual labour class (64,773) formed as in previous years by far the largest section—47.4 per cent.—of the whole number. The building trade ranked second with 23,047, or 16.9 per cent. of the total. The engineering, shipbuilding, and metal trades accounted for 17,028, or 12.5 per cent., as compared with only 8.6 per cent, in the previous year.
A Bill known as the "Right to Work" Bill came before the House of Commons in April, 1909, with the endorsement of the trade unions and the Labor Party. It was opposed by John Burns, the former labor leader, but now speaking as President of the Local Government Board and member of the Cabinet, who said: "For three and a half years he had had intimate experience of relief works, and he could not exaggerate the degradation of the workmen, the demoralization of the honest labourer, the extent to which money had been wasted and character impaired by the relief works which he had had in the name of Parliament to administer. Any member had only to take up the report of any one of the distress committees to see that what the minority report said had happened would increasingly happen so long as these means of meeting unemployment were resorted to. The amount of work would be disproportionate to the wages paid, the wrong men would get the right work, and the best men would be excluded, because modesty was a characteristic of good workmanship and craftsmanship, and the worst men were always in the front line when relief works were set on foot."
POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: A. D. 1909. Report of a Royal Commission.
The Royal Commission on the working of the English Poor Laws, whose general report is referred to above, issued, in September, 1909, a supplementary report on Unemployment. The main ultimate conclusions of the Commission are the following:
"When we consider the remedies proposed for unemployment we are convinced that they do not lie on the lines proposed by the Unemployed Workmen’s Act, which has done nothing but systematize Relief Works. These, whether national or municipal, appear to us merely to intensify the evil as far as the ordinary workmen are concerned. The great thing necessary, we believe, is to obtain a general agreement as to the need of regularizing labour. In this the Government and municipalities ought to set a good example.
"It might be better, if any rate or State funds are to be spent on the unemployed, that such aid should take the form of supplementing trade union funds and give thereby a bonus on thrift. Any such supplementation of trade union funds would involve a Local Government Board audit, the control of the expenses of management, and a separation of the war and benefit funds. It is very doubtful whether it would be wise for trade unions to accept State aid if it involved loss of independence and an interference with their efforts to improve wages. There is little doubt, however, that grants of this kind would enormously increase their membership.
"In order to prevent the spread of the unemployed as a class it is probable that drastic measures ought to be taken, such as those recommended to check vagrancy. For the idle and worthless who now form the noisy section of the unemployed it might be necessary to establish semi-penal colonies. …
"The solution lies in a better organization of the workers and more consideration from the employers. Better organization of industry might at once relieve the workers and render trade crises less acute by steadying the supply of labour.
"Differentiation of the unemployable from the willing workers and better classification of paupers would enable us to understand the extent of the problem and how far reorganization of labour must be carried. Raising the condition of the whole working class by better housing and better wages will help to keep decent but unskilled workmen from sinking.
"Every effort must be made to cut off the supply of unskilled and unintelligent labour by training boys to enter regular and permanent work."
POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: ENGLAND: A. D. 1909. The Labor Exchanges Act.
One of the most important of the recent enactments of the British Parliament is the Labor Exchanges Act, which encountered no serious opposition in either House. On introducing the Bill in the House of Commons, May 19, 1909, and in subsequent debate, Mr. Winston Churchill, President of the Board of Trade, gave explanations of which the following is a summary: It would divide the country into ten districts, which would have among them between 30 and 40 first-class labour exchanges, 45 second-class, and about 150 third-class for the smaller centres. The central control would be exercised by the Board of Trade, but it is intended that, following the German example, there shall be in each principal centre a local advisory committee composed of representatives of workmen and of employers in equal numbers, with a permanent official as chairman. It is hoped that, when permanent buildings are secured, and the whole scheme is in working order, the labour exchanges will become centres of industrial life, in which employers and employed will learn to know one another better, and to discuss in common questions now too much regarded from different standpoints. These exchanges cannot make work, they can only distribute what work is to be had. They can hardly be expected to make head against the large fluctuations of trade, which must be met by some insurance scheme, which Mr. Churchill announced as being under contemplation. But there are many irregularities of distribution which labour exchanges can correct, and many seasonal fluctuations producing much distress which they can deal with to the great advantage alike of employers and employed.
It was not contemplated that fees should be charged to men applying to the labour bureaux, which were to be national institutions. They would strive to find men for jobs and jobs for men, and attention would be paid to the interests of the men who had been waiting longest for work. For the present domestic servants would not be brought within the operation of the Bill. No compulsion would be exercised to induce applicants to give evidence as to character, but of course a man would have a greater chance of obtaining work if he could give references and testimonials. In a strike the exchanges would be absolutely neutral as between capital and labour, and it would be clearly notified to all working men that there was a dispute and they would be left to act as they thought fit.
{515}
The Bill became law in September. A highly favorable report of its operation was made six months later by the Consul-General of the United States at London, who stated that "on the opening day nearly eighty exchanges were in operation and thousands of applications for work were received. The applicants mainly represented the better class of labor. On the first day of the opening in Nottingham 557 workers and 120 employing firms registered. These were followed on the second day by 580 workers and 87 firms. One of the employers alone applied for sixty skilled hands, and though most of the skilled hands were placed, the registered firms were not able to fill all their vacancies."
POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: Germany: A. D. 1909. Experiments of Insurance.
Representatives from the municipal authorities of fifteen German cities held a joint conference at Cologne in September, 1909, to discuss the best methods of combating unemployment. One or two speakers advocated compulsory insurance against unemployment; but the divergencies of opinion were so wide that no conclusion was reached. Annual conferences on the subject are to be held. A Press correspondent who reported the meeting remarked that it confirms "the German official view that the problem of insurance against unemployment is not ripe for systematic solution. Upon the strength of the experience, for example, of Strassburg and of Frankfurt, where the Ghent system of subsidies is in operation, demands are frequently made for the inauguration of an Imperial system of insurance. Apart, however, from the fact that other problems—especially widows and orphans insurance—have precedence, the Government maintains that Imperial legislation is impossible because no satisfactory scheme has been discovered."
Some account of the Ghent system, here referred to, will be found above, under the subheading Belgium. Besides the German cities mentioned as having introduced that measure of insurance against unemployment, Cologne and Leipsic have been operating an organization of similar insurance for some years. As described in a report made in 1904 to the British Board of Trade by Mr. David F. Schloss, on "Agencies and Methods for Dealing with the Unemployed in certain Foreign Countries," the organization in Cologne is as follows:
"The ‘City of Cologne Office for Insurance against Unemployment in Winter’ was established in 1896. The object of the Office is to provide, with the assistance of the Cologne Labour Registry, an insurance against Unemployment during the winter (December to March) for the benefit of male workpeople in the Cologne district. In order to insure with the Office, a man must be at least 18 years of age, must have lived for at least a year in Cologne, and must not suffer from permanent incapacity to work. He is required to pay a weekly premium, payment of which must commence as from April 1, and must continue for 34 weeks. The amount of the premium was originally 3d. per week for both skilled and unskilled workmen; in 1901 the rate of premium was fixed at 3d. for unskilled and 4½d. for skilled men; in 1903 the rate was raised to 3½d. per week for unskilled and 4¾d. per week for skilled workmen. …
"In return for these payments the insured workman, if and when out of work in the period named above, receives, for not more than eight weeks in all, a daily amount, which is 2s. for each of the first 20 days (nothing being paid for Sundays), and then 1s. on each subsequent day. These payments begin on the third weekday after the date on which the man has reported himself as out of work. …
"No money is paid in respect of unemployment caused by illness or infirmity, or by the man’s own fault, or by a trade dispute."
At Leipsic the institution of insurance against unemployment is on much the same lines, but differing in some details of its rules. "The Leipsic Insurance Office was founded in April, 1903, with a guarantee fund of about £5000, provided by benevolent persons, in addition to which it proposed to receive annual subscriptions from members of the public. The town authorities granted accommodation for the Office rent free for three years. The system adopted was as follows: The right to insure with this Office is confined to men of 16 but not over 60 years of age, who have lived at Leipsic for at least two years; the general meeting may, however, allow residents in the suburbs of Leipsic to insure."
POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: Employers’ Labor Exchanges.
The Collieries Union, of colliery owners, in the Rhenish Westphalian coal district, was reported, in October, 1909, to have "decided to institute for the benefit of its members a system of centralized labour exchanges modelled upon the system which has existed for many years in the Hamburg iron industry. The principal objects in view are to secure a steady supply of permanent labour, to equalize a possible surplus of labour in certain districts and a corresponding deficit in others, and to prevent the habit on the part of miners of applying for employment at several collieries simultaneously. On the other hand, it is hoped that miners will be spared the frequently fruitless search for work."
----------POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: End--------
PRAIRIE OIL AND GAS COMPANY.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL, &C.: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1904-1909.
PREFERENTIAL TRADE: Discussed at the Imperial Conferences of 1902 and 1907 in London.
See (in this Volume) BRITISH EMPIRE: A. D. 1902 and 1907.
PRESS, The: Revived Censorship in Russia.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1909.
PRESS CONFERENCE, The British Imperial.
See (in this Volume) BRITISH EMPIRE: A. D. 1909 (JUNE).
PRETORIA: Peace Negotiations.
See (in this Volume) SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1901-1902.
PREVENTION OF CORRUPTION ACT.
See (in this Volume) CRIME AND CRIMINOLOGY.
PREVENTION OF CRIMES ACT, BRITISH.
See (in this Volume) CRIME AND CRIMINOLOGY.
PRIMARY, DIRECT.
See (in this Volume) ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: UNITED STATES.
PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND: A. D. 1901-1902. Census. Reduced Representation in Parliament.
See (in this Volume) CANADA: A. D. 1901-1902.
PRITCHETT, Henry S.: President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1905-1908.
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PRIZE COURT, CONTEMPLATED INTERNATIONAL.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1907 (appended to account of Second Peace Conference at The Hague).
PROBATION SYSTEM, THE.
See (in this Volume) CRIME AND CRIMINOLOGY: PROBATION.
PROBLEMS OF THE TIME: Of Crime.
See (in this Volume) CRIME AND CRIMINOLOGY.
PROBLEMS OF THE TIME: Of the Intoxicants.
See (in this Volume)
PROBLEMS OF THE TIME: Of Labor and Capital.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION, LABOR PROTECTION, AND LABOR REMUNERATION.
PROBLEMS OF THE TIME: Of Municipal Government.
See (in this Volume) MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT.
PROBLEMS OF THE TIME: Of Poverty and Unemployment.
See (in this Volume) POVERTY.
PROBLEMS OF THE TIME: Of Race.
See (in this Volume) RACE PROBLEMS.
PROBLEMS OF THE TIME: Of Railway Regulation.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS.
PROBLEMS OF THE TIME: Of the Trusts (so-called).
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL.
PROBLEMS OF THE TIME: Of War and Peace.
See (in this Volume) WAR: PREPARATIONS FOR, AND REVOLT AGAINST.
PROBLEMS OF THE TIME: Of Wealth.
See (in this Volume) WEALTH.
PROFIT-SHARING.
See (in this Volume) LABOR REMUNERATION.
PROGRESISTAS.
See (in this Volume) PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1907; also PORTUGAL: A. D. 1906-1909.
PROGRESSIVES.
See (in this Volume) SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1902-1904.
PROHIBITION.
See (in this Volume) ALCOHOL PROBLEM.
PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION.
See (in this Volume) ELECTIVE FRANCHISE.
PROTECTION, THE NEW.
See (in this Volume) LABOR REMUNERATION: THE NEW PROTECTION.
PROTECTORATES, SOUTH AFRICAN.
See (in this Volume) SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1909.
PRUSSIA: A. D. 1902. Measures for Germanizing the Polish Provinces.
See (in this Volume) GERMANY: A. D. 1902 (March-May), and 1908 (January).
PRUSSIA: A. D. 1904. Denominational Education restored.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: PRUSSIA: A. D. 1904.
PRUSSIA: A. D. 1905. Creation of a Government Bureau of Charities.
See (in this Volume) SOCIAL BETTERMENT: PRUSSIA.
PRUSSIA: A. D. 1906. Defiance of Popular Demands for Suffrage Reform.
See (in this Volume) GERMANY: A. D. 1906-1907.
PRUSSIA: A. D. 1906. A Comedy of Election Reform.
See (in this Volume) ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: GERMANY: A. D. 1906.
PRUSSIA: A. D. 1907. Statistics of Population. Birth Rate and Death Rate.
See (in this Volume) GERMANY: A. D. 1907.
PRUSSIA: A. D. 1908. Disappointing Statement by Prince Bülow about Suffrage Reform. Socialist Successes. A surprising word from the King.
In January, Prince Bülow, as Minister-President of Prussia, made a statement about suffrage reform which deeply disappointed all friends of that movement. It was therefore expected, when the Diet elections approached in June, that the Prussian people would be awakened by a violent agitation in favor of more liberal election laws, but nothing of the kind happened. The Socialists, indeed, made this their chief issue, and they carried a half-dozen districts, thus securing for the first time a foothold in the Diet; and the Radicals, too, gave out manhood suffrage as their watchword, but pressed it so feebly as to awaken the suspicion that their demand was not seriously meant.
"Nevertheless, the King’s speech from the throne in October surprised the country by announcing that a reform of the election laws was a fundamental necessity and would be undertaken during the present session. This announcement affected the country-squire element like tapping on a hornet’s nest. The Conservative party immediately gave it to be plainly understood that it would brook no tampering with the election laws, the stronghold of its power."
_W. C. Dreher, The Year in Germany (Atlantic Monthly, January, 1909)_.
PRUSSIA: A. D. 1908 (January). More vigorous Germanizing of the Polish Provinces.
See (in this Volume) GERMANY: A. D. 1908.
PRUSSIA: A. D. 1909-1910. Rejection of proposed Reforms of the Elective Franchise. The Offensive Bill of the following year.
See (in this Volume) ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: PRUSSIA.
----------PUBLIC HEALTH: Start--------
PUBLIC HEALTH: AMERICA: A. D. 1901-1902. Proposals of the Second International Conference of American Republics.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
PUBLIC HEALTH: Army Sanitation: By the Japanese.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905—at the end.
PUBLIC HEALTH: BUBONIC PLAGUE: In India.
The bubonic plague, which began to terrorize the eastern world, especially India, in the late years of the last century (see PLAGUE, in Volume VI.), showed signs of abating in India in 1900, but regained virulence in the following years, the mortality from it in all India rising to about 560,000 in 1902, exceeding 842,000 in 1903, going beyond a million in 1904, and rising to 1,125,652 in the year from October 1, 1904, to September 30, 1905. Its worst ravages were in the Presidency of Bombay and in the Punjab. In the Bombay Presidency the victims of 1903 numbered 343,904; in the Punjab they counted 210,493.
See (in this Volume) PUBLIC HEALTH: INDIA.
PUBLIC HEALTH: BUBONIC PLAGUE: In the Philippines: How it was stamped out.
Full accounts of the successful campaign against bubonic plague in the Philippines, in 1900-1902, are given in the annual reports of the Philippine Commission. From that source the main facts were summarized in the May number of the National Geographic Magazine, 1903, as follows:
Bubonic plague was discovered at Manila on December 26, 1899, and slowly but steadily increased in its ravages up to December, 1901. "The deaths in 1900 numbered 199, and in 1901 reached a total of 432. The disease was at its worst each year during the hot, dry months of March, April, and May, nearly or quite disappearing during September, October, November, and December. …
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"On account of the important part which house rats are known to play in the distribution of bubonic plague, a systematic campaign was inaugurated against these rodents in Manila. Policemen, sanitary inspectors, and specially appointed rat-catchers were furnished with traps and poison, and both traps and poison were distributed to private individuals under proper restrictions. A bounty was paid for all rats turned over to the health authorities, and stations were established at convenient points throughout the city where they could be received. Each rat was tagged with the street and number of the building or lot from which it came, was dropped into a strong antiseptic solution, and eventually sent to the Biological Laboratory, where it was subjected to a bacteriological examination for plague. During the first two weeks, 1.8 per cent. of the rats examined were found to be infected. This proportion steadily increased, reaching the alarming maximum of 2.3 per cent. in October. At this time numerous rats were found dead of plague in the infected districts, and, in view of the fact that epidemics of plague among the rats of a city in the past have been uniformly followed by epidemics among human beings, the gravest apprehension was felt, the rapid spread of the disease among the rats after the weather had become comparatively dry being a particularly unfavorable symptom.
"It was deemed necessary to prepare to deal with a severe epidemic, and a permanent detention camp, capable of accommodating fifteen hundred persons, was accordingly established on the grounds of the San Lazaro Hospital. Hoping against hope, the board of health redoubled its efforts to combat the disease. The force of sanitary inspectors was greatly increased, and under the able supervision of Dr. Meacham their work was brought to a high degree of efficiency. Frequent house-to-house inspections were made in all parts of the city where the disease was known to exist. The sick were removed to the hospital if practicable; otherwise they were cared for where found and the spread of infection guarded against.
"Plague houses were thoroughly disinfected, and their owners were compelled, under the direction of the assistant sanitary engineer, to make necessary alterations. Cement ground-floors were laid; double walls and double ceilings, affording a refuge for rats, were removed; defects in plumbing were remedied; whitewash was liberally used, and, in general, nothing was left undone that could render buildings where plague had occurred safe for human occupancy. Buildings incapable of thorough disinfection and renovation were destroyed. Buildings in which plague rats were taken were treated exactly as were those where the disease attacked the human occupants. The bacteriological examination of rats enabled the board of health to follow the pest into its most secret haunts and fight it there, and was the most important factor in the winning of the great success which was ultimately achieved.
"With very few exceptions, there was no recurrence of plague in buildings which had been disinfected and renovated. As center after center of infection was found and destroyed, the percentage of diseased rats began to decrease, and in January, 1902, when, judging from the history of previous years, plague should have again begun to spread among human beings, there was not a single case. In February, one case occurred. In March, there were two cases, as against 63 in March of the preceding year, and before April the disease had completely disappeared. This result, brought about at a time when the epidemic would, if unchecked, have reached its height for the year, marked the end of a fight begun by the board of health on the day of its organization and prosecuted unremittingly under adverse conditions for seven months, with a degree of success which has not been equaled under similar conditions in the history of bubonic plague.
"During 1901, plague appeared at several points in the provinces near Manila. Agents of the board of health were promptly dispatched to the infected municipalities, and radical remedial measures were adopted, including, in several instances, the burning of infected buildings, the result being the complete disappearance of plague in the provinces as well as in Manila."
PUBLIC HEALTH: CANCER RESEARCH: Mr. Barnato’s Bequest.
"We are reminded to-day that the late Mr. Harry Barnato bequeathed a sum of money amounting to a quarter of a million sterling for the establishment of a charity in memory of his brother, Mr. Barney Barnato, and of his nephew, Mr. Woolf Joel, both of whom died before him. We are now officially informed that the trustees under Mr. Harry Barnato’s will have determined to apply the bequest to the building and endowment of an institution for the reception of cancer patients, and to place its management under the control of the authorities of the Middlesex Hospital, where special wards for cancer patients have long been in operation, and where much has been done in devising means for the alleviation of their sufferings."
_London Times, August 9, 1909._
Mr. George Crocker, of California, who died in December, 1909, bequeathed a fund amounting to about $1,500,000 to Columbia University for the prosecution of researches into the cause, prevention, and cure of cancer. Mr. Crocker, his wife, and his father, Charles Crocker of California, all died of the disease. Mr. Crocker had given $50,000 to Columbia for the same purpose before his death. Mr. Crocker provided that, should a cure for the disease be discovered, the money should be devoted to other medical investigations, "with a view to preventing and curing diseases and alleviating human suffering." He stipulated further that no part of the fund should be used for the erection of a building.
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PUBLIC HEALTH: The Committee of One Hundred. Movement for a National Department or Bureau of Health.
A convincing paper read by Professor J. P. Norton, of Yale, before the economic section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science at its meeting in 1906, on the economic advisability of a national regulation of public health, led to the formation in 1907 of the Committee of One Hundred, which has labored since that time to bring about the creation of a Department or a Bureau of Public Health in the Federal administration of Government. Under the presidency of Mr. Irving Fisher, and with Mr. Edward T. Devine for its secretary, the Committee, which includes many of the most eminent men and women in the country, has awakened wide interest in the proposition, enlisting a public support which seems certain to give it success. When the subject came under discussion in the American Association for the Advancement of Science at its meeting of 1908, Professor William H. Welch, the retiring President of the Association, described the existing neglect of health as shameful, and pointed out that, if existing hygienic knowledge were fully applied, the death rate might be cut in two. As examples of what a Federal Health Bureau might do he cited the work of Pasteur and Koch, whose best work was done for the national governments of France and Germany, though the benefits have been shared by all nations. In America we lack even the statistics of disease except in a limited area.
In his Message to Congress, December 6, 1909, President Taft urged the institution of the proposed National Bureau of Health very cogently, in these words: "For a very considerable period a movement has been gathering strength, especially among the members of the medical profession, in favor of a concentration of the instruments of the national government, which have to do with the promotion of public health. In the nature of things, the Medical Department of the army and the Medical Department of the navy must be kept separate. But there seems to be no reason why all the other bureaus and offices in the general government which have to do with the public health or subjects akin thereto should not be united in a bureau to be called the ‘Bureau of Public Health.’ This would necessitate the transfer of the Marine Hospital Service to such a bureau. I am aware that there is a wide field in respect to the public health committed to the States in which the Federal government cannot exercise jurisdiction, but we have seen in the Agricultural Department the expansion into widest usefulness of a department giving attention to agriculture when that subject is plainly one over which the States properly exercise direct jurisdiction. The opportunities offered for useful research and the spread of useful information in regard to the cultivation of the soil and the breeding of stock and the solution of many of the intricate problems in progressive agriculture have demonstrated the wisdom of establishing that department. Similar reasons, of equal force, can be given for the establishment of a bureau of health that shall not only exercise the police jurisdiction of the Federal government respecting quarantine, but which shall also afford an opportunity for investigation and research by competent experts into questions of health affecting the whole country, or important sections thereof, questions which, in the absence of Federal governmental work, are not likely to be promptly solved."
PUBLIC HEALTH: The Hookworm Disease in the United States.
"In the Old World, hookworm disease was probably known to the Egyptians nearly three thousand five hundred years ago, but its cause was not understood until about the middle of the nineteenth century, when it was shown to be due to an intestinal parasite, _Agchylostoma duodenale._ Until 1893 no authentic cases of this disease were recognized as such in the United States, but between 1893 and 1902 about 35 cases were diagnosed. In 1902 it was shown that a distinct hookworm, _Ucinaria americana,_ infests man in this country, and this indicated very strongly that the disease must be present although not generally recognized. It is now established that in addition to the few cases of Old World hookworm disease imported into the United States we have in the South an endemic uncinariasis due to a distinct cause, _Uncinaria americana._ This disease has been known for years in the South and can be traced in medical writings as far back as 1808, but its nature was not understood. Some cases have been confused with malaria, others have been attributed to dirt-eating.
"The hookworms are about half an inch long. They live in the small intestine, where they suck blood, produce minute hemorrhages, and in all probability also produce a substance which acts as a poison. They lay eggs which cannot develop to maturity in the intestine. These ova escape with the feces and hatch in about twenty-four hours; the young worm sheds its skin twice and then is ready to infect man. Infection takes place through the mouth, either by the hands soiled with larvae or by infected food. Infection through the drinking water may possibly occur. Finally, the larvae may enter the body through the skin and eventually reach the small intestine.
"Patients may be divided into light cases, in which the symptoms are very obscure; medium cases, in which the anemia is more or less marked, and severe cases, represented by the dwarfed, edematous, anemic dirt-eater. Infection occurs chiefly in rural sand districts. … Economically, uncinariasis is very important. It keeps children from school, decreases capacity for both physical and mental labor, and is one of the most important factors in determining the present condition of the poorer whites of the sand and pine districts of the South.
"The disease is carried from the farms to the cotton mills by the mill hands, but does not spread much in the mills; nevertheless, it causes a considerable amount of anemia among the operatives."-
_Ch. Wardell Stiles, Ph. D., Report upon the Prevalence and Geographic Distribution of Hookworm Disease (Public Health and Marine Hospital Service of the United States: Hygienic Laboratory, Bulletin No. 10)._
In the autumn of 1909 Mr. John D. Rockefeller placed a fund of $1,000,000 under the control of a Commission, to be used for the eradication of the hookworm disease in the United States. The fund is allotted in annual instalments of $200,000 each.
PUBLIC HEALTH: India: A. D. 1907-1908. Mortality Statistics and Birth Rate.
According to statistics given in the "Statement Exhibiting the Moral and Material Progress and Condition of India during the year 1907-1908," in most provinces the birth-rates exceeded the death-rates, but in the Punjab the death-rate exceeded the birth-rate by no less than 21.3 per mille, mainly as a result of the persistence of plague and the unusual prevalence of other epidemics. The total number of deaths registered in the Dependency was 8,399,623, compared with 7,852,330 in 1906. This constituted a rise of the rate from 34.73 per mille to 37.18. The mean mortality per 1,000 for the quinquennium ending 1906 was 33.96. The rate in the Punjab was no less than 62.1.
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Throughout the country as a whole cholera was responsible for 1.81 deaths per mille, smallpox for 0.46, fevers for 19.76, dysentery and diarrhoea for 1.25, and plague for 5.16. In the previous year (1906) there was a most welcome decline in the plague death-rate, which fell from 4.17 in 1905 to 1.33. But in the year under review this malignant disease (which first appeared in Bombay in 1896) was responsible for the record number of 1,315,892 deaths. Happily in 1908 there was again a very rapid decline of mortality, and the preliminary figures for the year give a total of less than 150,000 deaths, this being lower than in any year since 1900. The report shows that plague has been curiously partial in its distribution, many parts of the Dependency having almost entirely escaped its ravages. It is shown that the civil hospitals and dispensaries in India (2,514 in number) treated 412,425 indoor and no fewer than 24,469,548 outdoor patients.
PUBLIC HEALTH: Japan: A. D. 1904-1905. Army Sanitation in the War with Russia.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905--at the end.
PUBLIC HEALTH: Malaria: A Lesson in Practical Hygiene from Italy. Slowness in using the knowledge gained.
The following is from a letter by Dr. William Osier to the London _Times_, dated at Rome, March, 3, 1909: "We owe much to the Italians for their contributions to our knowledge of the cause of malaria. Laveran’s great discovery was promptly fathered by Marchiafava and Celli and Golgi, and it was through their writings that we obtained the fullest details of the nature and structure of the malarial parasite. As an old student of the disease and deeply interested in the practical problems of its prevention, one of my first visits in Rome was to the Laboratories of Pathology and of Hygiene to find out from the Directors, Marchiafava and Celli, the progress of the battle. It was not enough to know the cause; we had to know how it worked before effective measures could be taken, and the demonstration by Ross of the transmission of the disease by the mosquito at once put malaria on the list of easily preventable infections. Just ten years ago the Italian Society for the Study of Malaria was founded, and I was able to get a full report of the work.
"In Professor Celli’s lecture-room hangs the mortality chart of Italy for the past 20 years. In 1887 malaria ranked with tuberculosis, pneumonia, and the intestinal disorders of children as one of the great infections, killing in that year 21,033 persons. The chart shows a gradual reduction in the death-rate, and in 1906 only 4,871 persons died of the disease, and in 1907 4,160. This remarkable result has been very largely due to the sanitary measures introduced by the society. It has long been known that malaria disappears ‘spontaneously.’ The Fen country is now healthy; parts of Canada, about Lakes Ontario and Erie, which were formerly hotbeds of the disease, are now free. This cannot be attributed altogether to cultivation and drainage. I know places on the shores of the lakes just mentioned in which the conditions today are identical with those which I remember as a boy. The Desjardin Canal Marsh at the extreme western end of Lake Ontario was a well-known focus of the disease. The marsh remains, the mosquitoes are there; but a case of malaria is almost as rare as in England. The disappearance is largely due to the free use of quinine. The settlers early recognized the important fact that malaria was a disease liable to recur, and it became a common practice to take Peruvian bark every spring and autumn for a year or two after an attack. This is a point in prophylaxis which the work of the Italian Society has brought into prominence. From the summary of the decennial report just issued, the following paragraphs are of interest:
"‘The society has improved the prophylaxis of malaria, and has introduced into practice the new mechanical measures based on the defence of the habitation and the individual from the bites of mosquitoes. This being a relatively expensive procedure, the society has occupied itself chiefly with the improvement of the anti-plasmodic prophylaxis—the administration of quinine. For this purpose it has promoted and defended legislation for the gratuitous distribution of quinine to the poor and to all workers in malarial localities. …
"‘The results have been that since 1902, when the law on State quinine was promulgated, while the consumption of quinine has been yearly increasing, the mortality from malaria has diminished from about 16,000 to about 4,000 yearly; and in the army, Custom House Offices, and in some communes where the new laws have been better applied, the morbidity from malaria has greatly diminished.’
"By these measures, and ‘by means of the agricultural and agrarian transformation of the land and colonization, rather than by the destruction of mosquitoes (a thing impossible to be done by us on a large scale),’ Italy may be freed from the scourge."
In a lecture at the Royal Institution, London, in May, 1909, Major Ronald Ross, one of the most notable workers in this field of sanitary science, spoke discouragingly of the progress made in applying the knowledge gained. He said:
"The immediate success hoped for ten years ago had not been attained. The battle still raged along the whole line, but it was no longer a battle against malaria but against human stupidity. Those who had taken part in it had reasoned and been ridiculed; had given the most stringent experimental proofs and had been disbelieved; had protested and been called charlatans. … The few persons who had fought the fight and failed were scarcely able to continue it, and if no stronger influences could be excited the future of malaria prevention in British dominions would certainly be as barren as the past had been."
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PUBLIC HEALTH: Panama Canal: The Sanitation of the Canal Zone. Extirpation of Malaria and Yellow Fever. Report of Secretary Taft.
In the fall of 1905 Secretary Taft made a visit of inspection to the Canal, and gave, on his return, an interesting account of the conditions he found, in an address before the St. Louis Commercial Club. On the work of Sanitation in progress, under the direction of Dr. W. C. Gorgas, U. S. A., he gave the following description: "When Judge Magoon [appointed Governor of the Canal Zone] arrived upon the Isthmus, he found Dr. Gorgas battling manfully against the yellow fever, but the cases seemed to be increasing. Judge Magoon conceived the idea that the fumigation which had been confined to two or three houses might well be extended to all the houses in Panama, and at considerable expense, and after procuring a large amount of material, every house in Panama was fumigated once every two weeks. To secure increased vigilance and popular assistance he employed all [the respectable Panamanian physicians of Panama as inspectors of the districts of that city, at annual salaries of $1,200 a year. He also offered $50 reward for the discovery of any case of yellow fever not reported. By methods of this kind the native apathy, usually so great an obstacle to successful sanitation in Spanish countries, was neutralized.
"The plan of fumigation is as follows: Strips of paper are placed across the windows, which ordinarily have no glass or any netting in them, and then by the fumes either of sulphur or pyrethrum every nook and cranny of the house is visited. These gases are fatal or paralyzing to the mosquito. After sufficient time has passed the house is opened, and then a corps of health employees are set to work cleaning the house and sweeping out the dead mosquitoes, which are found in great numbers upon the floors. The mosquitoes are burned to avoid further mischief. By these methods, for which Dr. Gorgas and Governor Magoon are both to be credited with great praise, yellow fever has been reduced to a point where during the last month only three cases were reported, not one of these among canal employees, and all originating many miles from the canal line. The efforts to subdue the fever, instead of being relaxed, are being continued. Square miles of woven-wire netting with interstices so small as to prevent the entrance of mosquitoes are spread about the piazzas of the houses of all Americans and foreigners who come to live under the auspices of the Canal Commission in the Isthmus. The windows inside are also screened, and then mosquito-bars on the beds are used as a third precaution. Whenever a case of yellow fever is discovered, the patient is at once either removed to the hospital and put under a woven-wire screen, or, if he prefers to remain at home, the woven-wire screen is put over him and an orderly placed in charge of him at his own residence. In this way he is prevented from furnishing a supply of the poison to the healthy mosquitoes, who, in turn, by stinging, would bring it back to man. In other words, the plan is to kill all the mosquitoes, well or ill, keep them as much as possible from stinging man, and isolate every man with yellow fever, not from his fellows, but from mosquitoes. … Little by little, and facing discouragement after discouragement, the two thousand employees of the sanitary department are winning in this fight against disease, upon which the whole success of the canal work depends. As Mr. Stevens said to me, when I crossed the Isthmus with him this month, ‘I take off my hat to the work which the sanitation department has done in this Canal Zone.’"
A report to the London _Times_, in June, 1909, of conditions on the Canal and in the Canal Zone, shows the effectiveness with which this work of sanitation was done. More arduous than the campaign against yellow fever, says the writer, "was the campaign against malaria, a disease from which 80 per cent. of the people were suffering to some degree. This campaign consisted in warfare against mosquitoes and in the administration of quinine, and the efforts in this respect have also been highly successful. In 1906 the proportion of canal _employés_ treated for malaria was no less than 821 in the thousand. In 1908 it had fallen to 282 in the thousand. The general effect of sanitary measures may best be judged from the death-rate among the tens of thousands of canal _employés_. In 1906 it was 41.73 to the thousand, and in 1908 it was only 13.01 to the thousand, making the canal one of the most healthy industrial establishments in the world."
PUBLIC HEALTH: PELLAGRA: Lombroso’s Discovery of its Source. Its now recognized Seriousness.
In 1872 Cesare Lombroso, the noted criminologist, "incurred a great deal of odium for a discovery which proved to be of much scientific and economic importance. He noted the fact that a large number of the inmates of asylums were suffering from _pellagra_, a curious disease, which first affected the skin and afterwards attacked the brain and nervous system. Lombroso discovered that the disorder was to be traced to a poison contained in diseased maize, which the Lombardian landowners were in the habit of doling out to the poor peasantry. At a time when toxins were unknown, Lombroso succeeded in extracting the poison from the maize and infecting animals with it—quite in the manner of modern bacteriologists. His discovery was received with much derision; but a friend of Lombroso, M. Alfred Maury, reported the facts to Berthelot, the Parisian chemist, who analysed the poison and established the fact that the maize contained an injurious substance resembling strychnine but differing from it in important particulars. The validity of Lombroso’s discovery was thus triumphantly established. He was not satisfied with this initial success, but for several years fought on the platform and in the Press for an improvement in the economic conditions of the peasantry whereby the ravages of the disease might be combated." In late years his work of agitation on the subject has been continued by many others. The disease is of recognized seriousness in Italy, France, and latterly in the United States. In November, 1909, the American Government appointed an official commission to investigate it.
PUBLIC HEALTH: PURE FOOD LAWS: International Congresses.
The first International Congress for discussion and action on the subject of Pure Food was assembled at Geneva in 1908, and attended by about 600 persons. The second was held at Paris in October, 1909, and much more largely attended.
PUBLIC HEALTH: PURE FOOD LAWS: United States: A. D. 1906. Legislation at the end of a long struggle.
Bulletin No. 104 of the Bureau of Chemistry, Department of Agriculture, entitled "Food Legislation during the year ended June 30, 1906," introduces the text of National and State laws enacted that year with the following remarks: "Food legislation for the year ended July 1, 1906, is the most important in the history of the United States. A Federal pure-food bill in various forms has been before Congress continuously for more than twenty years, and such a bill became a law on June 30, 1906. On the same day, as part of the appropriation bill of the United States Department of Agriculture, in the sections providing for the Bureau of Animal Industry, important legislation was enacted with reference to the inspection of meat and meat food products."
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The Federal Food and Drugs Act of June 30, 1906, enacts in its first section "That it shall be unlawful for any person to manufacture within any Territory or the District of Columbia any article of food or drug which is adulterated or misbranded, within the meaning of this Act; and any person who shall violate any of the provisions of this section shall be guilty of misdemeanor, and for each offense shall, upon conviction thereof, be fined not to exceed five hundred dollars or shall be sentenced to one year’s imprisonment, or both such fine and imprisonment, in the discretion of the court, and for each subsequent offense and conviction thereof shall be fined not less than one thousand dollars or sentenced to one year’s imprisonment, or both such fine and imprisonment, in the discretion of the court."
The second section declares:
"That the introduction into any State or Territory or the District of Columbia from any other State or Territory or the District of Columbia, or from any foreign country, or shipment to any foreign country of any article of food or drugs which is adulterated or misbranded within the meaning of this Act, is hereby prohibited"; and penalties are prescribed for violations of the law, being a fine not exceeding $200 for the first offense, and for the second offense a fine not to exceed $300, or imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both, in the discretion of the court.
Section 3 reads as follows:
"That the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Agriculture, and the Secretary of Commerce and Labor shall make uniform rules and regulations for carrying out the provisions of this Act, including the collection and examination of specimens of foods and drugs manufactured or offered for sale in the District of Columbia, or in any Territory of the United States, or which shall be offered for sale in unbroken packages in any State other than that in which they shall have been respectively manufactured or produced, or which shall be received from any foreign country, or intended for shipment to any foreign country, or which may be submitted for examination by the chief health, food, or drug officer of any State, Territory, or the District of Columbia, or at any domestic or foreign port through which such product is offered for interstate commerce, or for export or import between the United States and any foreign port or country."
Section 4 prescribes the examination of specimens of food and drugs in the Bureau of Chemistry, and section 5 relates to prosecutions for violation of the Act. Sections 6, 7, and 8 define adulteration and misbranding, as follows:
"Section 6. That the term ‘drug,’ as used in this Act, shall include all medicines and preparations recognized in the United States Pharmacopoeia or National Formulary for internal or external use, and any substance or mixture of substances intended to be used for the cure, mitigation, or prevention of disease of either man or other animals. The term ‘food,’ as used herein, shall include all articles used for food, drink, confectionery, or condiment by man or other animals, whether simple, mixed, or compound.
"Section 7. That for the purposes of this Act an article shall be deemed to be adulterated:
"In case of drugs:
"First. If, when a drug is sold under or by a name recognized in the United States Pharmacopoeia or National Formulary, it differs from the standard of strength, quality, or purity, as determined by the test laid down in the United States Pharmacopoeia or National Formulary official at the time of investigation: _Provided_, That no drug defined in the United States Pharmacopoeia or National Formulary shall be deemed to be adulterated under this provision if the standard of strength, quality, or purity be plainly stated upon the bottle, box, or other container thereof although the standard may differ from that determined by the test laid down in the United States Pharmacopoeia or National Formulary.
"Second. If its strength or purity fall below the professed standard or quality under which it is sold.
"In the case of confectionery:
"If it contain terra alba, barytes, talc, chrome yellow, or other mineral substance or poisonous color or flavor, or other ingredient deleterious or detrimental to health, or any vinous, malt or spirituous liquor or compound or narcotic drug.
"In the case of food:
"First. If any substance has been mixed and packed with it so as to reduce or lower or injuriously affect its quality or strength.
"Second. If any substance has been substituted wholly or in part for the article.
"Third. If any valuable constituent of the article has been wholly or in part abstracted.
"Fourth. If it be mixed, colored, powdered, coated, or stained in a manner whereby damage or inferiority is concealed.
"Fifth. If it contain any added poisonous or other added deleterious ingredient which may render such article injurious to health: _Provided_, That when in the preparation of food products for shipment they are preserved by any external application applied in such manner that the preservative is necessarily removed mechanically, or by maceration in water, or otherwise, and directions for the removal of said preservative shall be printed on the covering of the package, the provisions of this Act shall be construed as applying only when said products are ready for consumption.
"Sixth. If it consists in whole or in part of a filthy, decomposed, or putrid animal or vegetable substance, or any portion of an animal unfit for food, whether manufactured or not, or if it is the product of a diseased animal, or one that has died otherwise than by slaughter.
"Section 8. That the term ‘misbranded,’ as used herein, shall apply to all drugs, or articles of food, or articles which enter into the composition of food, the package or label of which shall bear any statement, design, or device regarding such article, or the ingredients or substances contained therein which shall be false or misleading in any particular, and to any food or drug product which is falsely branded as to the State, Territory, or country in which it is manufactured or produced.
"That for the purposes of this Act an article shall also be deemed to be misbranded:
"In case of drugs:
"First. If it be an imitation of or offered for sale under the name of another article.
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"Second. If the contents of the package as originally put up shall have been removed, in whole or in part, and other contents shall have been placed in such package, or if the package fail to bear a statement on the label of the quantity or proportion of any alcohol, morphine, opium, cocaine, heroin, alpha or beta eucaine, chloroform, cannabis indica, chloral hydrate, or acetanilide, or any derivative or preparation of any of such substances contained therein.
"In the case of food:
"First. If it be an imitation of or offered for sale under the distinctive name of another article.
"Second. If it be labeled or branded so as to deceive or mislead the purchaser, or purport to be a foreign product when not so, or if the contents of the package as originally put up shall have been removed in whole or in part and other contents shall have been placed in such package, or if it fail to bear a statement on the label of the quantity or proportion of any morphine, opium, cocaine, heroin, alpha or beta eucaine, chloroform, cannabis indica, chloral hydrate, or acetanilide, or any derivative or preparation of any of such substances contained therein.
"Third. If in package form, and the contents are stated in terms of weight or measure, they are not plainly and correctly stated on the outside of the package.
"Fourth. If the package containing it or its label shall bear any statement, design, or device regarding the ingredients or the substances contained therein, which statement, design, or device shall be false or misleading in any particular: _Provided_, That an article of food which does not contain any added poisonous or deleterious ingredients shall not be deemed to be adulterated or misbranded in the following cases:
"First. In the case of mixtures or compounds which may be now or from time to time hereafter known as articles of food, under their own distinctive names, and not an imitation of or offered for sale under the distinctive name of another article, if the name be accompanied on the same label or brand with a statement of the place where said article has been manufactured or produced.
"Second. In the case of articles labeled, branded, or tagged so as to plainly indicate that they are compounds, imitations, or blends, and the word ‘compound,’ ‘imitation,’ or ‘blend,’ as the case may be, is plainly stated on the package in which it is offered for sale: _Provided_, That the term blend as used herein shall be construed to mean a mixture of like substances, not excluding harmless coloring or flavoring ingredients used for the purpose of coloring and flavoring only: _And provided further_, That nothing in this Act shall be construed as requiring or compelling proprietors or manufacturers of proprietary foods which contain no unwholesome added ingredient to disclose their trade formulas, except in so far as the provisions of this Act may require to secure freedom from adulteration or misbranding."
There was never a harder fight in Congress than that by which this victory was won, over knaveries that, were not ashamed to insist on their right to swindle and poison the public by adulterations and frauds. Nothing but a thoroughly roused public feeling carried the measure through. The same feeling impelled local legislation to the same end in thirty-two States, during 1906, and 1907, all of which is set forth in the Bulletin cited above and in another of the same series (No. 112), published in two parts in the following year.
Writing in January, 1908, of what the Pure Food Law had accomplished, the Chairman of the Food Committee of the National Consumers League, Alice Lakey, said: "One of the most important results of the Pure Food Law is the awakening of many consumers to their responsibilities as buyers of food products. They are studying labels and buying foods accordingly. With an intelligent consuming public to purchase goods, the Pure Food Law will in time accomplish its full purpose. Perhaps no better phrase will then be found to describe it than the recent utterance of the manager of one of the most important food firms in the country. ‘The Pure Food Law,’ he said, ‘passed by this Government, is the most important law ever passed by any government.’"
PUBLIC HEALTH: United States: A. D. 1906. The Packing-House Investigation.
One of the influences which forced the passage through Congress of the pure food legislation of 1906 came from the revelations in a report laid before the President on the 4th of June that year, by two commissioners whom he had appointed to investigate the conditions existing at the stockyards and packing-houses of Chicago. In communicating the report to Congress the President characterized its disclosures as revolting, and it is certain that the whole public was sickened by the pictures it drew of reckless filthiness prevailing in the establishments where meats were prepared for sale in the markets of the country and of the world. We shall not attempt to reproduce them here.
The most important part of the report concerned the existing methods of official inspection of meats. The commissioners found it most rigorous where it is needed least, namely, at the time of killing. It was while the meat was being handled, and especially in its preparation for canning, that it underwent the most pollution. The cans which received it finally were allowed to bear labels stating that "the contents of this package have been inspected according to the Act of Congress of March 3, 1891. Quality Guaranteed." As a matter of fact, all that had been inspected was the carcass of the animal at the time of killing.
The further legislation, respecting inspections, which supplemented the law quoted from above, was resisted with all their power by the enormously rich meat-packing companies of the country, who found strong supporters in Congress, but they had to submit to defeat.
PUBLIC HEALTH: The Sleeping Sickness in Africa.
"The most formidable enemy of both man and beast in tropical Africa is the tsetse, species _Glossina_, a genus of blood-sucking fly peculiar to that land, which carries a minute parasite, the trypanosome, from the infected to the healthy, resulting in the production of sleeping sickness, or trypanosomiasis. When it is known that in the region lying around Victoria Nyanza, Lake Tanganyika, and the Victorian Nile over 400,000 human beings have succumbed to this fatal malady since it appeared about ten years ago, its appalling nature is apparent. Vast territories of thickly populated, fertile country near the shores of these lakes, until the advent of this terrible plague the homes of a happy, contented people, are now almost depopulated, and thousands of little villages have been swept away, their inhabitants victims of this deadly pest.
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"In appearance the tsetse fly bears a remarkable resemblance to the ordinary house-fly, but is slightly larger, with longer wings, which extend beyond its body and lap each other when at rest like the blades of a pair of scissors. It is somber gray, nearly black in color, almost like the honey-bee, and has a prominent proboscis ensheathed in the palpi which project horizontally in front of its head. The abdomen is marked by four distinct yellowish bands, with a pale spot over the upper segment. It is wonderfully active, and evades every attempt at capture except in the cool of the morning or evening, when its movements are sluggish and it can be caught in the hand. …
"Sleeping sickness has been known in Sierra Leone, in the Congo, and on the west coast of Africa since the earliest history of those lands. In 1870 a fossil tsetse fly (Glossina morsitans) was discovered in Colorado, and the theory has been advanced that the absence of wild horses on the American continent was due to the ravages of the disease carried by these flies.
"The malady was described as early as 1803, and later most accurately by Livingstone, the great missionary explorer. He also advocated arsenic in its treatment. This remedy, after half a century of research and investigation, still retains its place as the best one known for prolonging life. …
"The period of the incubation of the disease after the bite of the infected fly varies from a month to several years, depending upon the resisting power of the patient. In its earlier stages the first noticeable symptoms are irregular fever. … This stage may continue a year, or even longer.
"In the following stage the symptoms are due to the trypanosomes reaching the cerebrospinal fluid, giving rise to cerebral manifestations; drowsiness, stupor, dullness of hearing, slowness in perception and of answering questions, with incapacity for mental exertion, and somnolence, the patient sometimes sleeping the entire day. This condition may continue several years, during which time epileptiform convulsions develop, with marked tremulousness of the muscles of the face and tongue, the patient becoming maniacal and the whole symptomatology resembling that of general paresis of the insane. …
"Previous to 1901 sleeping sickness was unknown in Uganda. How the present epidemic originated is not positively known. The most generally accepted theory is that the soldiers of Emin Pasha and their followers introduced it, as some ten thousand of them settled in Busoga after the Sudan campaign. …
"The duration of the sleeping sickness in man is very variable. Occasionally cases linger six or even eight years, and until the expiration of this period they are constant foci of infection.
"Recognizing the fatal nature of the disease, the various nations whose territories are most seriously affected, notably England, Germany, Portugal, France, and Belgium, appointed commissioners, with competent assistants, to ascertain methods for its control. The enormous amount of investigation and research accomplished by these self-sacrificing men, among whom may be mentioned Bruce, Koch, Hodges, Broden, Tullock, Kopke, Martin, Hardy, and Kleine, two of whom forfeited their lives in the work, entitles their names to be enrolled among the benefactors of mankind."
_Louis L. Seaman, The Sleeping Sickness (The Outlook, January 15, 1909)._
PUBLIC HEALTH: Tuberculosis: The Organized Warfare for its Eradication.
After the discovery of the all important fact that the most destroying of the diseases of the human race, tuberculosis (the dread "consumption" of the older-fashioned nomenclature of pathology), is in its nature one so propagated from victim to victim that the propagation is needless, and may absolutely be ended by right precautions universally applied, there were ardent workers soon engaged in eager efforts to bring such measures into use. The beginning of a hopefully inspired warfare against the disease dates, therefore, from the identification of the bacillus of tuberculosis by Dr. Robert Koch, in 1882; but, for nearly two decades after that inspiration it was little more than a guerrilla undertaking, by scientifically benevolent individuals and groups, here and there in the world. It was not until the latest years of the nineteenth century and the earliest of the twentieth that more public risings appeared in the movement, and it began to acquire the momentum of a crusade.
Germany appears to have been earliest in the fundamental organization of measures to instruct its people in the nature of the disease, and in the means by which it may be stamped out; as well as in the provision of special sanatoria and hospitals for the new open-air treatment of those attacked. But the Health Department of the City of New York has the credit of being the first official body to bring the disease under efficient administrative control. On this subject Dr. Hermann M. Biggs, in an address delivered, February 16, 1904, under the auspices of the Henry Phipps Institute and published in the first annual report of the Institute, said:
"Notwithstanding all that has been said and written, notwithstanding the popular education and agitation, notwithstanding the formation of antituberculosis societies and antituberculosis leagues, notwithstanding the organization of many associations for the erection of sanatoria, and the foundation of institutions for the study of tuberculosis, notwithstanding the measures adopted for the prevention of the disease in animals, still only a very small percentage of the governmental, municipal and state sanitary authorities of this country, Great Britain and the Continent have adopted provisions which can be regarded as in any way comprehensive, or effective in dealing with this disease.
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"If we seek for an adequate explanation for this attitude, it is not, after all, difficult to find. In speaking of this matter several years ago, Koch said in substance to the writer: ‘The adoption in Germany of such measures as are already in force in New York City will not be possible until the generation of medical men now in control have passed away. Not until a younger generation has appeared, which has had a different scientific training, and holds views more in harmony with the known facts regarding the etiology of tuberculosis, will it be possible in my opinion to bring about an intelligent supervision of this disease. … Notification is a necessary preliminary to any plan of supervision, and yet only five years ago a special commission of the Academy of Medicine of Paris reported against a proposition to place tuberculosis in the class of notifiable diseases. … Sir Richard Thorne, the Medical Officer to the Local Government Board of Great Britain, in the Harben lecture in 1898 on ‘The Administrative Control of Tuberculosis,’ after a careful consideration of the various problems presented under the English law relating to infectious diseases, pronounced definitely against this proposition, on the ground that the hardship to the individual, which would follow notification and the enforcement of proper regulations, would be so great as to render this measure unjustifiable. … The compulsory notification and registration of all cases is essential. The fundamental importance of this measure is so evident that its consideration seems hardly necessary. It must of course appear at once that unless there is a system of compulsory notification, and registration, the enforcement of any uniform measures for prevention is impossible. Practical experience with this procedure has made it perfectly clear that the objections which have been urged against it are without force or foundation.
"In New York City in 1893 a system of partially voluntary and
## partially compulsory notification was adopted. Public
institutions were required to report cases coming under their supervision; private physicians were requested to do this. Under this provision the Department of Health carried on this work for three and a half years, and then adopted in 1897 regulations requiring the notification of all cases. … The mere fact of notification and registration has in itself a very powerful educational influence. During the year 1902 more than sixteen thousand cases were reported to the Department of Health in New York City, of which forty-two hundred were duplicates, and in 1903 more than seventeen thousand cases were reported.
"To facilitate the early and definite diagnosis of all cases of pulmonary tuberculosis, the sanitary authorities should afford facilities for the free bacteriological examination of the sputum in all instances of suspected disease. … The Department of Health of New York City provided facilities for such examinations in 1894, early in the history of its attempt to exercise control over the disease, and this procedure has proved of very great value to the medical profession, to the sick, and to the authorities. Following the example of New York City, other sanitary authorities have adopted similar measures."
_H. M. Biggs, The Administrative Control of Tuberculosis (First Annual Report, Henry Phipps Institute, 1905)._
In 1895 a Central Committee was organized in Germany to establish special hospitals for the disease.
In 1898 the first National Congress for discussion and better organization of action relative to tuberculosis was held at Paris, with some attendance from outside of France. The second National Congress was at Berlin in the following year, with similar attendance from other countries, and the third at Naples in 1900. At the Naples Congress a "Central International Committee for the Prevention of Tuberculosis" was organized, and it held its first Conference in Berlin, under the auspices of the Central German Committee, in 1902. The succeeding meetings of the Central International Committee were at Paris, 1903, at Copenhagen, 1904, at Paris again, 1904, and there, at that time, the First International Congress on Tuberculosis was held.
In 1901 the first National Congress in Great Britain for the discussion of Tuberculosis and for organizing preventive undertakings was held at London. There were said to be then fifty sanitaria for its treatment in Germany; in France a dozen private and two public institutions for the purpose; in France and Belgium a number of public dispensaries specially provided for the disease. In that year the State of New York made its first appropriation for a Tuberculosis Hospital in the Adirondacks, and a National Sanitarium Association at Toronto, Canada, secured the site for a hospital.
In 1902, at the annual meeting of the Canada Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis, held at Ottawa, Dr. A. S. Knopf, of New York, speaking of the progress of the anti-tuberculosis movement, said of the United States: "We have but a few small societies striving to do the same work you are doing. They are the Pennsylvania, the Colorado, the Ohio, the Maine, the Minnesota and the Illinois." Besides these State Associations the speaker mentioned a few cities,—Baltimore, Buffalo and Erie County, Cleveland, and St. Louis,—as having some organization for the work. No national organization had yet been formed. In this year, however, some advances of importance within the United States were begun. Henry Phipps, of New York, pledged the means for supporting a free Clinic for Tuberculosis at Philadelphia, which expanded within a year into the Henry Phipps Institute, founded on the 1st of February and incorporated September 1st, 1903, the purposes of which, as set forth in its charter, are: "The study of the cause, treatment, and prevention of tuberculosis, and the dissemination of knowledge on these subjects; the treatment and the cure of consumptives"; its benefits to be "administered without regard to race, creed or color." In this year, too, an active educational work, by weekly free lectures in the Assembly Hall of the United Charities Building, by distributing pamphlets, district nursing, etc., was opened in the City of New York and conducted by a Committee for the Prevention of Tuberculosis. Massachusetts was now appropriating money for its second sanatorium. In Great Britain, Sir Edward Cassell placed £200,000 at the disposal of the King for Tuberculosis hospitals and Sanatoria.
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The year 1903 witnessed an important meeting at Paris of the Central International Tuberculosis Committee, which was stirred by an appeal from Casimir-Perier, ex-President of France, for "a mobilization of all social forces" against the devastating disease. The Government of Sweden instituted a free distribution of pamphlets on the subject of Tuberculosis throughout the kingdom. In Great Britain a national committee, representing all important friendly societies and trade unions, was formed to promote the establishing of sanatoria for workers. In Belgium, Madame Rene Gauge started the movement for Open Air Schools. At Baltimore a Tuberculosis Exhibition which awakened wide interest was arranged by a Commission appointed by the Governor of Maryland in the previous year, in cooperation with the Maryland Public Health Association. State and City organizations for dealing with the disease and for educating the people to a right understanding of the means by which it might be stamped out were now multiplying rapidly throughout the United States.
In 1904 the United States obtained their first comprehensive organization for the work. The National Association for Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis was formed at a large meeting at Atlantic City in June, with Dr. Edward Trudeau of Saranac, founder of the Saranac cottage sanatoria and pioneer in America of the open air treatment of the disease, for its President, and Drs. William Osier, of Baltimore, and Hermann M. Biggs for Vice Presidents. In Boston, that year, no less than eighty-one free lectures on Tuberculosis were given in schools, churches, social settlements, before trade unions and clubs, under the auspices of the Boston Association, and 70,000 instructive leaflets were distributed. In France a special Society for the Protection of Children from Tuberculosis was formed. The Garment-makers Union and the Typographical Union of New York entered jointly into undertakings of educational work among their members, and the Central Federated Union was soon enlisted with them. A Directory of Institutions and Societies dealing with Tuberculosis in the United States, published in January, 1905, described 125 then existing hospitals and sanatoria in which consumptives may receive treatment, and 32 special dispensaries; recounting, also, special measures for the treatment of the disease in penal institutions and hospitals for the insane.
The most important campaign of 1905 in the crusade, within the American field, was probably that connected with the great Tuberculosis Exposition in New York City, prepared and conducted by the National Association, in cooperation with the Committee of the New York Charity Organization Society. New York City, in this year, appropriated $250,000 for a Municipal Tuberculosis Hospital, located in the Catskill Mountains.
In 1906 a duplication of the Tuberculosis Exposition of the previous December in New York was carried, as a travelling exhibit, to different parts of the city, with impressive effect; and similar exhibits were given in eleven cities of the United States. It was reported in this year that about fifty local commissions and associations were actively in operation in the United States; and that the American Federation of Labor, as well as the American Federation of Women’s Clubs, were enlisted with earnestness in the work. The Fifth International Conference was held this year at The Hague.
From this time the public awakening to recognition of the measureless importance and the inspiring hopefulness of the struggle to extinguish the deadly "white plague" spread rapidly everywhere, and each year made increasing records of gains in the work and its effects. Fourteen of the American States were reported in 1907 as having founded State hospitals for the disease, supported from public funds, while measures were in progress to that end in a number of other States.
In 1908 a most powerful impulse to the crusade in America was imparted by the meeting at Washington, that year, of the International Congress on Tuberculosis, with a large attendance of the most distinguished captains of the warfare from abroad. The local interest aroused was beyond expectation. As one writer described the meetings of the seven sections of the Congress, from September 28 to October 3, "scientists of international reputation and doctors from country villages, clubwomen, architects, social workers, manufacturers, teachers, labor men, Socialists, literary men, lawyers and lawmakers, society women, and the clergy, were all there, not only to listen, but to take part."
The subjects which received the most discussion at the Congress were the compulsory notification of pulmonary tuberculosis, the cooperation between official and non-official agencies for the prevention of the disease, the relationship between dispensaries, sanatoria, and hospitals for advanced cases, and the difference between the human and the bovine types of the bacillus. On this latter subject Dr. Koch, who was present, maintained his belief that bovine tuberculosis is not communicable to mankind, but failed to convince the majority of the scientists present. The British delegates to the Congress in their subsequent report of it, published in April, 1909, attached particular importance to the discussions on the subject of the compulsory notification of cases of tuberculosis, and pointed out that in New York the notifications were shown to be four times as numerous as the deaths, which indicated a more complete system than any yet operative in Great Britain. It appeared from their report, however, that, since the Washington meeting, the system of voluntary notification already practised in many parts of England had been extended by order of the Local Government Board, and rendered compulsory in the case of all patients suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis, who came under the official care of a parochial medical officer.
Statistics quoted in the New York _Evening Post_ of May 8, 1909, from the _Imperial Gazette_, show that in recent years there has been a steady decrease in the number of deaths in Germany from tuberculosis, and especially from tuberculosis of the lungs. The figures are based upon the monthly reports of deaths in 350 of the largest centres of population in the empire, and upon annual reports as to the causes of deaths from nearly all districts, as supplied to the Imperial Board of Health. The average of deaths per 100,000 in 1905 was 226.6. In 1908 the average had fallen to 192.15. For the rural and urban population combined statistics are forthcoming for 97 per cent. of the total population, divided into two classes—persons below the age of fifteen, and persons between fifteen and sixty. {526} In the latter class the average number of deaths annually between 1898 and 1902 from tuberculosis in all forms was 268.5, and from tuberculosis of the lungs, 255.7 per 100,000. During the period 1903-1907 the annual averages decreased to 242.8 and 228.8 per 100,000, respectively. The figures, however, for tuberculosis of all kinds among children between the ages of one year and fifteen show an average annual increase in deaths per 100,000 from 77.9 during the period 1898-1902 to 81.1 during the period 1903-1907. Yet during the latter period of five years the actual number of deaths among children has gradually decreased from 16,250 in 1905 to 14,283 in 1907. For the two classes together the annual average of deaths per 100,000 was as follows: From 1898-1902—from tuberculosis in all forms, 214.1, and from tuberculosis of the lungs 195.2; from 1903-1907—from tuberculosis in all forms 197.8, and from tuberculosis of the lungs 174.2.
According to a bulletin published in October, 1909, by Cressy L. Wilbur, Chief Statistician of the division of Vital Statistics in the United States Census Bureau, the warfare against tuberculosis has begun to show general effects in the United States. The statistics given are based on the annual returns of deaths from the death-registration areas of the country, which are far from comprehending the whole. The total number of deaths from all forms of tuberculosis returned in 1908 was 78,289, exceeding those of any previous year of registration, but the death rate per 100,000 for 1908 is considerably less than that for 1907. In all registration States the death from tuberculosis showed a decline, except in Colorado, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
A Press despatch from Washington, August 9, 1909, announced that "a plan for the organization of negro anti-tuberculosis leagues in the various States, proposed recently by the United States Public Health and Marine Hospital Service, has met with a quick response. Already five State organizations have been formed, and the movement has received the endorsement of the last conference of the State and Territorial boards of health. State leagues have been formed in Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Virginia. One of the principal features of the plan is the issuance of a large certificate of membership to each supporter of the movement. Branches of the State leagues are to be established in the various negro churches."
In July, 1909, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company made application to the New York State Insurance Department for permission to purchase a tract of land, 3000 acres or more, and erect thereon a sanatorium for the treatment of its employees, and possibly of its policy-holders who suffered from tuberculosis. The company was said to have ascertained that among the holders of its 9,000,000 policies there occurred, on the average, a death every thirty-two minutes from tuberculosis, and that, regarded wholly from the economic standpoint, it would be more than justified in applying its funds to such a measure for saving or prolonging life in that body of people. The Superintendent of Insurance was unable, however, to find any warrant in law for authorizing the undertaking, and felt required to deny the application. The company appealed from his decision to the courts, and the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State handed down a decision early in January, 1910, declaring the plan to purchase real estate to be used as a hospital for the care and treatment of its employees who are afflicted with tuberculosis does not violate that provision of the law which prohibits insurance companies from acquiring real estate for any purpose other than that of the transaction of their own business. "The court passes lightly over the question of the possibility of the hospital being used, in case vacancies exist in it, for the accommodation of selected cases from among the policy-holders. This possibility, it seems, had been indicated in the original petition, but ‘the briefs of counsel upon either side,’ says the court, ‘have practically eliminated that question.’ In such a use of the hospital there might be serious question of a precedent that would be open to grave objection."
Gifts to the amount of $700,000 for the establishment of a tuberculosis preventorium for children were announced from New York, through the Associated Press, November 9, 1909. The further statement was made that, "in connection with the tuberculosis preventorium a movement has been organized which purposes to take from New York tenements children who have been affected with tuberculosis and restore them to normal health before it is too late. The plan was formally organized at a meeting this afternoon in the Fifth avenue residence of Henry Phipps. A contribution to the work by Nathan Straus includes a $500,000 cottage and estate at Lakewood, New Jersey, occupied by the late Grover Cleveland just before his death. There the new institution will have its home. Miss Dorothy Whitney contributed a $100,000 endowment fund."
PUBLIC HEALTH: Yellow Fever: Eradication in Cuba, at Rio Janeiro, and in French Western Africa.
"Three signal victories have been gained over yellow fever during these later years—in Cuba, in Brazil, and in Dakar, in West Africa. The first is the most memorable of these events. It is the purification of the endemic center at Habana. This occurred in 1901, during the United States occupation. The daily press in countless articles has spread the details. We know that Brigadier General Leonard Wood, governor of Habana, decreed one fine day that the plague should be wiped out and the mosquitoes destroyed throughout the entire city of Habana and its suburbs, and we know that it was done. …
"The theory was that the mosquito is the sole disseminator of the disease. This is precisely what the United States commission, appointed the year before, had just proven. It had shown that all the other supposed cases of contagion were imaginary. …
"The yellow fever Stegomya does not breed in swamps. It has not the habits of the Anophele of the marsh, the malaria mosquito. It does not live like that one, in the open country, but dwells in houses. It is a domestic insect. It stays at home, is wary, and is sensitive to the weather. Like many other mosquitoes, it never goes more than 500 or 600 yards away from its breeding place and journeys only when its home —a vessel or a carriage—journeys. There is no need to fear that the insect may be carried far by the wind, for it dreads the wind. It does not trust itself outdoors when there is the slightest breeze. The problem is thus simplified. {527} It is no longer a question of protecting immense areas. It is enough to protect the house and its immediate environs—the city and a limited surrounding zone. Still it would be useless to capture the insect on the wing or at rest. It is permitted to complete its short life, but is not allowed to have offspring . The female is prevented from laying its eggs. This is accomplished by draining stagnant water left in so many gardens and household utensils where the mosquito seeks a breeding place. Hence the efficacy of the measures which forbade the people of Habana from keeping water in any other way than in covered receptacles or with a coat of oil or petroleum on top.
"The success of the measures taken by the American physicians, Gorgas, Finlay, and Guiteras, in Habana, was complete. Yellow fever has disappeared from there. On April 4, 1904, the President of the Republic of Cuba, in his message to the Congress, spoke thus:
"‘There has not been in Cuba since 1901 a single case of yellow fever not imported. The country should know of this excellent sanitary condition, which is due to the perfection of prophylactic measures and the vigilance of the health authorities.’
"Events happened in the same way in Brazil. Dr. Oswald Cruz, in charge of the organization of the campaign against yellow fever, with equal success repeated at Rio de Janeiro what had been done in Habana. The enforcement of the measures began April 20, 1903. The mortality which before had averaged 150 deaths a month fell to 8 in the month of April and to 4 in June. In January, 1904, there were recorded only 3 deaths.
"France decided to follow these encouraging examples. The governor-general of French Western Africa, M. Roume, adopted an administration analogous to that of Habana and Rio de Janeiro, and he knew how to profit by these examples."
_A. Dastre, The Fight against Yellow Fever (Annual Report, Smithsonian Institution, 1904-1905, pages 348-350)._
----------PUBLIC HEALTH: End--------
PUBLIC UTILITIES, Regulation of: The New York and Wisconsin Laws.
The most comprehensive and well-prepared legislation yet directed in the United States to the control and regulation of corporations which render services to the public, of the nature described by the term "public utilities," is undoubtedly embodied in the New York and Wisconsin laws, enacted in 1907. Both States, and many others, had experimented previously with measures for establishing a certain degree of supervision and regulation over railway corporations, gas companies, and the like, dealing separately with them; but, excepting perhaps, in the case of Massachusetts, this had not been satisfactorily effective. Governor Hughes, of New York, was the real author of the Public Utilities Law enacted in that State in 1907, and his influence was the impelling force which carried it through the Legislature.
See(in this Volume) NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1906-1910).
Almost equally, ex-Governor La Follette must be credited, not immediately, but primarily, with the organization of the forces which brought out the Wisconsin Law.
The two enactments are compared by Professor John R. Commons in an article published in the _American Review of Reviews_, of August, 1907, from which the following passages are quoted:
"The Wisconsin and New York laws are alike in that both State utilities like railroads and municipal utilities like gas are brought under the regulation of the same commission. They differ from the laws of Massachusetts, which provide a separate commission for railways. These three States, however, are the only ones that regulate municipal utilities through a State commission. Many other States have railroad commissions, but they leave whatever regulation they have of local utilities to the local governments. … A significant feature of the Wisconsin legislation is its disregard of stocks and bonds and its reliance on the physical valuation of the property as the first step in regulation. The New York law and the Street-Railway law of Massachusetts attack the problem of regulation through the control of future capitalization. The New York commissions have power to prohibit the issue and transfer of stocks, bonds, and other evidence of indebtedness, and to prevent the transfer of shares to holding companies. The Wisconsin law begins at the other end of the problem and, for the purpose both of regulation and of publicity, inquires into the present structural value of the property. This does not mean that the commission shall disregard other elements of valuation,—in fact, it is required by the law to take all elements into account, as indeed the courts would require if it did not. But the physical valuation is necessary in order that the public and the courts may know exactly how much is allowed for the other elements. The commission is required to value all of the properties in the State and to publish both the actual value ascertained when all elements are taken into account and the physical value ascertained by its engineers. …
"The [Wisconsin] law as finally adopted consists really of three laws: First, an amendment to the Railway law of 1905, placing telegraph companies and street railways under the same provisions as steam railways and interurban electric lines; second, the Public-Utilities law proper, regulating heat, light, water, power, and telephone companies; third, a Street-Railway law providing for indeterminate permits similar to those of the Public-Utilities law. A fourth bill, requiring physical connection and prohibiting duplication of telephone exchanges, was defeated by a vote of the Assembly."
The New York Law created two Public Utilities Commissions of five members each, one having jurisdiction in a district comprising New York City alone, the district of the other (known as the Up-State Commission) comprehending the remainder of the State. The five-year terms of the Commissioners expire in successive years. Appointed by the Governor, they are intended to be men of the highest character and qualifications, and receive salaries of $15,000 each. The appointments by Governor Hughes for the New York City Commission were of ex-Postmaster William R. Wilcox, William McCarroll, Edward M. Bassett, Milo R. Maltbie, John E. Eustis. For the Up-State Commission he named originally Honorable Frank W. Stevens, of Jamestown, Charles H. Keep, of Buffalo, Thomas M. Osborne, of Auburn, James E. Sague and Martin S. Decker. Mr. Keep resigned subsequently to accept the presidency of an important New York City bank, and John B. Olmsted, of Buffalo, was appointed in his place.
{528}
PUBLIC UTILITIES: New York City Gas Company.
In 1906 the New York Legislature passed a bill reducing the price of gas in New York City to 80 cents per thousand feet. The gas companies claimed that this rate was confiscatory. Pending final decision of the matter the citizens were compelled to pay the old rate of $1.00 per thousand. Ultimately the law was sustained, and the gas companies refunded over eight millions of dollars in 1909 to the consumers of the past three years.
See, also (in this Volume), RAILWAYS.
PUNJAB: The Plague.
See (in this Volume) PUBLIC HEALTH: BUBONIC PLAGUE.
PUNJAB: Terrific Earthquake.
See(in this Volume) EARTHQUAKES: INDIA: A. D. 1905.
PURE FOOD LEGISLATION.
See (in this Volume) PUBLIC HEALTH.
PU-YI (Hsuan-Tung): Child Emperor of China.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1908 (NOVEMBER).
Q.
QUEBEC, City of: A. D. 1908. Tercentenary Celebration of its Founding.
See (in this Volume) CANADA: A. D. 1908 (JULY).
QUEBEC, Province of: A. D. 1901. Census.
See (in this Volume) CANADA: A. D. 1901-1902.
R.
----------RACE PROBLEMS: Start--------
RACE PROBLEMS: In Australia: Between Europeans and Asiatics.
"Australia occupies a unique position among the nations. It is an island, lying far from the populated centres of the Old World and in close proximity to Java and the teeming millions of Southern and Eastern Asia, who at any time may bear down in flood upon the scanty forces of the defenders. These pent-up myriads are at present in a state of unrest, and there are evidences of a distinct inclination on their part to break bounds and descend upon the coasts of the great southern land. On the north-eastern shores of the continent they have already broken through the thin red line of the British, and have firmly established themselves in the country beyond. Thursday Island, which stands at the northern entrance of the passage between the Great Barrier Reef and the shores of Queensland, has been styled the Gibraltar of Australia, and large sums of money have been spent by the Imperial and Australian Governments in fortifying it. Since it became open to the Eastern nations, the Japanese have discovered twenty different channels through the reef, by any one of which they could avoid the forts and gain an entrance to the sea within the barrier. A few years ago there were 2000 Europeans on Thursday Island, engaged in the pearl-shelling industry; but they were gradually elbowed out until to-day they number less than 100.
"The late Professor C. H. Pearson, at one time Minister for Education in Victoria, and one of the most intellectual statesmen who ever resided in Australia, in his _National Life and Character_, admirably summarised the dangers to which his adopted country was exposed by reason of its situation, and the motives which actuated the various colonial Governments in passing enactments designed to place some restriction on the wholesale flooding of their territories.
"‘The fear of Chinese immigration which the Australian democracy cherishes, and which Englishmen at home find it hard to understand, is, in fact, the instinct of self-preservation, quickened by experience. We know that coloured and white labour cannot exist side by side; we are well aware that China can swamp us with a single year’s surplus of population; and we know that if national existence is sacrificed to the working of a few mines and sugar plantations, it is not the Englishmen in Australia alone, but the whole civilised world that will be the losers. Transform the northern half of our continent into a Natal, with thirteen out of fourteen belonging to an inferior race, and the southern half will speedily approximate to the condition of Cape Colony, where the whites are indeed a masterful minority, but still only as one in four. We are guarding the last part of the world in which the higher races can live and increase freely for the higher civilisation. It is idle to say that if all this should come to pass our pride of place will not be humiliated. We are struggling among ourselves for supremacy in a world which we thought as destined to belong to the Aryan race and to the Christian faith, to the letters and arts and charm of social manners which we have inherited from the best times of the past. We shall wake to find ourselves elbowed and hustled, perhaps even thrust aside by peoples whom we looked down upon as servile and thought of as bound always to minister to our needs.’ …
"The Greater Britain that is to be may be the best security for the Mother Land in years to come, and her natural ally and friend. Australian statesmen claim that they are not only safe-guarding British interests, but also legislating for posterity and looking forward to the time—perhaps a century hence—when the population of the Commonwealth may be one hundred millions or even more.
{529}
"At the present the Australian race is in a plastic condition, and whether it will become, as Marcus Clarke predicted, ‘a fierce and turbulent democracy, sweeping contemporary civilisation before it,’ or, as seems more probable, a practical and enlightened people, troubles it little. Leaders and followers of every political cast, Conservatives, Liberals, and Radicals, have now but one national ideal—Purity of Race. They recognise that hybrids cannot make a great nation; that an infusion of Chinese, Japanese, or Indo-Chinese blood must result in race deterioration; and that, if they are to live happily and prosperously, it must be with no strangers within their gates other than those of Caucasian descent who are able to conform to the conditions and customs of civilised communities."
_O. P. Law, W. T. Gill, A White Australia (Nineteenth Century, January, 1904)._
"The great Australian Commonwealth has indeed gone very far in many directions in its war against workers of other races than the white. Thus, no contract can be made for the carrying of Australian mails with any steamship line which allows a colored man to work on any of its ships. This is a new measure, and it has been of late the subject of a lively controversy between the Australian government and the two Chamberlains in London,—namely, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, the colonial secretary, and his son, Mr. Austin Chamberlain, who is now serving as British postmaster-general.
"The fact is that mail-carrying steamship companies which have hitherto performed the service of carrying mails back and forth between Great Britain and the Australian ports have been largely manned by dark-skinned British subjects who are natives of India, and the British Government is under a special obligation not to discriminate against these Indians in view of certain clauses in what is known as the Mutiny Act in India. These same ships, it is to be remembered, will carry, also, the Indian mails, and it would be manifestly impossible for Lord Curzon’s government of India to join in mail contracts containing clauses excluding dark-skinned men from employment."
_American Review of Reviews, September, 1903._
See (in this Volume) AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1905-1906, and 1909.
RACE PROBLEMS: In Canada: Hostility to Asiatic Labor. Restriction of Chinese Immigration. Riotous attacks on Japanese, Chinese, and Hindu Laborers in British Columbia.
The opposition of organized labor to Asiatic immigration, on the Canadian Pacific Coast, directed first against an influx of Chinese, brought about, in 1904, the imposition of a head-tax of $500 on every person of Chinese origin entering Canada thereafter, with the following exceptions:
"(a) The members of the diplomatic corps, or other government representatives, their suites and their servants, and consuls and consular agents;
"(b) The children born in Canada of parents of Chinese origin and who have left Canada for educational or other purposes, on substantiating their identity to the satisfaction of the controller at the port or place where they seek to enter on their return;
"(c) Merchants, their wives and children, the wives and children of clergymen, tourists, men of science and students, who shall substantiate their status to the satisfaction of the controller, subject to the approval of the Minister, or who are bearers of certificates of identity, or other similar documents issued by the government or by a recognized official or representative of the government whose subjects they are, specifying their occupation and their object in coming into Canada."
This was an effective restriction; but left the door open to other "coolie" laborers, so-called, from Japan and India, whence large numbers were soon coming into British Columbia, and the labor agitation was directed against them, on the Canadian as well as the United States side of the line in the farther Northwest. It came to its climax of violence in the fall of 1907, when serious riots broke out at Vancouver, British Columbia, and at Bellingham, in the State of Washington. Many hundreds of Japanese, Chinese, and Hindus had been employed in the lumber mills and canneries of the Washington and British Columbia coast towns, displacing white labor. "In each case a mob of white men raided the mills where the foreigners were employed, battered down the doors of their lodging houses, dragged the Hindus from their beds, and drove them with violence from the town. The Hindus of Bellingham fled northward to the protection of the British flag. At Vancouver the rioters also attacked Chinese and Japanese merchants and laborers, breaking into their shops and pillaging and destroying $20,000 worth of property. Two thousand Chinese and Japanese were driven from their homes. Later, a number of Japanese immigrants, just landed from a steamer, were attacked and in the riot that followed Baron Ishii, chief of the Japanese Bureau of Foreign Commerce, was severely injured. The Orientals, under the leadership of the Japanese, immediately organized for defense, and, having secured firearms and other weapons, the situation took on a very serious aspect."
The situation was made especially embarrassing to the British and Canadian Governments by the relations of alliance existing between Great Britain and Japan, and by the fact that the Hindus attacked are British subjects, having their established rights as such. But skilful and careful handling of the matter was successful in quieting the trouble, possibly in a lasting way. The Japanese Government, on its own part, has undertaken to restrict the emigration of its laboring classes to Canada as well as to the United States.
Important changes in the regulations governing the immigration of Chinese were announced in a despatch from Ottawa, July 11, 1909:
"While the poll-tax of £100 on coolies is retained, the restrictions applicable to students and the sons of Chinese merchants are considerably modified. Students who already possess a liberal education, but desire to pursue a higher course of study in any Canadian University or college, are exempt from the tax. Students who intend to pursue their studies in the Dominion but are unable to produce proof of their status on entry are required to deposit the amount of the tax, but the money will be refunded on production of a certificate that they have passed two scholastic years at some seat of learning. The present law permits all Chinese visiting China to return to Canada within a year without a second payment. This has been a hardship to Chinese who have been ill. The new regulation, therefore, extends the time of exemption in such cases to 18 months, provided that satisfactory proof be furnished."
{530}
RACE PROBLEMS: In Jamaica: Between White and Black: The Problem Non-existent. Solved by Good Sense, Right Feeling, and Just Law.
In the _International Journal of Ethics_ for May, 1906, Professor Royce reports of several visits to Jamaica,—where 14,000 or 15,000 white inhabitants are living with about 650,000 black and mulatto people,—that he had found no race problem existing—no racial antagonism—no public discussion of race equality or superiority. He accounts for this untroubled relation between colored and uncolored fellow citizens and neighbors as follows:
"When once the sad period of emancipation and of subsequent occasional disorder was passed, the Englishman did in Jamaica what he has so often and so well done elsewhere. He organized his colony; he established good local courts, which gained by square treatment the confidence of the blacks. The judges of such courts were Englishmen. The English ruler also provided a good country constabulary, in which native blacks also found service, and in which they could exercise authority over other blacks. Black men, in other words, were trained,—under English management, of course,—to police black men. A sound civil service was also organized; and in that educated negroes found in due time their place, while the chiefs of each branch of the service were and are, in the main, Englishmen. The excise and the health services, both of which are very highly developed, have brought the law near to the life of the humblest negro, in ways which he sometimes finds, of course, restraining, but which he also frequently finds beneficent. Hence, he is accustomed to the law; he sees its ministers often, and often, too, as men of his own race; and in the main he is fond of order, and respectful toward the established ways of society. The Jamaica negro is described by those who know him as especially fond of bringing his petty quarrels and personal grievances into court. He is litigious just as he is vivacious. But this confidence in the law is just what the courts have encouraged. That is one way, in fact, to deal with the too forward and strident negro. Encourage him to air his grievances in court, listen to him patiently, and fine him when he deserves fines. That is a truly English type of social pedagogy. It works in the direction of making the negro a conscious helper toward good social order.
"Administration, I say, has done the larger half of the work of solving Jamaica’s race problem. Administration has filled the Island with good roads, has reduced to a minimum the tropical diseases by means of an excellent health service, has taught the population loyalty and order, has led them some steps already on the long road ‘up from slavery,’ has given them, in many cases, the true self-respect of those who themselves officially cooperate in the work of the law, and it has done this without any such result as our Southern friends nowadays conceive when they think of what is called ‘negro domination.’ Administration has allayed ancient irritations. It has gone far to offset the serious economic and tropical troubles from which Jamaica meanwhile suffers.
"Yes, the work has been done by administration,—and by reticence. For the Englishman, in his official and governmental dealings with backward peoples, has a great way of being superior without very often publicly saying that he is superior. You well know that in dealing, as an individual, with other individuals trouble is seldom made by the fact that you are actually the superior of another man in any respect.
The trouble comes when you tell the other man too stridently that you are his superior. Be my superior, quietly, simply showing your superiority in your deeds, and very likely I shall love you for the very fact of your superiority. For we all love our leaders. But tell me that I am your inferior, and then perhaps I may grow boyish, and may throw stones. Well, it is so with races. Grant, then, that yours is the superior race. Then you can afford to say little about that subject in your public dealings with the backward race. Superiority is best shown by good deeds and by few boasts."
RACE PROBLEMS: In South Africa: Between White and Black.
"The native population of Africa south of the Zambesi is ten millions. The white population is under one million. To-day the majority of the natives are in a semi-savage condition. But the day may come when they shall have emerged from that condition, and have attained the degree of civilisation which prevails amongst the negroes, their kindred, in the United States. The process of evolution has begun. When it is completed, the relative position of the black and white populations in South Africa will be—what? Look to the United States and you shall find some hint of the answer.
"The native population of Cape Colony, including the territories, is, in round numbers, 1,200,000, and the white population 377,000. Day by day the power of the native grows. The gate of the political arena stands wide open to him, and he is not slow to enter. With the exception of natives occupying lands under tribal tenure (an important exception, but one that is constantly diminishing), every male person, irrespective of colour, race, and creed, and above the age of twenty-one years, and born or naturalised a British subject, is entitled to the full franchise after one year’s residence in the Colony, provided he occupies property of the value of £75 or is in receipt of wages of not less than £50 annually, and is able to sign his name and state in writing his address and occupation. Such a franchise would horrify the average American in the South, and unquestionably it will have to be radically amended unless the colonists are prepared to endure political annihilation. At present neither Bondsman nor Progressive will face the situation. Neither wishes to alienate the substantial aid which his party gets from the natives. …
"Bitter as the feud between Englishman and Dutchman is to-day, it will pass when both realise, as they are bound sooner or later to realise, that only by presenting a solid front to the oncoming hordes of superficially civilised blacks can they escape complete annihilation. For generations, if not for all time, the natives in South Africa must enormously outnumber the whites. In the olden days, tribal wars and wars with the white man, to say nothing of famines, and pestilence, served to counterbalance the prolificness of the native. These checks are no more."
_Roderick Jones, The Black Peril in South Africa (Nineteenth Century, May, 1904)._
On the suffrage question for natives, connected with the Union of South African States.
See (in this Volume) SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1908-1909.
{531}
RACE PROBLEMS: A. D. 1903-1908. Between Boers and British Indians.
The British Government has many troublesome problems to deal with, as the consequence of its having drawn the reins of its sovereignty over the necks of a motley multitude of races; but none among them, perhaps, has been more delicately difficult than one which arose between its native subjects in India, who pressed with eagerness into South African fields of trade, and its Boer subjects in South Africa, who have been stubbornly opposed to their doing so. Great Britain has had the most pressing reasons for avoiding offence to either of these peoples, and no controversy could have arisen more unfortunately in its circumstances and time.
Before the Boer-British War, there had been Indian complaints of ill-treatment in the Transvaal, which added something to the controversies of Great Britain with the South African Republic. After the war, when British authority had become supreme at Pretoria, it found a legacy of existing law which was embarrassing at once. The situation was described in a despatch of May 11, 1903, from Viscount Milner, the British High Commissioner, to the Colonial Secretary at London, Mr. Chamberlain, in which he attempted to exhibit, as he said, "the difficulty which besets any kind of action on this thorny question." The Government, he wrote, is "between two fires. On the one hand, it is accused of not enforcing the present law with sufficient strictness and is called upon to legislate in the direction of a complete exclusion of Asiatics, except as indentured labourers. Even in that capacity, their introduction meets with strenuous opposition. On the other hand, the Asiatics, of whom British Indians form by far the most numerous section, not only protest against any fresh legislation but demand the repeal of the existing law.
"The position which the Government of the Transvaal have taken up in the matter is one of which I entirely approve. They are unwilling, without the previous approval of His Majesty’s Government, to embark on any legislation on this subject, to the difficulties of which they are fully alive, and have accordingly decided that, pending fresh legislation, they have no option but to carry out the existing law. They are anxious, however, to do so in the manner most considerate to the Indians already settled in the country, and with the greatest respect for vested interests, even where these have been allowed to spring up contrary to law. This is in accordance with the principle on which they have proceeded throughout, namely, that the laws of the late Republic, imperfect as they are in many respects, and contrary, very often, to British ideas, must, nevertheless, be enforced until they can be replaced by more satisfactory legislation."
The desired new legislation on this "thorny question" does not seem to have been attempted during the period in which local self-government in the Transvaal was entirely suspended; but in 1906, after the first step toward its restoration had been taken, the semi-autonomous authority then organized there adopted an ordinance on the subject of Asiatic residence in the Colony which Lord Elgin, who had succeeded Mr. Chamberlain in the Colonial Office, disapproved. In the next year, however, when the full measure of colonial autonomy had been conferred by the Imperial Government (see, in this Volume, SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1905-1907), essentially the same provisions were embodied in an enactment by the new Transvaal Legislature, entitled "The Asiatic Law Amendment Act, 1907," and Lord Elgin could not venture to disapprove them again, for the reasons which he stated thus to the Colonial Governor:
"The Act which is now submitted has behind it a very different weight of authority. It has been introduced by the first responsible Ministry of the Colony, and has been passed unanimously by both Houses of the new Legislature. I consider it my duty to place it on record that His Majesty’s Government do not consider the position of Asiatics lawfully resident in the Transvaal, as settled by this Act, to be satisfactory; that they adhere to the opinions which have been expressed by successive Secretaries of State as to the desirability of relaxing the restrictions to which Asiatics are at present subject; and that they commend this view to the Transvaal Government in the hope that it may be carefully considered how far practical effect can be given to it. But they feel that they would not be justified in offering resistance to the general will of the Colony clearly expressed by its first elected representatives; and I have accordingly to inform you that His Majesty will not be advised to exercise his power of disallowance with respect to the Act." This measure was followed presently by an "Immigrants’ Restriction Act, 1907," which accentuated still further the inhospitality of Transvaal legislation, and made more serious trouble for the British Government, not only with its Indian subjects, but with the Chinese. On the effect of the two acts upon British Indians Lord Elgin wrote to Mr. Morley, Secretary of State for India (October 10, 1907):
"The practical effect of Section 2 (4) will be to prevent the further immigration into the Transvaal of British Indians or other Asiatics. As Mr. Morley is aware, throughout the correspondence which has passed on this subject, His Majesty’s Government have practically limited themselves to endeavouring to secure more favourable treatment for those Asiatics who have already acquired a right to reside in the Colony, and the competence of the Colonial Legislature and Government to restrict further immigration by means of legislation similar to that already adopted in other self-governing Colonies has not been disputed. … Moreover, in the interests of British Indians themselves, it is probably desirable, in view of the state of Colonial feeling, that further immigration should be restricted. Lord Elgin does not, therefore, propose to raise any objection to this provision.
"Section 6 (c) must be considered in connection with the recent Asiatic Law Amendment Act. Under that Act, Asiatics failing to register may be ordered to leave the Colony; and failure to comply with such an order is punishable by imprisonment. The object of this section, as explained by the Attorney-General in his report is to enable the Government to deport, in lieu of imprisoning, Asiatics who fail to register under the Asiatic Law Amendment Act. {532} While Lord Elgin feels that the free exercise of so drastic a power would be greatly to be deprecated, he doubts whether His Majesty’s Government can consistently object to a provision the object of which is to enable the Colonial Government to enforce the observance of the Asiatic Law Amendment Act, which His Majesty’s Government have allowed to become law, and to which the British Indian community appears at present to be disposed to offer an organised resistance. He therefore proposes, subject to any representation which Mr. Morley may wish to make, to accept this provision also."
The India Office could only say in reply:
"Since the Asiatic Law Amendment Act, 1907, has received His Majesty’s sanction, Mr. Morley recognizes that it would be inconsistent to object to a clause framed merely in order to ensure the efficient administration of that Act so far as it affects persons already in the Transvaal. … It is true that under the Asiatic Law Amendment Act of 1907, the Colonial Government may grant temporary permits. Mr. Morley presumes that this power will, if the occasion arise, be used to prevent such a gross scandal as the exclusion from the Colony of ruling chiefs, Indians of distinguished position, and high officials of Asiatic descent on the ground that they are ‘undesirable immigrants.’ But he thinks that it would be satisfactory to obtain a definite assurance that in framing the present Bill the Colonial Government had no intention of refusing access to Asiatics of this type, and he trusts that such an assurance will be obtained and placed on record before the Royal Assent is given to the measure.
"It is unnecessary to point out to Lord Elgin the unfortunate effect upon public opinion in India which must be produced by the present Bill. The very peculiar circumstances of the Transvaal have been held to justify, during the period of administrative reconstruction, exceptional measures for dealing with the influx of immigrants; but Mr. Morley did not understand, when the provisions of the Asiatic Law Amendment Act were under discussion, that the forthcoming Immigration Restriction Bill would be so framed as to perpetuate the exclusion from the Colony of all future Asiatic immigrants without distinction.
"For these reasons I am to say that Mr. Morley trusts that Lord Elgin will find it possible to impress upon the Government of the Transvaal the very strong objections, from an Imperial point of view, which stand in the way of the acceptance of Section 2 (4) of the Bill."
The most obnoxious features of the two offensive acts were an educational qualification, which required applications for admission to the colony and for trading licenses in it, and other connected documents, to be written by the applicants in a European language, Yiddish being recognized as European, and a prescribed registration which required finger-prints as a means of identification. Both of these provisions of law were felt to be insulting and degrading by the Hindus of the better class, who organized a refusal of submission to them, and tested them without avail in the courts. Their language was treated contemptuously in the educational qualification, while, personally, they were classed with criminals by the fingerprint identification. The agitators of disaffection in India made much of these indignities, and the matter was extremely embarrassing to the British administration there. For months there seemed no prospect of a solution of the difficulty; but patient persuasion and tactful pressure brought, at last, what appeared to be a successful compromise, announced to the rejoicing Colonial Office at London by the following telegram from the Governor, January 30, 1908:
"Gandhi and other leaders of Indian and Chinese communities have offered voluntary registration in a body within three months, provided signatures only are taken of educated, propertied, or well-known Asiatics, and finger-prints of the rest, and that no question against which Asiatics have religious objection be pressed. Government have accepted this offer and undertaken pending registration not to enforce the penalties under Act against all those who register. Sentences of all Asiatics in prison will be remitted to-morrow. This course agreed to by both political parties."
Fresh discontents arose subsequently, when amendatory legislation was brought out, which did not open the colony to any fresh immigration of Asiatics, even if they could pass an educational test in a European language; but this has not appeared to have any of the seriousness of the former agitation, so far as India is concerned.
Of the intensity of feeling in India, a newspaper correspondent, writing from Bombay, December 29, 1909, said:
"There is no mistaking the depth of feeling regarding the protest against the treatment of Indians in the Transvaal. Every Indian, no matter what may be his politics, feels that his self-respect is insulted, and demands retaliation by refusing indentured labour to Natal. Extraordinary scenes followed Mr. Surendranath Banerjee’s appeal for funds for the Transvaal sufferers; jewels and money were thrown at his feet and rupees were poured into his hat. A thousand pounds was collected. The question is creating profound feeling among all classes."
RACE PROBLEMS: The Labor Question as a Race Question.
At a meeting of the Native Labor Association at Johannesburg, in April, 1909, the President of the Association stated that the present labor supply was entirely adequate, and that the mines were not likely to be faced with serious difficulty in this respect in the immediate future. In the course of 1908 the number of Chinese laborers had decreased in the natural course by repatriation by 23,303. On the other hand, the native complement had increased in the same period by 47,766, giving a net gain of 24,373, which had been further increased during the first three mouths of the present year. In explanation of the sudden expansion of the native labor supply, Mr. Perry pointed, first, to the collapse of the diamond market; secondly, to the emigration of Kaffirs from the Cape owing to failure of employment there. The De Beers Mines, as he was able to show, were actually employing 50,000 fewer hands than before, which, allowing for the difference in the periods of contract, probably meant a gain to the Rand of at least 25,000. Similarly, the native statistics published by the Cape Government indicated an enormous diversion of labourers to the Rand.
In January, 1909, the London _Times_, reporting the output of gold from the Transvaal in 1908 as having been £29,957,610,—an increase of £2,553,872 over 1907, gave the following statement of labor conditions at that time:
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"The increase has been gradual and quite regular, and may be expected to continue. The expansion in the gold production has resulted in the employment of nearly 1,800 more whites than were at work in January, but coloured labourers are some 4,000 less. The increase in the number of natives employed in gold mines has been 24,000, while the complement of Chinese coolies has been depleted by 20,000. At the beginning of the year some 17,500 whites, 133,500 coloured, and 33,800 Chinese were employed by gold mines; for October the figures read:—Whites 18,300, coloured 157,500, and Chinese 14,300. Native labour is perhaps the one serious problem which will place limitations on further expansion. Few of the Chinese will be left by the end of next year, and they will all have left before the expiry of 1910. Natives, however, are showing more tendency to work regularly, and the habit doubtless will grow. It is due to the Chinese to recognize that they have been useful workmen, for the improved efficiency of the coloured workman all round is largely due to the example which they set the native."
In March, 1909, Colonel Seely, Under Secretary for the Colonies, in reply to questions in the British House of Commons, gave the following figures: January, 1907, Chinese employed, 53,856; whites employed on gold mines, 17,874; December, 1908, Chinese employed, 12,275; whites employed on gold mines, 19,605. For 'Witwatersrand, taking natives and Chinese together the numbers were:—January, 1907, 148,077; December, 1908, 166,405. The corresponding figures for whites are:—January, 1907, 17,198; December, 1908, 18,687.
A Johannesburg letter of July 26 to the London _Times_ reported a change in the situation, saying:
"For the half-year upon which we have just entered it requires no prophet to foretell a more rapid rate of progress, which, however, may to some extent be limited by a scarcity of native labour, signs of which have begun to loom on the horizon. After 18 months or more of steady increase in the number of native labourers available for work in mines, an increase which more than counterbalanced the outflow of Chinese labour through repatriation, the pendulum has begun to swing the other way, and already the pinch is beginning to make itself felt in certain mines. During the last two months the excess of time-expired natives and wastage over the number recruited has been more than 8000, and repatriated Chinese brings the total up to 10,000. Considering that the total coloured labour force employed on the Witwatersrand was over 180,000 in April, this comparatively small decline under normal conditions should hardly make itself felt at all. But the conditions are not normal. An era of expansion set in some 18 months ago which has been steadily growing, and which has called for an ever-increasing labour force and in the near future must require still more and more. How that demand is to be met is by no means clear."
RACE PROBLEMS: In the United States: Between its White and Black Citizens: Booker T. Washington’s solution in progress at Tuskegee.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1906.
RACE PROBLEMS: The "Niagara Movement." A National Committee for the Advancement of the Negro Race.
In July, 1905, a conference of colored men from North and South, among whom Professor W. E. Burghardt Du Bois, of Atlanta, appeared to be the leading spirit, was held at Buffalo, New York. Its outcome was an organization which has taken the name of "The Niagara Movement," and which has had some growth. At the latest annual meeting of the organization, in Sea Isle City, New Jersey, in August, 1909, ten States were reported to be represented, and the total membership of the "Movement" was said to be three hundred, distributed in forty States. Its objects are indicated in the following passages from an Address which this meeting adopted:
"For four years the Niagara Movement has struggled to make ten million Americans of negro descent cease from mere apology and weak surrender to aggression, and take a firm, unfaltering stand for justice, manhood, and self-assertion. We are accumulating property at a constantly accelerating rate; we are rapidly lowering our rate of illiteracy; but property and intelligence are of little use unless guided by the great ideals of freedom, justice, and human brotherhood.
"As a partial result of our effort we are glad to note among us increasing spiritual unrest, sterner impatience with cowardice, and deeper determination to be men at any cost. …
"That black men are inherently inferior to whites is a wide-spread lie which science flatly contradicts, and the attempt to submerge the colored races is one with world-old efforts of the wily to exploit the weak. We must, therefore, make common cause with the oppressed and down-trodden of all races and peoples; with our kindred of South Africa and the West Indies, with our fellows in Mexico, India, and Russia, and with the cause of the working classes everywhere.
"On us rests to no little degree the burden of the cause of individual freedom, human brotherhood, and universal peace in a day when America is forgetting her promise and destiny. Let us work on and never despair because pigmy voices are loudly praising ill-gotten wealth, big guns, and human degradation. They but represent back eddies in the tide of time."
Programme of future work adopted included the publication of a series of small tracts and an almanac, the founding of a monthly publication, and the purchase of a permanent place of meeting where an annual Chautauqua will be held.
A Conference of people of both races who are desirous of organizing more effective endeavors to better the status of the negro citizens of the United States was held in New York in May, 1909. It adopted a resolution providing for the "incorporation of a national committee to be known as a committee for the advancement of the negro race, to bring that race from slavery to full citizenship with all the rights and privileges appertaining thereto," and another resolution for a Committee of Forty charged with the organization of the national committee, with power to call the convention in 1910.
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Among other resolutions discussed and adopted were the following:
"As first and immediate steps toward remedying … national wrongs, so full of perils for the whites as well as the blacks of all sections, we demand of Congress and the Executive:
"(1.) That the Constitution be strictly enforced and the civil rights guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment be secured impartially to all.
"(2.) That there be equal educational opportunities for all and in all the States, and that public school expenditure be the same for the negro and white child.
"(3.) That in accordance with the Fifteenth Amendment the right of the negro to the ballot on the same terms as other citizens be recognized in every part of the country."
RACE PROBLEMS: Anti-Negro Riot at Atlanta.
"On the 22d and 23d of September [1906] anti-negro riots broke out in Atlanta, resulting in the death of twelve or more negroes and the injury of a great many. There had been an unusual number of reports of attacks upon white women and girls by brutal and criminal negroes in the vicinity of Atlanta during the previous days and weeks. Every report of this kind had been flaunted with great headlines in a sensational afternoon newspaper of Atlanta, as if to arouse the less orderly and thoughtful element of the white population not merely to the lynching of offenders but to an attack upon innocent and law-abiding colored people. For a time the riot was furious and negroes were indiscriminately assailed. It would seem that most of those who were killed were absolutely innocent of any offense whatsoever. Their crime consisted merely in belonging to the negro race. It would be the height of silliness for criticism to take on a geographical character. White people in the North are no more considerate of people against whom they may have a grievance or a prejudice than are white people in the South. The problem of adjusting the relations of two races so totally different as the white race and the negro race where they have to live together in the same communities is difficult under any circumstances, and it becomes increasingly so where the inferior race is present in large numbers and where many of its members are ill-disciplined, idle, and of criminal instincts."
_American Review of Reviews, November, 1906._
"Wherever a colored man was seen he was attacked. The mobs closed in upon the trolley-cars and dragged the colored passengers, unprepared for the onslaught, from their seats. A riotous crowd broke into a shop where there were two negro barbers, beat them to death and mangled their bodies. One negro was killed in the shadow of a monument; another was stabbed to death on the post-office steps. The Governor mobilized the militia, but the mobs, taking it for granted that the militiamen were in sympathy with them, showed little fear of the soldiers. The Mayor of the city remonstrated with the rioters, but with little result. He called out the fire department, which cleared the streets by turning the hose on the mobs. But this only resulted in diverting the riot from one place in the city to another. Only a rain on Sunday dampened the ardor of the rioters. Order was outwardly restored by Sunday evening, but even thereafter negroes were killed. Even though the riot differed from the Russian variety in that it was not instigated and abetted by the Government and the military, it brings nothing but shame to this Nation."
_The Outlook, September 29, 1906._
RACE PROBLEMS: The Georgia Railroad Strike.
One of the meanest of recent exhibitions of race animosity was presented in May and June, 1909, on the occasion of a strike of white men employed as firemen on the Georgia Railroad against the employment of blacks in the same capacity. Generally, the southern railroads have employed, for years, both white and black firemen. On the Georgia Railroad there were about sixty of the former and forty of the latter. The white firemen were eligible to promotion to be engineers; the blacks were not. By an unwritten law they were excluded from the higher and better paid service; but as firemen the best among them had gradually won promotion to the better trains and better "runs" on the road. It was this fact which caused the strike of their white associates. As a labor strike it would have caused little trouble; as a race and color question it inflamed the State and the South, and disturbed the country at large for several weeks. The conflict of the railroad company was not with its own employees but with mobs along its line, always ready to be maddened by the thought of a negro in any place which a white man wanted.
A mediation in the matter undertaken, at the instance of President Taft, by the United States Commissioner of Labor, Dr. Charles P. Neill, and the Chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commission, Mr. Martin A. Knapp, succeeded, with much difficulty, in arranging a reference of the dispute to arbitration. The chosen arbitrators were Hilary A. Herbert, named by the railroad company, T. W. Hardwick, named by the employees, and Chancellor David C. Barrow, of the University of Georgia, selected by these two. This board of arbitration gave hearings to both parties and rendered its award on the 27th of June. The main proposition submitted to it by the employees was in these words: "That the Georgia Railroad Company and its terminals at Atlanta will not use negroes as locomotive firemen on the road or in the yards, nor as hostlers nor assistant hostlers."
On this its decision was as follows: "The Georgia Railroad, when using negroes as locomotive firemen on the road or in the yards, or as hostlers, or as hostlers’ helpers, shall pay them the same wages as white men in similar positions." But the representative of the employees dissented from this decision in part, explaining his view, as follows: "In so far as the above finding permits the continued employment of negro firemen by the Georgia Railroad, I dissent therefrom, because I believe from the evidence that such employment is a menace to the safety of the travelling public. In so far as such finding requires that when negroes are so employed they shall receive wages equal to those paid white men, I concur therein, believing that such requirement, by removing the principal incentive for their employment, will result in the speedy elimination of this cheaper labor, and a consequent improvement of the service."
On most of the minor points in controversy the arbitrators were agreed in their conclusions, and the settlement of the whole matter was complete.
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RACE PROBLEMS: Oriental Labor in Competition with Western Labor. The Force of the Economic Objection to it in a Country under the Protective System.
"Behind the economic antipathy to Oriental laborers there is a justifiable feeling. Where there is established a system of protection, it is only just that it benefit not only the capitalist but also the laborer. If the American laborer must contend as best he can with the laborer whose standard of life is lower, then the American manufacturer, in fairness, ought to be let alone in his contest with the foreign manufacturer who does not pay so much for his labor. _The Outlook_ believes that a condition of such open competition as has prevailed between the States of the Union would be wholesome between the nations of the world. But at present the protective system prevails and apparently is firmly established in America. So long, therefore, as American capital is protected, it is a benefit for the whole country to have American labor protected. And certainly if there is any body of laborers against which the working people of America need protection, it is the coolie labor of Asia. The fact that the Japanese and Chinese laborers enter industries in which there is a scarcity of whites does not affect the case, for it is not the direct loss of jobs, but the lowering—or at least the changing—of the standards of living that brings injury to the mass."
_The Outlook, September 21, 1907._
RACE PROBLEMS: Existing Treaties between the United States and China concerning the Admission of Chinamen. Enactments of Law on the Subject. Correspondence of Wu Ting-fang with Secretary Hay.
For a proper understanding of the questions of national honor and official civility that are involved in the existing laws and regulations of the United States which govern the admission of Chinamen to the country, either as visitors or immigrants, some attention must be given to a series of engagements by solemn treaty between the Governments of China and the United States, respecting the hospitality which each has pledged itself to give to the citizens of the other. Three of those treaties remain partly or wholly in force. The abrogation of the fourth one has a significance of its own.
The earliest of these treaties, negotiated in 1858, superseding one of 1844, provided very carefully for the good treatment of American citizens in China, but contains nothing on the subject of Chinamen in America, probably for the reason that few of that people had yet travelled so far abroad. The rights it stipulated for the American who visited or sought residence in the Celestial Empire were as follows:
"Article XI. All citizens of the United States of America in China, peaceably attending to their affairs, being placed on a common footing of amity and good will with the subjects of China, shall receive and enjoy for themselves and everything appertaining to them the protection of the local authorities of government, who shall defend them from all insult or injury of any sort. If their dwellings or property be threatened or attacked by mobs, incendiaries, or other violent or lawless persons, the local officers, on requisition of the consul, shall immediately despatch a military force to disperse the rioters, apprehend the guilty individuals and punish them with the utmost rigor of the law. Subjects of China guilty of any criminal act towards citizens of the United States shall be punished by the Chinese authorities according to the laws of China. And citizens of the United States, either on shore or in any merchant vessel, who may insult, trouble or wound the persons or injure the property of Chinese or commit any other improper act in China, shall be punished only by the Consul or other public functionary thereto authorized according to the laws of the United States. Arrests in order to trial may be made by either the Chinese or the United States authorities."
Treaty of Peace, Amity, and Commerce, 1858 (Compilation of Treaties in Force, 58th Congress, 2d Session, Senate Document Number 318, page 138).
Ten years later, in 1868, another treaty was negotiated, not to supersede that of 1858, but to supplement it; and in this agreement the reciprocation of hospitalities is pledged in the following distinct and cordial terms:
"Article V. The United States of America and the Emperor of China cordially recognize the inherent and inalienable right of man to change his home and allegiance, and also the mutual advantage of the free migration and emigration of their citizens and subjects, respectively, from the one country to the other, for purposes of curiosity, of trade, or as permanent residents. The high contracting parties, therefore, join in reprobating any other than an entirely voluntary emigration for these purposes. They consequently agree to pass laws making it a penal offence for a citizen of the United States or Chinese subjects to take Chinese subjects either to the United States or to any other foreign country, or for a Chinese subject or citizen of the United States to take citizens of the United States to China or to any other foreign country, without their free and voluntary consent, respectively.
"Article VI. Citizens of the United States visiting or residing in China shall enjoy the same privileges, immunities or exemptions in respect to travel or residence as may there be enjoyed by the citizens or subjects of the most favored nation. And, reciprocally, Chinese subjects visiting or residing in the United States shall enjoy the same privileges, immunities, and exemptions in respect to travel or residence, as may there be enjoyed by the citizens or subjects of the most favored nation. But nothing herein contained shall be held to confer naturalization upon citizens of the United States in China, nor upon the subjects of China in the United States.
"Article VII. Citizens of the United States shall enjoy all the privileges of the public educational institutions under the control of the Government of China, and, reciprocally, Chinese subjects shall enjoy all the privileges of the public educational institutions under the control of the Government of the United States, which are enjoyed in the respective countries by the citizens or subjects of the most favored nation. The citizens of the United States may freely establish and maintain schools within the Empire of China at those places where foreigners are by treaty permitted to reside, and reciprocally, Chinese subjects may enjoy the same privileges and immunities in the United States."
_Treaty of Trade, Consuls, and Emigration, 1868 (58th Congress, 2d Session, Senate Document Number 318, pages 157-158)._
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That this treaty, as well as that of 1858, is still obligatory in its hospitable spirit and intent, is a fact certified by the language of the preamble of the treaty negotiated next, by President Angell, of Michigan University, and other Commissioners, in 1880. The recital in that preamble of the purpose of the new agreement was this:
"Whereas, in the eighth year of Hsien Feng, Anno Domini 1858, a treaty of peace and friendship was concluded between the United States of America and China, and to which were added, in the seventh year of Tung Chih, Anno Domini 1868, certain supplementary articles to the advantage of both parties, _which supplementary articles were to be perpetually observed and obeyed:_ and Whereas the Government of the United States, because of the constantly increasing immigration of Chinese laborers to the territory of the United States, and the embarrassments consequent upon such immigration, now desires to negotiate _a modification of the existing Treaties which shall not be in direct contravention of their spirit:_ Now, therefore," &c. The following are the four articles of the treaty thus explained:
"Article I. Whenever in the opinion of the Government of the United States the coming of Chinese laborers to the United States, or their residence therein, affects or threatens to affect the interests of that country, or to endanger the good order of the said country or of any locality within the territory thereof, the Government of China agrees that the Government of the United States may regulate, limit, or suspend such coming or residence, _but may not absolutely prohibit it. The limitation or suspension shall be reasonable, and shall apply only to Chinese who may go to the United States as laborers,_ other classes not being included in the limitations. Legislation taken in regard to Chinese laborers will be of such a character only as is necessary to enforce the regulation, limitation, or suspension of immigration, and immigrants shall not be subject to personal maltreatment or abuse.
"Article II. Chinese subjects, whether proceeding to the United States as teachers, students, merchants or from curiosity, together with their body and household servants, and Chinese laborers who are now in the United States _shall be allowed to go and come of their own free will and accord, and shall be accorded all the rights, privileges, immunities, and exemptions which are accorded to the citizens and subjects of the most favored nation._
"Article III. If Chinese laborers, or Chinese of any other class, now either permanently or temporarily residing in the territory of the United States, meet with ill treatment at the hands of any other persons, the Government of the United States will exert all its power to devise measures for their protection and to secure to them the same rights, privileges, immunities, and exemptions as may be enjoyed by the citizens or subjects of the most favored nation, and to which they are entitled by treaty.
"Article IV. The high contracting powers having agreed upon the foregoing articles, whenever the Government of the United States shall adopt legislative measures in accordance therewith, such measures will be communicated to the Government of China. If the measures as enacted are found to work hardship upon the subjects of China, the Chinese minister at Washington may bring the matter to the notice of the Secretary of State of the United States, who will consider the subject with him; and the Chinese Foreign Office may also bring the matter to the notice of the United States minister at Peking and consider the subject with him, to the end that mutual and unqualified benefit may result.
This is the latest of the still obligatory engagements by treaty that bear on the admission of visitors or immigrants from China to the United States. A fourth treaty, pressed on the Chinese Government in 1894, permitted the United States, during a period of ten years, to prohibit entirely the coming of Chinese laborers within its territory; but the concluding article of that treaty was as follows:
"This Convention shall remain in force for a period of ten years beginning with the date of the exchange of ratifications, and, if six months before the expiration of said period of ten years, neither Government shall have formally given notice of its final termination to the other, it shall remain in full force for another like period of ten years." The Chinese Government did give the formal notice of termination within the stipulated time, and the treaty became void on the 7th of December, 1904.
Hence the Government of the United States is now under the engagements which it made with the Government of China in 1880, which included an engagement to be faithful to the hospitable spirit of the compact of 1868. When one has looked over those engagements of national honor, it seems hard to harmonize them in spirit, or even in letter, with some of the enactments which are regulating, at the present day, the treatment of people from China who venture to approach the entry ports of the United States. Such, for example, as the following, from "the Act of May 6, 1882, as amended and added to by the Act of July 5, 1884," which, according to a recent official publication of "Laws and Regulations governing the Admission of Chinese," was "continued in force for an additional period of ten years from May 5, 1892, by the act of May 5, 1892, and was, with all laws on this subject in force on April 29, 1902, reënacted, extended, and continued without modification, limitation, or condition by the act of April 29, 1902, as amended by the act of April 27, 1904":
"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That from and after the passage of this act, and until the expiration of ten years next after the passage of this act, the coming of Chinese laborers to the United States be, and the same is hereby suspended, and during such suspension it shall not be lawful for any Chinese laborer to come from any foreign port or place, or having so come to remain within the United States."
"Section 2. That the master of any vessel who shall knowingly bring within the United States on such vessel, and land, or attempt to land, or permit to be landed any Chinese laborer, from any foreign port or place, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars for each and every such Chinese laborer so brought, and may also be imprisoned for a term not exceeding one year." …
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"Section 6. That in order to the faithful execution of the provisions of this act, every Chinese person, other than a laborer, who may be entitled by said treaty or this act to come within the United States, and who shall be about to come to the United States, shall obtain the permission of and be identified as so entitled by the Chinese Government, or of such other foreign government of which at the time such Chinese person shall be a subject, in each case to be evidenced by a certificate issued by such Government, which certificate shall be in the English language, and shall show such permission, with the name of the permitted person in his or her proper signature, and which certificate shall state the individual, family, and tribal name in full, title or official rank, if any, the age, height, and all physical peculiarities, former and present occupation or profession, when and where and how long pursued, and place of residence of the person to whom the certificate is issued, and that such person is entitled by this act to come within the United States.
"If the person so applying for a certificate shall be a merchant, said certificate shall in addition to above requirements, state the nature, character, and estimated value of the business carried on by him prior to and at the time of his application as aforesaid: _Provided_, That nothing in this act nor in said treaty shall be construed as embracing within the meaning of the word ‘merchant,’ hucksters, peddlers, or those engaged in taking, drying, or otherwise preserving shell or other fish for home consumption or exportation.
"If the certificate be sought for the purpose of travel for curiosity, it shall also state whether the applicant intends to pass through or travel within the United States, together with his financial standing in the country from which such certificate is desired.
"The certificate provided for in this act, and the identity of the person named therein shall, before such person goes on board any vessel to proceed to the United States, be viséd by the indorsement of the diplomatic representatives of the United States in the foreign country from which such certificate issues, or of the consular representative of the United States at the port or place from which the person named in the certificate is about to depart; and such diplomatic representative or consular representative whose indorsement is so required is hereby empowered, and it shall be his duty, before indorsing such certificate as aforesaid, to examine into the truth of the statements set forth in said certificate, and if he shall find upon examination that said or any of the statements therein contained are untrue it shall be his duty to refuse to indorse the same.
"Such certificate viséd as aforesaid shall be prima facie evidence of the facts set forth therein, and shall be produced to the Chinese inspector in charge of the port in the district in the United States at which the person named therein shall arrive, and afterward produced to the proper authorities of the United States whenever lawfully demanded, and shall be the sole evidence permissible on the part of the person so producing the same to establish a right of entry into the United States; but said certificate may be controverted and the facts therein stated disproved by the United States authorities."
It will be observed that Article IV. of the Treaty of 1880 provides that, if measures enacted in the United States "are found to work hardship upon the subjects of China, the Chinese minister at Washington may bring the matter to the notice of the Secretary of State of the United States, who will consider the subject with him." One who consults the annual reports that are published, of "Papers relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States," will find that the Chinese Minister at Washington has had occasion very often to bring cases of the kind thus referred to in the Treaty to the notice of the Secretary of State, and discovered, when he did so, almost invariably, that under the enactments complained of the Secretary of State had no power even to "consider the subject" of complaint with him. The highly intelligent and keenly logical Mr. Wu Ting-fang, who represented China at Washington in 1900-1902, had much correspondence on such matters with Secretary Hay, whose sympathetic friendliness to China was well proved; but Mr. Hay could never do more than refer Mr. Wu’s representations to the Treasury Department and its officials, who held all authority in the matter, and politely return to the Chinese Minister such responses as they put into his hands. The following is one example of Mr. Wu Ting-fang’s communications. It is dated at Washington, December 26, 1900:
"I have received from the imperial consul-general and from reputable Chinese merchants in San Francisco such urgent complaints that I feel it my regrettable duty to again address you on the subject of the manner in which the immigration laws of Congress are being enforced against Chinese subjects. They represent what I set forth in my note of the 30th ultimo, that under the rulings of the authorities of the port of San Francisco Chinese students holding certificates in conformity to the treaty and law of Congress are virtually debarred from entering the United States, it being held by the said authorities that such students must come here with a knowledge of the English language and with an education that will permit them to forthwith enter a college or take up an advanced professional course of study. They further represent that under the act of November 3, 1893, the Government of the United States issued certificates of residence to a large number of Chinese persons, not laborers—merchants and others— and that the rights acquired under these certificates are being entirely ignored. Holders of such certificates desiring to make a temporary visit to China are denied the privilege, and persons who have departed holding such certificates are denied the privilege of reentering the United States. They state that merchants returning to San Francisco after a temporary visit to China are often imprisoned in the detention dock for weeks and months pending their landing. Their Caucasian witnesses are put to all sorts of inconveniences and annoyances and treated with suspicion and discourtesy. When present to sign identification papers they are compelled to await the pleasure of the Chinese bureau for examination, and are plied with all sorts of immaterial questions from an inspector, who assumes the character of an inquisitor. {538} The result of this is that it is now very difficult for Chinese desiring to visit their native land to obtain the necessary signatures for their identification papers, thus causing them untold mental and financial suffering. They report that it has been heretofore the custom in San Francisco for years to allow the attorney for the persons desiring to enter the United States to be present at the Chinese bureau pending the taking of evidence on their behalf, thus affording a protection to the Chinese applicants and operating as a restraint upon overzealous subordinate officials. It has just been ordered by the port authorities that henceforth no attorneys shall be allowed to be present at the taking of such testimony, or of any testimony on behalf of Chinese desiring to enter that port. They assert that this action makes the immigration inspector, whose avowed policy is to cause the return to China of every Chinese he possibly can, the master of the situation and throws all Chinese applicants at his feet."
_Minister Wu to Secretary Hay, December 26, 1900 (Foreign Relations, 1901, page 64)._
In a previous communication the Chinese Minister had expressed the opinion that the matter demanded the attention of the President; to which Secretary Hay replied that "in the Department’s view the immigration acts do not confer upon the President any power to interpose in the matter. The act of August 18, 1894, provides that ‘in every case where an alien is excluded from admission into the United States under any law or treaty now existing or hereafter made, the decision of the appropriate immigration or customs officers, if adverse to the admission of such alien, shall be final, unless reversed on appeal to the Secretary of the Treasury." On this statement Mr. Wu now remarked:
"I beg to say that I was aware of the law which is quoted in your note of the 5th instant, when I suggested the interposition of the President of the United States, but I am advised that it can hardly be interpreted as a prohibition against the exercise by that supreme official of the nation of his influence with one of his own Secretaries, if he was convinced, upon examination of the facts, that a solemn treaty guaranty was being violated and a great wrong being done to subjects of a friendly Government. I am further advised that it was not the intent of Congress, by the act cited, to take from the President the duty, which I have understood was imposed on him by your great and wise Constitution, to ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed,’ and by the same instrument the treaties with foreign nations are declared to be ‘the supreme law of the land.’ I feel persuaded that if you will lay the questions presented in the present note and that of the 30th ultimo before the President, he will be inspired by his high sense of justice to induce the honorable Secretary of the Treasury to revise the decisions which have been made by the official of his Department, or that he will at least submit the question to the Attorney-General for a construction of the treaty and the laws depending thereon."
_Foreign Relations, 1901, page 65._
Any fair-minded reader of the correspondence between Chinese and American officials, relative to the treatment of Chinamen in the United States, is likely to find himself quite generally in sympathy with the former, and compelled to doubt whether the subjects of China would lose anything if all the treaty engagements supposed to be in force, between their Government and the Government of the United States, were cancelled to-morrow.
RACE PROBLEMS: Anti-Japanese Agitation in California. Segregation of Orientals in San Francisco Schools. Japanese Resentment. The Labor Question at the Bottom. State Rights and Treaty Rights.
"The events noted in this article belong mostly to San Francisco, but to a very considerable extent the agitation is one of state and national importance.
"In November, 1904, the American Federation of Labor held its annual meeting in San Francisco. It adopted a resolution demanding that the terms of the Chinese Exclusion Act should be so extended ‘as to permanently exclude from the United States and its insular territory all classes of Japanese and Coreans other than those exempted by the present terms of the act.’"
"In February, 1905, the San Francisco _Chronicle_, a daily newspaper of state-wide reputation, began to publish a series of articles having the general object of representing the immigration of Japanese, particularly of Japanese laborers, as a menace to the interests of the people of California and of the nation as well. On the date of the first publication, February 23, 1905, the purpose of the series was thus announced editorially:
"‘With this issue we summon the attention of the public to a matter of grave import, a matter that no longer admits of delay if we are to preserve the integrity of our social life not only in California but throughout the Union. The Japanese invasion with which we are confronted is fraught with a peril none the less momentous because it is so silent, none the less attended with danger to American character and to American institutions because it is so peaceful. … It will be well for us to choose now the line of least resistance, to determine now and forever whether this State and this country are to be American or whether they are to be Asiatic, whether they are to continue under the sway of American thought and aspiration or whether they are to become a seminary, an abiding place, and an inheritance for the Oriental peoples. … This is a matter first for California and for the Pacific Coast and secondly for the whole Nation. California stands to-day as an open door for Japan and for Asia and when these portals have been passed the road to the Atlantic is unbarred.’
"The series of articles printed conspicuously on the front page at intervals of two or three days sought to establish as fact a rapidly increasing inflow of Japanese laborers, ready to work at wages far below the white standard, and sending native-born white men into the ranks of the unemployed.
"By a unanimous vote in each House, and with only few absentees, the California Legislature on March 1 and 2, 1905, placed itself on record with respect to Japanese immigration in the adoption of a concurrent resolution. After a lengthy preamble, the Legislature—
"‘_Resolved_, that in view of the facts and reasons aforesaid, and of many others that might be stated, we, as representatives of the people of the State of California, do earnestly and strenuously ask and request, and in so far as it may be proper, demand for the protection of the people of this State and for the proper safe-guarding of their interests, that action be taken without delay, by treaty, or otherwise, as may be most expeditious and advantageous, tending to limit within reasonable bounds and diminish in a marked degree the further immigration of Japanese laborers into the United States.
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"‘That our Senators and Representatives be, and they are hereby, requested and directed to bring the matters aforesaid to the attention of the President and the Department of State.’
_California Statutes, 1905, Concurrent & Joint Res. chapter xxiv._
"On Sunday May 7, 1905, there was held in Lyric Hall, San Francisco, a sort of convention of representatives of various Labor organizations and Improvement Clubs of San Francisco and near-by cities,—such as the Building Trades Council, District Council of Painters, Carpenters’ Union No. 22, Federation of Mission Improvement Clubs, et al. After much speech-making of a demagogic character, committees were appointed and an adjournment taken to the following Sunday. On that day, May 14, organization was perfected by the election of the usual officers. All of these were men active in the promotion of labor organization.
"On May 6, 1905, the San Francisco Board of Education adopted a resolution expressing its determination ‘to effect the establishment of separate schools for Chinese and Japanese pupils … for the higher end that our children should not be placed in any position where their youthful impressions may be affected by association with pupils of the Mongolian Race.’ But finding itself without sufficient funds for equipment of a separate school, the Board did not pursue the matter at this time. Its zeal in the matter was not abated by the vast amount of labor required to reëstablish the schools after the great fire of April, 1906, and on October 11, 1906, it adopted and put into effect the following resolution:
"‘_Resolved_, That in accordance with Article X, Section 1662, of the School Law of California, principals are hereby directed to send all Chinese Japanese or Corean children to the Oriental public school, situated on the south side of Clay street, between Powell and Mason streets, on and after Monday, October 15, 1906.’
"The Consul of Japan in San Francisco at once addressed protests to the Board of Education, urging that the requirement would work great hardship upon Japanese children, by reason of distance and the difficulties of travel, street-car transportation at the time being very uncertain on account of the derangements produced by the great conflagration of April, 1906. Protests and appeals were alike turned aside in California, but they received instant attention in Washington by President Roosevelt, who sent Honorable V. H. Metcalf, the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, to San Francisco to investigate on the ground.
"There seemed to be a possible solution of the school question by securing a judicial determination of the matter as a violation of treaty rights. Upon these points Secretary Metcalf reported to the President substantially as follows:
"1st. There is no ‘favored nation’ clause in any treaty between the United States and Japan which clearly guarantees the right of education. The action of the San Francisco School Board is therefore not the denial of a treaty right.
"2nd. Two points remain upon which the validity of the resolution of the School Board might be questioned, as follows:
"a. May the sovereign State of California delegate legislative rights to district school boards or other municipal or local bodies?
"b. Are the Japanese Mongolians, and as such covered by the state statute governing the establishment of schools?
"Suit upon these points is inadvisable for the reason that in case of a favorable decision, the next legislature would hasten to enact legislation especially singling out the Japanese for discrimination.
"In December, 1906, however, the United States District Attorney was summoned from San Francisco to Washington for conference with the President and Attorney-General, and upon his return to San Francisco two suits were commenced. One was a petition for a writ of mandate in the Supreme Court of California, the other was a suit in equity in the United States Circuit Court for the Northern District of California. Neither suit was prosecuted, and both actions were subsequently dismissed.
"The influence of the Japanese Consul and of the leaders among the Japanese resident in San Francisco was strongly exerted toward allaying excitement and preventing any acts that might give ground for complaint. However, it was impossible to conceal the fact that the effort of the School Board toward segregation was a stinging blow to Japanese national pride.
"The San Francisco school question was suddenly lifted into national prominence by President Roosevelt, who included pointed criticism of the San Francisco authorities in his annual message to Congress, as follows:
"‘Not only must we treat all nations fairly, but we must treat with justice and good will all immigrants who come here under the law. … Especially do we need to remember our duty to the stranger within our gates. … I am prompted to say this by the attitude of hostility here and there assumed toward the Japanese in this country. … It is most discreditable to us as a people and it may be fraught with the gravest consequences to the nation. … Here and there a most unworthy feeling has manifested itself toward the Japanese—a feeling that has shown itself in shutting them out from the common schools in San Francisco, and in mutterings against them in one or two other places, because of their efficiency as workers. To shut them out from the public schools is a wicked absurdity, when there are no first-class colleges in the land, including the universities and colleges of California, which do not welcome Japanese students and on which Japanese students do not reflect credit.’ The president then specifically recommended to Congress the enactment of legislation for the naturalization of Japanese and for the enlargement of the powers of the federal government for the better protection of resident aliens against infringement of treaty rights.
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"The effect of the president’s utterances was to raise new questions and to bring new and powerful influences to the support of the San Francisco authorities. In California the San Francisco School Board received at once the credit of heroic defense of the principle of state sovereignty. Expression of the same sentiment in Congress was immediate and direct.
"Early in 1907, President Roosevelt invited the San Francisco Board of Education to come to Washington. This invitation was accepted, and the Board, accompanied by the Mayor of San Francisco, journeyed across the continent. Several conferences were held, and after their return to San Francisco, public statements of results were made both by the Board of Education and by the Mayor. On March 13, 1907, the offending resolution of the previous October was repealed.
"The action of the San Francisco authorities aroused very general comment throughout the country. The actual facts in regard to the Japanese in the schools were not inquired into by the San Francisco press, nor in fact were they accurately known at the time even to the school authorities of the city. The exact facts were published by _The Outlook_ on June 1, 1907, from accurate investigation on the ground. The Superintendent of Schools had given as the main reason for segregation, that 95 per cent. of the Japanese pupils were young men and ‘we object to an adult Japanese sitting beside a twelve year old girl.’ The facts were that on December 8, 1906, in all schools of primary and grammar grade there was an enrollment of 28,736 pupils. Of these there were 93 Japanese, nearly one-third of whom were born in the United States. There were 28 girls and 65 boys. Of the 65 boys 34 were under 15 years of age, and of the remaining 31 only 2 were 20 years. 25 of the boys over 15 years were in the grammar grades, leaving but 6 to justify the objection of adults ‘sitting beside children of tender years.’ The conclusion of the _Outlook_ inquiry was that there was nothing in the situation that could not have been met by simpler remedies than the attempted segregation, and that the underlying motive in the whole matter was a desire to win the political support of the labor unions.
"The great fire in San Francisco in 1906 drove the Japanese from their established quarters. Their attempts to gain new locations in districts previously occupied wholly by white residents tended to draw attention to them. For a time the policing of the city was inadequate, and cases of bodily violence toward Japanese were not infrequent. Anything like organized action took the form of boycotts directed against Japanese restaurants that sought white patronage and subsequently against the Japanese laundries.
"The biennial sessions of the legislature since 1905 have regularly furnished a large supply of anti-Japanese resolutions and bills, introduced for effect and without sufficient support for enactment. However, in 1909 legislation was attempted looking toward prohibiting Japanese from becoming owners of real property. It was only the strenuous protests of President Roosevelt actively supported by the governor of the state that prevented for this session the enactment of some such measure. The legislature finally contented itself with making an appropriation for a state census of Japanese.
"This census was intrusted to the state commissioner of labor, and is now (July, 1909) in progress. It may be regarded as a step toward an authoritative inquiry as to facts upon which later action may be based, if deemed necessary.
"The Japanese on the Pacific Coast uniformly exercise a most commendable self-restraint, and their officials take advantage of every opportunity to display a spirit of friendliness. This is illustrated by liberal contributions to the city’s fund for the entertainment of the sailors of the Atlantic Fleet during its visit to San Francisco in May, 1908, and by an invitation extended by the Chambers of Commerce of the large cities of Japan in July, 1908, to similar bodies in the Pacific Coast states to visit Japan as guests of the country. This invitation was accepted by numerous commercial representatives of the cities from Los Angeles northward to Seattle."
_Frederick H. Clark, Head of History Department, Lowell High School, San Francisco._
"'If you provide a system of education which includes alien children you must not exclude these particular alien children.'"
Inasmuch as the Constitution and the laws of the United States made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made under the authority of the United States, are declared to be the supreme law of the land, and that the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding, this prohibitory power was shown to be incontestable.
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The common-sense ground of opinion and feeling on the whole subject in America could not be set forth more indisputably than it was by Mr. Roosevelt, after he had ceased to be President, when he wrote as a private citizen, in his editorial connection with _The Outlook_, on the 8th of May, 1909, this:
"The Japanese are a highly civilized people of extraordinary military, artistic, and industrial development; they are proud, warlike, and sensitive. I believe that our people have, what I personally certainly have, a profound and hearty admiration for them; an admiration for their great deeds and great qualities, an ungrudging respect for their national character. But this admiration and respect is accompanied by the firm conviction that it is not for the advantage of either people that emigrants from either country should settle in mass in the other country. The understanding between the two countries on this point should be on a basis of entire mutuality, and therefore on a basis which will preserve unimpaired the self-respect of each country, and permit each to continue to feel friendly good will for the other. Japan would certainly object to the incoming of masses of American farmers, laborers, and small traders; indeed, the Japanese would object to this at least as strongly as the men of the Pacific Coast and Rocky Mountain States object to the incoming in mass of Japanese workmen, agricultural laborers, and men engaged in small trades. The Japanese certainly object to Americans acquiring land in Japan at least as much as the Americans of the far Western States object to the Japanese acquiring land on our soil. The Americans who go to Japan and the Japanese who come to America should be of the same general class—that is, they should be travelers, students, teachers, scientific investigators, men engaged in international business, men sojourning in the land for pleasure or study. As long as the emigration from each side is limited to classes such as these, there will be no settlement in mass, and therefore no difficulty."
That the emigration from Japan has been thus closely limited was shown in September, 1909, by the issue of a statistical circular from the office of the Japanese Consul-General at San Francisco, dealing in tabulated form with the arrivals and departures from Japan for the year 1908 and for the first six months of the year 1909. It shows that the number of the excess arrivals in Japan over the departures for 1908 was 1807, and for the first six months of the present year 737, making a total excess of arrivals in Japan over departures for the 18 months of 2544. The circular states that "no new labourers are now leaving Japan for American territory," and this may be taken as the official Japanese reply to the continued assertions of the California labour unions that large numbers of coolies are still reaching the country by way of the Canadian and Mexican frontiers.
RACE PROBLEMS: Exclusion of Chinese. The Law and its Administration. The Chinese Resentment expressed in a Boycott. President Roosevelt’s Vain Appeal to Congress. Opinion of Secretary Straus.
Resentful feeling aroused in China by the immigration and exclusion laws of the United States, in their special application to incoming Chinese and in the harshness of their administration, began to have expression at Shanghai in May, 1905, when resolutions were adopted at a meeting of the merchant guilds of that city which initiated an extensive boycotting of American goods and of everything connected with America. A report of the meeting and of its recommendations was sent to all parts of the Empire and elicited a quick and general response. The undertaking of the movement was to stop the buying of American goods; to socially ostracise tradesmen who continue to handle them, and to render no service to Americans in China, except for higher pay than is demanded from others. This boycotting attitude of large numbers in China was persisted in throughout the year, and not only made itself felt seriously in commercial circles, but impressed the American public with a proper sense of the indignities they were allowing to be imposed on a people who deserve their respect. The President, in his Message to Congress at the opening of the session in December, dealt justly with the subject, as follows:
"The conditions in China are such that the entire Chinese coolie class, that is, the class of Chinese laborers, skilled and unskilled, legitimately come under the head of undesirable immigrants to this country, because of their numbers, the low wages for which they work, and their low standard of living. Not only is it to the interest of this country to keep them out, but the Chinese authorities do not desire that they should be admitted. At present their entrance is prohibited by laws amply adequate to accomplish this purpose. These laws have been, are being, and will be, thoroughly enforced. … But in the effort to carry out the policy of excluding Chinese laborers, Chinese coolies, grave injustice and wrong have been done by this Nation to the people of China, and therefore ultimately to this Nation itself. Chinese students, business and professional men of all kinds—not only merchants, but bankers, doctors, manufacturers, professors, travelers, and the like—should be encouraged to come here and treated on precisely the same footing that we treat students, business men, travelers, and the like of other nations. Our law's and treaties should be framed, not so as to put these people in the excepted classes, but to state that we will admit all Chinese, except Chinese of the coolie class, Chinese skilled or unskilled laborers. There would not be the least danger that any such provision would result in any relaxation of the law about laborers. These will, under all conditions, be kept out absolutely. But it will be more easy to see that both justice and courtesy are shown, as they ought to be shown, to other Chinese, if the law or treaty is framed as above suggested. Examinations should be completed at the port of departure from China. For this purpose there should be provided a more adequate consular service in China than we now have. The appropriations, both for the offices of the consuls and for the office forces in the consulates, should be increased.
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"As a people we have talked much of the open door in China, and we expect, and quite rightly intend to insist upon, justice being shown us by the Chinese. But we can not expect to receive equity unless we do equity. We can not ask the Chinese to do to us what we are unwilling to do to them. They would have a perfect right to exclude our laboring men if our laboring men threatened to come into their country in such numbers as to jeopardize the well being of the Chinese population; and as, mutatis mutandis, these were the conditions with which Chinese immigration actually brought this people face to face, we had and have a perfect right, which the Chinese Government in no way contests, to act as we have acted in the matter of restricting coolie immigration. That this right exists for each country was explicitly acknowledged in the last treaty between the two countries. But we must treat the Chinese student, traveler, and business man in a spirit of the broadest justice and courtesy if we expect similar treatment to be accorded to our own people of similar rank who go to China."
_President's Message to Congress, December 5, 1905._
No effective impression on the moral sense or the rationality of Congress was made by the President’s appeal, and the laws which are contemptuous of national treaties and indifferent to the national honor remain on the statute books unchanged. That others than the President in the Federal Administration felt the wrong and the shame of the law which it had to administer, was shown by an article from the pen of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, published in the spring of 1908. The following are some passages from the article:
"It is not the policy of the Government with reference to Chinese immigration, but the manner in which it is, of necessity, carried out, by reason of the way in which the laws are framed, that causes constant friction and dissatisfaction. … The attitude of the Chinese Government may be inferred from the fact that in 1904, after the convention of 1894 had been in force ten years, China availed herself of her reserved right and formally denounced the treaty, refusing longer to be a party to an arrangement which, as carried into effect, was offensive to her national pride. …
"For proof of the feeling of the Chinese people it is only necessary to refer to the boycott of American goods, inaugurated by various trade guilds and business and commercial associations of the Empire during the summer of 1905. At that time China held first rank among Oriental countries as a consumer of American products. In that year, her total commerce amounted to $497,000,000, of which $329,000,000 were imports; $57,000,000, or more than seventeen per cent., being supplied by the United States. The exports from the United States to China had grown to these proportions by rapid strides. They were less than $3,000,000 in the seventies. They only reached $7,500,000 in 1886, $12,000,000 in 1897, $15,000,000 in 1900, $24,000,000 in 1902, $57,000,000 in 1905. It was reasonable to believe that American trade would continue to progress in something like the same ratio, and a larger and larger share of the foreign trade of China accrue to the United States. Instead of that, the exports of the United States to China, according to our statistics, fell to $44,000,000 in 1906, and to $26,000,000 in 1907.
"It is not necessary to attribute the decline wholly to the boycott of 1905, but a drop in our exportations to that country of fifty per cent. in two years is sufficiently startling to challenge attention. But on higher grounds than those of mere commercial interest should the frame of the laws be changed. …
"I would not suggest a change in the established policy of rigidly excluding Chinese laborers of every description, both skilled and unskilled. The policy has been and will continue to be as effectively enforced as circumstances will permit. But, at a time when this policy of exclusion has been so thoroughly applied that there remain in the United States only about 70,000 Chinese—less than one-tenth of one per cent, of our population—little danger need be apprehended from a full and fair reconsideration of the subject and a recasting of the laws upon a juster basis. …
"By making admission the rule, and exclusion the exception, we could easily preserve the present policy in all its integrity, and even strengthen the real prohibitory features thereof, at the same time entirely removing a material cause of friction, dissatisfaction and unnecessary humiliation to the people of a friendly nation."
_Oscar S. Straus (Secretary of Commerce and Labor), The Spirit and Letter of Exclusion (The North American Review, April, 1908)._
A much stronger expression was given to the shamed feeling of honorable Americans on this subject by the veteran diplomatist and former Secretary of State, Honorable John W. Foster, in an article written in 1906. The following is a passage from the article:
"I do not know how I can better illustrate the kind of protection, or want of protection, extended to the Chinese, as guaranteed by the Constitution, the treaties, and the solemn promises of the government of the United States, than by recalling a notorious case which occurred, not on the sand lots of California, not under the auspices of labor agitators, but in the enlightened city of Boston and under the conduct of Federal officials.
"The following narrative is condensed from the newspapers of that city. At about half past seven o’clock on the evening of Sunday, October 11, 1902, a number of United States officials of Boston, New York, and other cities charged with the administration of the Chinese exclusion laws, assisted by a force of the local police, made a sudden and unexpected descent upon the Chinese quarter of Boston. The raid was timed with a refinement of cruelty which did greater credit to the shrewdness of the officials than to their humanity. It was on the day and at the hour when the Chinese of Boston and its vicinity were accustomed to congregate in the quarter named for the purpose of meeting friends and enjoying themselves after a week of steady and honest toil. The police and immigration officials fell upon their victims without giving a word of warning. The clubs, restaurants, other public places where Chinese congregated, and private houses were surrounded. Every avenue of escape was blocked. To those seized no warrant for arrest or other paper was read or shown.
"Every Chinese who did not at once produce his certificate of residence was taken in charge, and the unfortunate ones were rushed off to the Federal Building without further ceremony. There was no respect of persons with the officials; they treated merchants and laborers alike. In many cases no demand was made for certificates, the captives were dragged off to imprisonment, and in some instances the demand was not made till late at night or the next morning, when the certificates were in the possession of the victims at the time of their seizure.
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"In the raid no mercy was shown by the government officials. The frightened Chinese who had sought to escape were dragged from their hiding-places, and stowed like cattle upon wagons or other vehicles, to be conveyed to the designated place of detention. On one of these wagons or trucks from seventy to eighty persons were thrown, and soon after it moved it was overturned. A scene of indescribable confusion followed, in which the shrieks of those attempting to escape mingled with the groans of those who were injured. …
"About two hundred and fifty Chinese were thus arrested and carried off to the Federal Building. Here they were crowded into two small rooms where only standing space could be had, from eight o’clock in the evening, all through the night, and many of them till late in the afternoon of the next day. There was no sleep for any of them that night, though some of them were so exhausted that they sank to the floor where they stood. Their captors seemed to think that they had to do with animals, not human beings. Some of them were released during the night, when relatives brought their certificates or merchants were identified. But the greater part were kept till the next day, when the publicity of the press brought friends, or relief through legal proceedings. …
"So strong was the indignation of the respectable citizens of Boston, that a large public meeting was held in Faneuil Hall to denounce the action of the immigration officials and the police. … It was announced by the immigration officials that their raid was organized under the belief that there were a number of Chinese in Boston and its vicinity unlawfully in the United States, and this method was adopted for discovering them. The official report of the chief officer soon after the event showed that two hundred and thirty-four Chinese were imprisoned, that one hundred and twenty-one were released without trial or requirement of bail, and that only five had so far been deported, but that he hoped that he might secure the conviction and deportation of fifty; as a matter of fact, however, the deportations fell much below that number."
_J. W. Foster, The Chinese Boycott (Atlantic Monthly, January, 1906)._
In the same article Mr. Foster recalled facts connected with the negotiation of the Treaty of 1880 which deepen the shame to the United States of what followed: "In communicating to the Secretary of State," he said, "the signature of the treaty of 1880, the American commissioners wrote: ‘In conclusion, we deem it our duty to say to you that during the whole of this negotiation the representatives of the Chinese Government have met us in the fairest and most friendly spirit. They have been, in their personal intercourse, most courteous, and have given to all our communications, verbal as well as written, the promptest and most respectful consideration. After a free and able exposition of their own views, we are satisfied that in yielding to the request of the United States they have been actuated by a sincere friendship and an honorable confidence that the large powers recognized by them as belonging to the United States, and bearing directly upon the interests of their own people, will be exercised by our government with a wise discretion, in a spirit of reciprocal and sincere friendship, and with entire justice.’
"But even this treaty, which had been obtained from China so reluctantly, yet with the generous exhibition of friendship on her part just described, did not prove satisfactory to the increasing demands of the labor unions. Before ten years were passed, under the spur and excitement of the presidential campaign of 1888, and upon the hesitation of the Chinese government to make a further treaty modification, the Scott Act was passed by Congress, which was a deliberate violation of the treaty of 1880, and was so declared by the Supreme Court; but under our peculiar system it became the law of the land. Our government had thus flagrantly disregarded its solemn treaty obligations. Senator Sherman, then chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, stated in the Senate that we had furnished China a just cause for war."
----------RACE PROBLEMS: End--------
RACE-TRACK GAMBLING.
See (in this Volume) GAMBLING.
RADIO-TELEGRAPHY.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE AND INVENTION: ELECTRICAL: TELEGRAPHY, WIRELESS.
RADIUM, and Radio-activity.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE, RECENT: RADIUM; See also PHYSICAL.
RADOLIN, Prince de: Arrangement with France for the Algeciras Conference.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1905-1906.
RAIGOSA, Don Genaro: President of Second International Conference of American Republics.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
----------RAILWAYS: Start--------
RAILWAYS
RAILWAYS: Abyssinia: French Projects.
See (in this Volume) ABYSSINIA: A. D. 1902.
RAILWAYS: Africa: A. D. 1909. Progress of the Cape to Cairo Line.
A telegram from Broken Hill, Northern Rhodesia, November 10, 1909, announced that the Cape-to-Cairo Railroad had reached the Congo frontier on the 16th.
RAILWAYS: Argentina-Chile: A. D. 1909. The Transandine Railway Tunnel.
The great work, of boring a tunnel through the chain of the Andes at an altitude of over 10,000 feet above sea level for the trains of the Transandine Railway was practically completed in the fall of 1909. "Early in April next the rails will be laid, and from then onward the journey from Buenos Ayres, on the eastern side of the South American continent, to Valparaiso, on the Pacific Coast, may be undertaken in comfort in a railway carriage all the year round. Up to the present time passengers from the east have had to leave the rail at Las Cuevas and proceed by a zigzag road over the mountains on mule-back or in coaches to Caracoles, the rail head on the Chilian side—a journey which occupies about two hours; but this route is only open during the summer months. In the winter, when the pass is closed by snow, travellers have to go round by sea. The route under the Andes will effect a saving of about twelve days. The work of boring the two-mile tunnel was begun four years ago and has presented exceptional difficulties."
{544}
RAILWAYS: Australia: Government Ownership. Difference of Gauge. Each State having its own.
"Warfare against monopoly is easier in Australia than in some other countries for the reason that in Australia the close relation between monopoly and transportation is generally understood and is not an issue. Some few and for the most part small railroad projects, including mining and timber lines, are still in private hands. All the other railroads are publicly owned and publicly operated. So far the ownership is vested in the several states, each having its own system. In the good old conservative days before the Labor demon raised its head, there was much childish jealousy among the different governments. In the conservative view the destiny of Australia was not to be a nation but a handful of nice little colonies vying with one another in expressing loyalty to the monarchical idea and the established order. When these came to build railroads each colony established its own gauge and stuck thereto. A more preposterous notion never bewitched the human mind, but the truth is that a gauge of 4 feet 8½ inches in New South Wales actually seemed a reason (to the conservative intellect) for a gauge of 5 feet 3 inches in Victoria and a gauge of 3 feet 6 inches in Western Australia. The annoyance, delay, and expense resulting to through traffic make the thing seem like a section of Bedlam. Between Melbourne and Sydney, for instance, a line with an immense business and with otherwise excellent accommodations, you must change cars on the frontier and all the freight must be transferred. Eventually the federal Government is to take over and unify the systems of the different states. Considering the multiplicities of systems and gauges, the task that will then confront the federal Government will not be for a holiday."
Charles E. Russell, The Uprising of the Many, chapter 27 (Doubleday, Page & Co., New York, 1907).
RAILWAYS: Canada: A. D. 1903-1909. The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway.
See (in this Volume) CANADA: A. D. 1903-1909.
RAILWAYS: Canada: A. D. 1904. Establishment of the Board of Railway Commissioners with large Regulative Powers.
In _Moody’s Magazine_ of January, 1906, the Honorable Robert Bickerdike, M. P., of Montreal, gave a favorable account of the operation of the Canadian Act of two years before which created a Board of Railway Commissioners, taking the place of the former Railway Committee of the Privy Council, and exercising large powers of control over rates, construction of road, and speed of trains. "No toll" (that is, freight rate), he said, "may be charged which unjustly discriminates between different localities. The board shall not approve any toll which for like goods or passengers, carried under substantially similar conditions in the same direction over the same line, is greater for a shorter than a longer distance, unless the board is satisfied that, owing to competition, it is expedient to do so. Where carriage is
## partly by rail and partly by water, and the tolls in a single
sum, the board may require the company to declare, or may determine, what portion is charged in respect of carriage by rail, to prevent discrimination. Freight tariffs are governed by a classification which the board must approve, and the object is to have this classification uniform. Railways shall, when directed by the board, place any specified goods in any stated class. Tariffs shall be in such form and give such details as the board may prescribe. The maximum mileage tariff shall be filed with the board and be subject to its approval; when approved, the company shall publish it in the _Canadian Gazette_, the official publication. As respects this act, the board is invested with the rights, privileges, and powers of a superior court. None, therefore, may oppose it."
RAILWAYS: Canada: A. D. 1906. Government Ownership and Operation of a Railway Line.
See (in this Volume) CANADA: A. D. 1906-1907.
RAILWAYS: Canada: A. D. 1908-1909. Projected Railway from the Canadian Northwest to Hudson Bay.
In a speech at Niagara Falls, in September, 1908, the Canadian premier, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, announced positively that his government had undertaken the construction of a railway from the Canadian Northwest to Hudson Bay; that surveyors are in the field determining the route, and that plans for the construction of the road are being prepared. For a few weeks in the year this will give another outlet to the greatest wheat region of the continent for its harvests; and even a few weeks will afford important relief, no doubt, to the pressure of its need. Unfortunately, the passage from Hudson Bay to the ocean, through Hudson Strait, is sealed up with ice during much the greater part of the year. Quite recently there were reports of the return of a vessel from the strait which had found it blocked in July.
Notwithstanding the limit thus put on the usefulness of the Hudson Bay route, the Northwest is counting on immediate advantages from it. The _Manitoba Free Press_ exclaims: "To bring uncounted millions of acres of wheat in Western Canada a thousand miles nearer to the market in Europe, and make a saving of many millions of dollars every year in transportation charges, thereby ensuring higher prices to the farmers of the Prairie Provinces—this is what the opening up of the Hudson Bay outlet will achieve. It will mean a revolution in traffic routes and traffic rates. The immense amount of territory within the cost-saving reach of Hudson Bay, the New-World Mediterranean, will make this route one of the greatest trade arteries of the world. It will place the grain-growers of Western Canada in control of the markets of the world by making possible a great reduction in the cost of transportation. This saving will be brought about because the Hudson Bay route is by a very considerable distance the shortest route, and the saving is in the rail haul. … The total cultivable area in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta is some 175,000,000 acres. Even estimating the as yet uncultivated area as being only one-half as productive as that which has already come under the plow, a tenfold increase of the present production is to be counted upon."
{545}
"Roughly speaking," says a magazine article on the subject, "Churchill [one of the proposed Hudson Bay terminals] is just 1000 miles from the grain areas of Hill’s roads. New York is 2000 miles. Churchill is 1500 miles from Oregon. New York is nearly 3000. … The harbor itself could not have been better if it had been made to order. It is a direct 550-mile plain, open deep-water sailing from the west end of the Straits,—no shoals, no reefs, deep enough for the deepest-draft keel that ever sailed the sea."
Tentative surveys of two routes from Winnipeg were undertaken in October, 1908, and a report of them made in the following spring. They were favorable to the project on either line. That to Fort Churchill would have 465 miles of length and its cost was estimated at $11,608,000. The alternative line, to Fort Nelson, at the mouth of Nelson River, would be 397 miles long, and have an estimated cost of $8,677,000; but harbor construction at Fort Nelson would cost heavily. The report, however, recommended the latter route. Moreover, abundant water power is waiting development along the Nelson River, which might result in an economical electrification of the road. Furthermore, the report suggested possibilities of a canal along the river from Hudson Bay to Lake Winnipeg, and from the latter to Winnipeg city, through which ocean craft might ultimately reach the Manitoba metropolis.
In connection with this projected opening of a commercial route from America to Europe through Hudson Bay, a Danish writer has lately urged the Danish Government to bring Greenland into touch with it.
RAILWAYS: Canada: A. D. 1909. Important Ruling by the Railway Commission, affecting American Railways.
In June, 1909, an important decision of the Canadian Railway Commission was announced, "in the case of the Dawson Board of Trade against the Yukon and White Pass Railway Company, an English Corporation, laying down that by the amendment of the Railway Act passed last session all railways, whether originating in the United States or not, are under the jurisdiction of the Canadian board. The point involved is the question of rates on the White Pass, as to which counsel asserted that if ordinary rates were ordered to prevail it would be impossible to pay dividends. The board takes time to consider the question of rates in view of the details involved, but orders both the American and Canadian sections of the line to file figures before the board. It is probable that the rates of all American railways crossing Canada will by this decision come under the jurisdiction of the board. This will affect the Vanderbilt lines, which cross the Niagara peninsula, also the Hill lines, which enter Canada from Washington, Oregon, and other States. Railway men regard the decision as the most important in the history of Canada, because it gives the Canadian Commission power to regulate rates on American railways entering Canada."
RAILWAYS: Central Africa: A. D. 1909. Lines to Katanga.
In March, 1909, the _Temps_, of Paris, published information according to which the work of constructing the railway from the Upper Congo to the great Central African lakes was making such progress that communication with the Katanga mine fields would probably be established by the end of 1910. The British South Africa lines, also, are being pushed toward Katanga.
RAILWAYS: Chile-Bolivia: A. D. 1909. The Arica-La Paz Railway.
According to a Press despatch from Santiago de Chile, April 5, 1909, a contract for the great railway to be made across the Andes from Arica, in Chile, to La Paz, in Bolivia, attaining an elevation of upwards of 12,000 ft. and having a length of a little over 300 miles, had just been given to an English firm. The actual money voted for the scheme was said to be £3,000,000.
RAILWAYS: China: Extent of Railway Travel. Unused Concessions.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1904.
RAILWAYS: China: A. D. 1904-1909. The Hankau-Sze-chuan Railway Loan. American participation.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1904-1909.
RAILWAYS: China: A. D. 1909. The Fa-ku-menn Railway and the Antung-Mukden Railway questions between China and Japan.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1905-1909.
RAILWAYS: China: A. D. 1909. The Chinese Eastern Railway. New Russo-Chinese Agreement. Municipalities on the Line.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1909 (MAY).
RAILWAYS: China: A. D. 1909. Opening of the Peking-Kalgan Line. A purely Chinese undertaking.
The opening, October 2d, 1909, with grand ceremonies, of the Peking-Kalgan Railway, was an event of especial pride and satisfaction to the Chinese people. It has been, wrote a newspaper correspondent, "a purely Chinese undertaking, the chief engineer of which, Jeme Tienyow, a member of the Institute of Civil Engineers, and every employé are Chinese; but the rails and rolling stock are foreign. It has been paid for from the earnings of the Northern Railways, without foreign financial assistance.
"The line, the length of which is 122 miles, joins Peking with the important trade mart of Kalgan, piercing the Nankau Pass by four tunnels, the longest, under the Great Wall, being 3,580 ft. It taps extensive coalfields and is well and economically laid. Already the traffic is astonishing and will add to the wealth of the province and increase the earnings of the Northern Railways.
"The construction of the line has given training and experience to a body of young Chinese engineers, who will find ready employment in the future. The line will now be continued westwards through populous country to Kwei-hua-cheng and the Yellow River, a distance of 275 miles, the route for which was surveyed last year. This line will also be paid for from the earnings of the Northern Railways."
RAILWAYS: China: A. D. 1909-1910. Proposal to neutralize Manchurian Railways and to internationally finance a Chinchow-Aigun Line.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1909-1910.
RAILWAYS: England: A. D. 1907-1909. Adopted System in Great Britain for pacific Settlement of Labor Disputes in the Railway Service.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: ENGLAND: A. D. 1907-1909.
RAILWAYS: England: A. D. 1908. No Passengers killed by Train Accidents.
The British public had the happiness of being informed that no passenger was killed by a train accident on the railways of Great Britain in 1908, and also that the number of passengers injured—283—was not only 251 less than in 1907 and 345 less than in 1906, but, like the number of killed, was less than any previously recorded.
{546}
RAILWAYS: France: A. D. 1908. Government purchase of the Western Railway.
In June, 1908, the French Government secured legislation authorizing it to purchase the Western Railway of France, which adds 3100 miles to the previous 2500 miles of State-owned railways. The purchase is said to have been made with the expectation "that sufficient pressure will be brought on the other railway companies to make them adopt the methods of management applied by the State to its railways."
RAILWAYS: France: A. D. 1909. The Pensioning of State Railway Employés.
See (in this Volume) POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: FRANCE.
RAILWAYS: Mexico: A. D. 1906. Nationalizing of the Mexican Railway System. Opening of the Tehuantepec Railway.
"1906 was a year of railway consolidations in Mexico. In March last, the National Railway of Mexico bought the Hidalgo Railway, which starts from the capital, passes through the important mining camp of Pachuca, and will ultimately reach the port of Tuxpam on the Gulf of Mexico. But by far the most important operation of the year along these lines was announced by Finance Minister Limantour on December 14. The Minister, in an address to Congress, informed that body that the negotiations, which for some time past had been in progress, for the reorganization of the finances of the Mexican Central Railway, had culminated in a plan for the consolidation of that property with the Mexican National, and the incorporation of a new company, with headquarters in the City of Mexico, to own and operate the merged system. Moreover, the Minister informed the legislature that the Mexican government, which had owned a controlling interest in the Mexican National, would hold an absolute majority of the stock of the new corporation.
"The transaction is an important one, as by it the Mexican government gains unquestioned control of the transportation system of the Republic."
_F. R. Guernsey, The Year in Mexico (Atlantic Monthly, March, 1907)._
Early in November, 1906, President Diaz formally opened the Tehuantepec Railway. The event marks the completion of the plan first proposed by Cortez four hundred years ago, when he wrote to the king of Spain concerning the feasibility of a canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific by this route, though he little dreamt of a railway.
RAILWAYS: Mexico: A. D. 1909. Extended Governmental Control of Railways.
"The most important step ever taken by the Mexican Government in connexion with transportation was completed on February 1, when the amalgamation of the National lines and the Mexican Central Railway became operative. With this achievement the Government secured control of 7,012 miles of railway, thus possessing a majority of the stock of the national lines and 70 per cent. of the stock of the Mexican Central. The combination includes, apart from the Mexican Central, the National, International and Interoceanic lines. The Government likewise controls the Vera Cruz and Pacific Railroad, with 265 miles, and the Tehuantepec National, with 206 miles."
_Correspondence London Times, July 16, 1909._
RAILWAYS: Mono-Rail System, The Brennan Gyroscopic.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE AND INVENTION: RAILWAYS.
RAILWAYS: Netherlands: Laws against Railway Strikes.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1903.
RAILWAYS: New York: A. D. 1907. The Public Service Commissions Act.
See (in this Volume) NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1906-1910; and PUBLIC UTILITIES.
RAILWAYS: New Zealand: A. D. 1909. No more building by the Government of Railways not likely to pay Interest on Cost.
A despatch from Wellington, New Zealand, to the English Press, October 18, 1909, reported that "the Premier has made an important announcement regarding his future railway construction policy. He said that the Government would not undertake the building of any more lines that were likely not to pay. If the people wanted such lines they would have to guarantee their earnings up to 3 per cent."
RAILWAYS: Nigeria: A. D. 1909. Rapid development of the Railway System.
Early in 1909 Press despatches to London announced that "a junction had been effected between the rails proceeding northwards from Lagos and the rails proceeding southward from Jebba on the Niger River. This places the Niger River, at a point some 500 miles from its mouth, in direct communication by rail with the town of Lagos, the capital of Southern Nigeria, and fulfils the wishes of the inhabitants of Lagos that ‘the iron horse should drink of the waters of the Niger.’"
"The completion of the southern branch of the Nigerian railway system," said a correspondent, "as far as Jebba on the Niger is an event of considerable significance in the history of British action in West Africa. The Anglo-French Agreement of 1898 secured us in the possession of what is undoubtedly the most interesting portion of West Africa; interesting above all from the character of its varied inhabitants—the agricultural Yoruba, the keen Hausa trader and manufacturer, the Fulani, by turn statesman and ruler or wandering herdsman. To this region—to many parts of it at least—Islam has brought its schools, its literature, and an effective system of administration."
RAILWAYS: Rhodesia: Rapid Extension of Railways.
See (in this Volume) RHODESIA.
RAILWAYS: Switzerland: A. D. 1905. Completion of the Tunnel under the Simplon Pass.
The tunnel under the Simplon Pass, between Brigue, Switzerland, and Iselle, Italy, was finished February 24th, 1905, after seven years work and at a cost of $14,000,000. It is twelve miles long,—two and three-quarters miles longer than the St. Gothard tunnel. It opens direct railway communication between Paris and Milan.
RAILWAYS: Switzerland: A. D. 1909. Government Purchase of the St. Gothard Railway.
The St. Gothard Tunnel and Railway were built under an agreement (1879) with the Swiss Government under which the latter reserved the right of buying the St. Gothard within thirty years, and the price arranged was twenty-five times the amount of the net profits of the line during the last ten years of working. The right was exercised in the spring of 1909, and thus the last of the principal Swiss lines passed into the possession of the Government. The St. Gothard Company at first demanded 215,800,000 francs, but eventually accepted 212,500,000 francs. The Confederation took over the debt of the company--117,090,000 francs ($23,418,000) with 3½ per cent. interest, and paid six million francs for expenses of the issue of the company’s loans.
{547}
RAILWAYS: Turkey: A. D. 1899-1909. The Bagdad Railway.
In January, 1902, the Turkish Sultan signed a convention which provides a guarantee, to the extent of 12,000 francs per kilometre for the undertaking of the Bagdad Railway, to build which a concession had been obtained by a German syndicate in 1899.
See, in Volume VI. of this work, TURKEY: A. D. 1899--NOVEMBER).
The new railway was to be an extension of the existing Anatolian Railway, starting from the terminus of the latter at Konieh and running, via Bagdad, to some point on the Persian Gulf, the selection of which was left for future arrangement. The line, with its branches, was to have a length of 2,500 kilometres or about 1550 miles.
A further convention respecting this project was signed in March, 1903, concerning which the following statement was made in the British Parliament on the 23d of that month by the Premier, Mr. Balfour: "A copy of the convention, concluded March 5, 1903, between the Turkish Government and the Anatolian Railway Company is in our possession. It leaves the whole scheme of railway development through Asia Minor to the Persian Gulf entirely in the hands of a company under German control. To such a convention we have never been asked to assent, and we could not in any case be a party to it."
Mr. David Fraser, a young traveller of experience, was commissioned by the _Times of India_ in 1907 to follow the proposed route of the Bagdad Railway and report on its prospects. He started from Constantinople, and traversed the completed portion of the line to where it breaks off suddenly some ten kilometres east of Eregli, "with its pair of rails," he wrote, "gauntly projecting from the permanent way and pointing in dumb amazement where the Taurus shares the horizon with the very skies." "They have now," said the _London Times_ not long since, "been pointing thus for nearly five years, to the bewilderment of those who, not knowing the country, imagined, in 1904, that with Germany determined and Turkey desirous to push ahead, the Bagdad line would go forward with inevitable march towards its distant goal."
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1908. Damascus to Mecca. The Pilgrims’ Road.
"The Damascus to Mecca Railway has many remarkable features which distinguish it from other lines. Its principal object is to provide a means for faithful Moslems to perform their pilgrimage to the holy places of Mecca and Medina with a greater degree of comfort than formerly. Its inception is due to the initiative of the present Sultan, and the enthusiasm created by its first announcement brought in subscriptions from the faithful in all parts of the Islamic world."
The length of the line from Damascus to Mecca is 1097 miles.
"The gauge of the line is the somewhat curious one of 1.05 meter (3 feet 5¼ inches), which was necessary, when the line was first commenced, to correspond with the gauge of the Beirut-Damascus line, over which the rolling stock had to be brought."
_Colonel F. R. Maunsell, National Geographic Magazine, February, 1909._
The line was opened to Medina early in the autumn of 1908.
RAILWAYS: United States of America: A. D. 1870-1908. Railway Rate Regulation. Its slow Development. "Granger" Legislation in the Middle West. State Commissions. Defiant Rebating. Tardy Federal Legislation. The Interstate Commerce Act, 1887, 1906. President Roosevelt on the subject.
The creation of largely capitalized and therefore powerful corporations was first developed in a rapid and extensive way by the modern enterprise of railway building; and the railways became soon so essentially related to every kind of interest, personal or general, that they naturally gave rise to the earliest of the specially modern problems of public policy concerning corporations which required to be solved. For a long period society had no call to defend itself against monopolistic combinations among its railway corporations; because it was long before seriously competitive lines of rail could be built. Each served its own belt of country; but each company owning and managing a line held therefore, in itself, a monopoly of the transportation agency it had created, and could, in an unchecked management of that agency, either wrong its whole clientele by excessive rates of charge, or wrong one part of it by some favoritism of unequal rates. Those were the original abuses of opportunity and power which provoked defensive measures of law. Naturally the earlier undertakings of defence in the United States were by State legislation, since nearly all charters of incorporation for business purposes have been derived from the States. Wherever the operations of business conducted under such charters extend over more than a single State, the constitutional power of Congress to "regulate commerce … among the several States" gives it an undoubted right to take part in the regulation of them; but it was slow to exercise that right. The following abridgment of an excellent sketch of the slow development of railway-rate regulation gives the essential facts. It is quoted from extensively by kind permission of its authors and of The _Boston Evening Transcript_ for which it was prepared:
"Perhaps the most remarkable fact in the whole history of interstate transportation is that, despite flagrant abuses, Federal regulation was held off until 1887. Within the States themselves railroad rates had been often subjected to severe regulation: yet even the public excitement which accompanied the ‘granger’ legislation between 1870 and 1880 did not result in Federal legislation. In several States, notably in the Middle West, during that epoch, detailed statutes were passed fixing maximum rates which by no present standard could be said to be anything but outrageous. In those times the Federal courts held that they would not consider legislation as confiscatory if it left to the railroad one cent of net profit above operating expenses. But even with this rule, now almost incredible, it was found in the next decade that much of the rate-fixing under the State statutes was unconstitutional. {548} Nor was the situation much ameliorated by the later establishment of State commissions, for many of them, according to the present standards, flagrantly abused their powers. … After the first outburst more conservative counsels generally prevailed. The movement met much opposition in its progress throughout the country, and although commissions were generally created in the East, they were given no final powers over rates. Then a reaction set in, due in part to the prostration of the Western roads. … Much wise legislation dates from this period, and many State commissions acted in a moderate spirit. The history of railroad legislation in these seventeen years illustrated, however, the slow process by which a popular movement culminates in Federal legislation; and good law or bad, proper action or improper action, the legislation of the States supplied experience in view of which Congress could act wisely when, in 1887, Federal legislation became inevitable. That this legislation had become inevitable was due very largely to the continued abuse of their commercial power by the railroad managers. For several years public opinion as to railroad discrimination had become so well settled as to work a real change in the common law, yet the railroad officials persistently defied it. Rebating, which, as late as 1875, was at common law merely a doubtful practice, by 1885 had become generally accepted as an illegal business; but this change the railroads refused to recognize in any other way than to make their practices more secret. It was public indignation against long continued illegal discrimination and undue preference which brought down upon the railways the inter-State commerce legislation in 1887. The wonder is, in view of the railway practices, that it did not come sooner. But however well behaved the railways might have been, Federal regulation would have come inevitably long before the end of the nineteenth century, in accordance with the general current of public opinion that public services could no longer go without governmental regulation. Still the
## act itself as finally passed was really very conservative,
when the nature of the crisis is considered. … By the principal provisions of the Interstate Commerce act the railways were forbidden: (1) To charge unreasonable rates; (2) To discriminate between persons; (8) To give preference between localities; (4) To charge less for a long haul than for a shorter haul included within it ‘under substantially similar circumstances.’ These provisions were undoubtedly intended by the majority of those who framed the act as rather radical legislation, which should materially affect the practice of the railroads; but the conservative force of judicial decision soon modified the intended force of the act. From the outset the commission claimed that it not merely had power under the act to forbid any unreasonable rate upon complaint made, but that also, in giving relief, it might indicate to the railroad what should be the reasonable rate thenceforth. But within ten years the Supreme Court decided that the commission had no power to fix rates at all. This was a famous victory for the railroad bar, for without an authoritative statement by the commission of what rate it would regard as reasonable, even a railroad which yielded obedience to the decree of the commission without appeal to the courts, could make a slight reduction in the rate, and any dissatisfied shipper would be obliged to enter again into an expensive and dilatory litigation. In this way the railroads tired out objecting shippers; but in the process they stimulated a widespread demand for a power in the commission to fix rates similar to that given to many State commissions and to the corresponding body in Great Britain. The long and short haul clause provided that exceptions to it must be by special dispensation from the commission. … But tucked away in the section was the vague phrase, ‘under substantially similar circumstances,’ which proved its destruction. At first the commission began to enforce the act according to its obvious reading, and to grant dispensations from its operation on petition of the railroad in proper cases. But the whole effort of the railway counsel was concentrated upon the courts, and it was finally held that wherever there was competition at the distant points, the conditions were dissimilar with those at the intervening points of any benefit from the clause. Water competition was first held an excuse for a lower rate for the longer haul. Then rail competition was recognized. Next potential competition over existing routes was held enough. But finally the courts refused to consider the mere possibility of new routes. … Commercial cities and towns were left at the mercy of the railways, as they had been before the act, and the long and short-haul clause became a dead letter. This was a cause of most bitter complaint; yet, singularly enough, when the amendments of 1906 were adopted, no attempt was made to amend this clause. … Further action by the Federal Government was foreshowed as before by a very considerable body of legislation throughout the United States, between 1900 and 1905. In many States there was an unfortunate recrudescence of the ill-advised ‘granger’ legislation, by the passing of statutes fixing maximum rates; but this time it was passenger rates which were chiefly attacked, while before it had been freight rates. The two-cent fare was a popular programme in this period, and it all but swept the country. Some legislatures, however, defied it, and some governors stood out against the legislatures. … The legislation of this period had, however, another branch which was well-advised. It is the general characteristic of this legislation that it confers on the railroad commission the power, while setting aside unreasonable rates, of fixing a maximum rate. The giving of such power to the interstate Commission was the principal point in the programme for further Federal legislation. One other general power that has been given to State commissions in the legislation since 1900 is the authority to compel railroads to furnish proper facilities, together with power of supervision of management in other respects, which is adopted in the Federal legislation of 1906 in an experimental way. Those who would understand the Federal legislation in its latest form should study the most recent railroad regulation in Minnesota and Wisconsin, Indiana and New York. … As finally adopted, the act of 1906 [known as the Hepburn Act] is in form of a series of amendments to the original act of 1887. … The main object in most of the legislation was to strengthen still further the power of the commission over rates and rebates. {549} In regard to these, the amendments affected change chiefly along these two lines. (1) Power is given to the commission to fix maximum rates in cases where, upon complaint, the rates fixed by the railroad were found to be excessive. This includes the power to fix joint through rates. (2) Rebating is forbidden under heavy penalties, civil and criminal, both to the railroad and to the shipper; and the cases in which a reduced rate can be given are enumerated."
_Joseph H. Beale and Bruce Wyman, Two Years of the Railroad Rate Law (Boston Evening Transcript, October 10, 1908)._
It was through no fault of the President that effective legislation to suppress secret rebates and other practices of favoritism to large shippers by the railways came so tardily from Congress, as appears above. In his first Message, of December, 1901, he began urging the needed amendments to the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, saying:
"That law was largely an experiment. Experience has shown the wisdom of its purposes, but has also shown, possibly, that some of its requirements are wrong, certainly that the means devised for the enforcement of its provisions are defective. … The act should be amended. The railway is a public servant. Its rates should be just to and open to all shippers alike. The Government should see to it that within its jurisdiction this is so and should provide a speedy, inexpensive, and effective remedy to that end. At the same time it must not be forgotten that our railways are the arteries through which the commercial life-blood of this Nation flows. Nothing could be more foolish than the enactment of legislation which would unnecessarily interfere with the development and operation of these commercial agencies. The subject is one of great importance and calls for the earnest attention of the Congress."
For five years after this reasonable and most just recommendation was addressed to Congress, the special interests opposed to public interests in the matter were represented so controllingly in that body that the impotences of the law remained uncured. In the Presidential Message of 1904 a more imperative language on the subject was used. "It is necessary," said the Chief Magistrate, "to put a complete stop to all rebates. Whether the shipper or the railroad is to blame makes no difference; the rebate must be stopped, the abuses of the private car and private terminal-track and side-track systems must be stopped, and the legislation of the Fifty-eighth Congress which declares it to be unlawful for any person or corporation to offer, grant, give, solicit, accept, or receive any rebate, concession, or discrimination in respect of the transportation of any property in interstate or foreign commerce whereby such property shall by any device whatever be transported at a less rate than that named in the tariffs published by the earner must be enforced. … The Government must in increasing degree supervise and regulate the workings of the railways engaged in interstate commerce; and such increased supervision is the only alternative to an increase of the present evils on the one hand or a still more radical policy on the other. In my judgment the most important legislative act now needed as regards the regulation of corporations is this act to confer on the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to revise rates and regulations, the revised rate to at once go into effect, and to stay in effect unless and until the court of review reverses it."
Still Congress did nothing in response to this demand, which was the demand of the American public, uttered by its chief and truest representative. Another year passed, and when the next annual communication of counsel from the national executive to the national legislature came forth, all other topics in it were overshadowed by this. The force of argument, admonition, and pleading in the Message was fairly overpowering, and it went to a newly chosen Congress in which the people had represented themselves with somewhat better effect. The result was the amending act of 1906.
In the energy of the President’s advocacy of this legislation there was nothing of animosity to the railway corporations. His most impressive arguments, for example, were such as these: "I believe that on the whole our railroads have done well and not ill; but the railroad men who wish to do well should not be exposed to competition with those who have no such desire, and the only way to secure this end is to give to some government tribunal the power to see that justice is done by the unwilling exactly as it is gladly done by the willing. Moreover, if some Government body is given increased power the effect will be to furnish authoritative answer on behalf of the railroad whenever irrational clamor against it is raised, or whenever charges made against it are disproved. I ask this legislation not only in the interest of the public but in the interest of the honest railroad man and the honest shipper alike, for it is they who are chiefly jeoparded by the practices of their dishonest competitors."
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1890-1902. Application of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law of 1890 to Railway Combinations and Poolings of Rates. The Trans-Missouri Freight Association Case. Decision of the Supreme Court. Remarks of the Industrial Commission.
In the period between 1870 and 1880 the widening of combination and organization in all fields of heavily capitalized industry began, especially in America, to attain proportions that could be dangerous to social interests in many ways, by its concentration of the power that money commands. Alarming possibilities of monopoly, of oppression to labor, of political corruption, of commercial tyranny exercised in many forms, were all involved. At the same time the processes working in this matter were wholly those of a natural evolution, and were shaping human industry, very plainly and surely, to perfected economic conditions and results. Serious problems in government were thus pressed on public attention for the first time. How to realize the economic benefits which industrial organization on the large scale can produce, and which are unattainable without it, and be at the same time securely defended in all social and common interests against selfishly hostile uses of the power so engendered, became then a subject of anxious debate, and the satisfying answer to it has not yet been found.
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Railway companies were now no longer alone, as corporations that challenge the exercise of public authority to control their performance of the public service for which they were chartered. The growth of mammoth organisms of business in other fields—such, for example, as the Standard Oil Company—had reached startling proportions, and the power of oppression in them was being displayed. Economists, jurists, and thoughtful legislators were giving earnest study to the problems they raised. The difficulty of the problem, in the United States more than in other countries, because of the divided jurisdictions in government under the federal system, is made plain by Mr. E. Parmalee Prentice, in the seventh chapter of his treatise on "The Federal Power over Carriers and Corporations." Before Congress attempted legislation for a general control of commercial combinations that were operative in the country at large, there was much searching for an adequate ground of constitutional power. In the first instance it was sought for, not in the authority to regulate commerce, but in the taxing power, or the right of government to protect itself from injury to the operation of its revenue laws. When this was given up there were efforts to frame an act "in restraint of competition in the production, manufacture or sale of goods ‘that in due course of trade shall be transported from one State’ to another." But, says Mr. Prentice, "a statute of this nature could be sustained only on the ground of an anticipating and continuing jurisdiction over every article which, at any period in its history—from production commenced to consumption completed—had ever crossed, or would cross, State lines, and over every buyer and every seller of such article." This, too, was abandoned, as "an attempt to do the impossible." "The clause relating to diversity of citizenship was stricken out, and the bill once more rested upon the narrow power to regulate commerce." As it finally passed the two houses of Congress and was approved by the President, July 2d, 1890, this much discussed and much litigated piece of legislation, known as the Sherman Act, embodied its purpose in the first two sections, which read as follows:
"Section 1. Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is hereby declared to be illegal. Every person who shall make any such contract or engage in any such combination or conspiracy, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court.
"Section 2. Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court."
"In a number of early cases," says the writer already quoted, "the act was applied to combinations of laborers to interrupt the free passage from State to State, the defendants in most instances being railroad employees. At this point in the process of judicial construction the case of the Freight Association [United States v. Trans-Missouri Freight Association] presented to the Supreme Court the question whether the act applied to interstate carriers. Of the intention of Congress there is probably little doubt. Railroad transportation had been covered in 1887 by the Interstate Commerce Act. The Sherman Act of 1890 was intended to cover not transportation, but trade."
The suit of the United States against the Trans-Missouri Freight Association, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad Co., and others, was brought for the dissolution of an association or combination alleged to be in restraint of trade, and in violation therefore of the Act of July 2, 1890, called the Sherman Anti-Trust Law. It was tried originally in November, 1892, before United States District Judge Riner, of the Kansas District, who ruled that the law did not apply, and dismissed the case. On appeal it was tried again with the same result the next year before Circuit Judge Sanborn and District Judges Shiras and Thayer. Judges Sanborn and Thayer affirmed the judgment of the District Court, while Judge Shiras dissented. The question then went for final adjudication to the Supreme Court, where it was argued on the 8th and 9th of December, 1896, and decided on the 22d of March, 1897. The opinion of the Court, delivered by Justice Peckham, reversed the judgment of the courts below, affirming that the Anti-Trust Act applies to railroads, and that it renders illegal all agreements which are in restraint of trade. The case was accordingly remanded to the Circuit Court "for further proceedings in conformity with this opinion." Justices White, Field, Gray, and Shiras dissented from the opinion of the majority.
"In the Final Report (transmitted to Congress in February, 1902), of the Industrial Commission, created by Act of Congress in 1898, this case of the Trans-Missouri Freight Association, and the general status at that time of questions involved in it, are discussed at length, and partly as follows:
"It is of peculiar interest to note that this leading case was decided, not upon interpretation of the interstate commerce
## act itself, but under the provisions of the Sherman anti-trust
law of 1890. … Two questions were plainly before the court: First whether the Sherman anti-trust law applied to and covered common carriers by railroad; and secondly, whether the Trans-Missouri Freight Association violated any provision of that act by being an unreasonable restraint upon trade. The court itself acknowledged that it was doubtful whether Congress originally intended to include railroads under the prohibitory provisions of the anti-trust law. Counsel for the carriers showed, it would seem conclusively, that an amendment proposed by Mr. Bland to include railroads in the prohibition was rejected. The dissenting Supreme Court justices maintained that in the absence of a specific application of the anti-trust law to railroads, inasmuch as the anti-trust law was a general act, while the act to regulate commerce, antedating it by three years, was specific, the latter exempted the railroads, in any case, from the drastic provisions of the Sherman Act against combinations in restraint of trade. The court refused to consider other than mere questions of law, holding that if pooling were excepted it was the province of Congress to take appropriate action. …
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"It has very frequently been asserted that a primary cause of the notable tendency toward railroad consolidation since 1898 was the definitive prohibition of all varieties of traffic contracts or agreements by the Trans-Missouri Freight Association decision of 1897. This decision, as has already been indicated, was rendered upon the basis of the Sherman anti-trust law, without contemplation of the prohibitive provision of the Act to regulate commerce of 1887. According to the opinion of many jurists, in fact, the latter act could not reasonably have been construed to prohibit many of the traffic agreements which have been customary between carriers. It has been urged with great force that coöperation among the railroads having been finally adjudged illegal, it became necessary to have recourse to a more drastic remedy, namely, consolidation in some of its various forms. … The first difference to be noted between pooling and consolidation is that the latter is much more comprehensive in its scope. … Agreements for the division of traffic constitute but the mere machinery by which a certain result is to be attained. … Experience has abundantly shown that it is possible for railroads to maintain a large part of their identity, even reserving to themselves the power to make rates independently, under a pool, in exceptional cases, without thereby entirely nullifying the steadying influences of such traffic agreements. Consolidation, however, necessarily involves the unification of all interests as between railroads. … In brief, pooling may still permit competition in respect to facilities. It may merely eliminate the ruinous phases of competition in rates, leaving still in force the healthful influences of reasonable rivalry. Consolidation proceeds to the uttermost to stifle competition of all kinds, whether in respect of rates or of facilities. … A second point to be kept in mind as between the effects of consolidation and pooling lies in the fact that consolidation can never hope to accomplish the steadying influence upon rates which is claimed for railroad pools, until such time as every railroad within a given competitive territory shall have been bought up and absorbed. … A division of territory into a number of specific groups, each absolutely monopolized by one interest, seems to be the only logical outcome of the consolidations which have been already accomplished. …
"Pools and pooling still exist: although outwardly called gentlemen’s agreement or disguised in some other way, it is incontestable that in every case where consolidation has not proceeded to its uttermost limits, as in New England, traffic agreements exist. Railroad men are almost unanimous in the expression of their desire to have the inhibition removed. Representatives of commercial interests have, in the main, acceded to this opinion. As has been shown, the prohibition was not contemplated originally. It was included in the act only as a concession to certain opponents of pooling in the House of Representatives. … On the other hand, it is universally recognized that certain dangers to the shipper are incident to such action. Railroad pools may, and certainly have, in some instances, operated either to raise rates, or to maintain them in face of a tendency to decline. As a consequence, the majority of these appeals for remedial legislation are accompanied by a demand that pooling, if once more permitted by law, shall be subject to governmental approval and supervision."
_Final Report of the Industrial Commission, pages 338-348._
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1901-1905. The Northern Securities Case. Another test of the Sherman Act. The question of the Legality of Combination between Corporations through a "Holding Company."
At about the time when the Industrial Commission was producing its final report, from which the above is taken, the courts of the United States were called on to give attention to another mode, distinctly different from either "pooling" agreements or corporate consolidation, by which an effective combination of railway lines could be secured. It came to the consideration of the courts in the case of the Northern Securities Company, which was famous in its day. Briefly related, the case arose as follows:
Although the Great Northern Railway and the Northern Pacific Railway traverse the same Northwestern section of the United States, from the Mississippi River and the western extremity of the Great Lakes to the Pacific Coast, at no great distance apart, there was not rivalry, but a community of interest between them, in 1901, when the corporations to which they belong became joint purchasers of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railway system, in order to secure for each of them a direct connection with Chicago, under their joint control. This achievement of the powerful railway interests controlled by James J. Hill was followed by what is known in Wall Street as a "raid" on the stock of the Northern Pacific, by the Union Pacific interests, headed by E. H. Harriman, with the object of securing votes to elect the next board of directors in that corporation, and thus control the whole Northern transcontinental combination. The outcome of the fierce struggle was a compromise, from which issued the famous "holding company" known as the Northern Securities Company, incorporated on the 12th of November, 1901, under the accommodating laws of the State of New Jersey. The term "holding company" describes precisely the function which this corporation was created to perform. In the language of its charter, "the objects for which the corporation is formed are: To acquire by purchase, subscription or otherwise, and to hold as investment, any bonds or other securities or evidences of indebtedness. … To purchase, hold, sell, assign, transfer, mortgage, pledge, or otherwise dispose of, any bonds or other securities or evidences of indebtedness created or issued by any other corporation. … To purchase, hold … etc., shares of capital stock of any other corporation … and, while owner of such stock, to exercise all the rights, powers and privileges of ownership, including the right to vote thereon."
{552}
The specific plan of operation was set forth in a circular issued by the Northern Securities Company, on the 22d of November, 1901, to holders of the stock of the Great Northern Railway Company, which said: "The Northern Securities Company, incorporated under the laws of the State of New Jersey, with an authorized capital stock of $400,000,000, and with power to invest in and hold the securities of other companies, has commenced business, and has acquired from several large holders of stock of the Great Northern Railway Company a considerable amount of that stock. A uniform price has been paid of $180 per share, in the fully paid stock of this company, at par. This company is ready to purchase additional shares of the same stock at the same price, payable in the same manner, and will accept offers made on that basis if made within the next sixty days."
"It seems," says Professor Meyer, in his "History of the Northern Securities Case," "that the capitalization of $400,000,000 was fixed at that figure in order to cover approximately the combined capital stock of the Northern Pacific and Great Northern at an agreed price apparently based upon earning capacity. The par value of the outstanding capital stock of the Great Northern was $123,880,400, and that of the Northern Pacific amounted to $155,000,000. The Northern Securities Company purchased about seventy-six per cent. of the former and ninety-six per cent. of the latter, on the basis of $115 per share of $100 of Northern Pacific and $180 per share of $100 of the Great Northern."
From the side of the railway interests concerned, this holding together of the stocks of the two corporations which owned between them the connecting Burlington line to Chicago was a necessary business transaction. Their view of it was stated subsequently by Mr. Hill, in testimony given during proceedings which tested the legality of the holding company, when he said: "With the Northern Pacific as a half-owner in the shares of the Burlington and responsibility for one-half of the purchase price of these shares, the transfers of the shares of the Northern Pacific or the control of the Northern Pacific to an interest that was adverse or an interest that had greater investments in other directions, the control being in the hands of companies whose interests would be injured by the growth and development of this country would, of course, put the Great Northern in a position where it would be almost helpless, because we would be, as it were, fenced out of the territory south which produces the tonnage we want to take west and which consumes the tonnage we want to bring east, and the Great Northern would be in a position where it would have to make a hard fight—either survive or perish, or else sell out to the other interests. The latter would be the most business-like proceeding."
On the other hand, from the standpoint of public interests, the combination looked dangerous to the Northwestern States, as being a suppression of competition and a creation of monopoly in railway transportation, and it was quickly announced that the Governor of Minnesota had determined to invite the Governors of States affected by the transaction to a conference, for the purpose of considering "the best methods of fighting the Northern Securities Company’s propositions in the courts and by new legislation, if necessary." The result of the conference was a suit undertaken by the State of Minnesota, at first in the Supreme Court of the United States, where it was found to be impracticable, but finally begun in the United States Circuit Court. This State action was soon followed by proceedings taken by the Federal Government. Attorney-General Knox was asked by the President for an opinion as to the legality of the procedure involved in the formation of the Northern Securities Company, and replied that, in his judgment it violated the provisions of the Sherman Act of 1890. The President then "directed that suitable action should be taken to have the question judicially determined." Suit was begun accordingly on the 10th of March, 1902, by the United States, in the United States Circuit Court at St. Paul, against the three companies, —Northern Securities, Great Northern, and Northern Pacific. Testimony was taken in St. Paul and New York, and the case was argued in March, 1903, at St. Louis, before a special trial court, composed of four circuit judges. The decision rendered by this court, the four judges concurring, declared the transaction illegal, and enjoined the Northern Securities Company from performing the acts that it was intended to perform. This decision was contradicted, however, by one given at about the same time in the suit of the State of Minnesota, which had its trial in the United States Circuit Court for the District of Minnesota. There the legality of the formation of the Northern Securities Company was affirmed.
Appeals from both decisions were taken to the Supreme Court, and that of the special trial court, in the suit of the Federal Government, which declared the procedure involved in the formation of the Northern Securities Company to be in violation of the Sherman Act of 1890, was fully sustained by a majority of the Court, in March, 1904. In the opinion of the majority of the justices, "if Congress has not, by the words used in the Act, described this and like cases, it would, we apprehend, be impossible to find words that would describe them."
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1906.
The Court below was authorized accordingly to execute its decree against the Securities Company. A little later the Supreme Court decided in the Minnesota State suit that it had no jurisdiction, and sent the case back, to be remanded to the State court from which it had been originally removed. With this case nothing further was done.
In connection with the undoing of the Northern Securities Company’s operations, to reconvey the property for which it had issued its stock, fresh litigation arose, over questions that touched the construction to be put on the court’s decree. This, too, went up to the Supreme Court of the United States, and was decided there in March, 1905; but it has no important bearing on the questions involved in the original case.
{553}
In the final chapter of his history of the case, Professor Meyer has this to say of it: "The chief interest of the Northern Securities case lies in the magnitude of the interests involved and in the variety of the economic and legal problems which were incidentally drawn into the controversy. From the point of view of railway organization the case presents little of consequence, except that railway corporate organization, in the process of metamorphosis or evolution, must, avoid the technicality of the particular type of holding company which the Northern Securities Company represented. From the point of view of railway regulation and the relations between the general public interests and private railway management, the case has no significance whatsoever, in spite of the fact that action against the Securities Company arose out of alleged injurious consequences to the public. It was assumed that competition had been stifled, without first asking the question whether competition had actually existed; and whether, if competition could be perpetuated, the public would profit by it."
_Balthazer Henry Meyer, A History of the Northern Securities Case (Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, Number 142)._
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1901-1909. The Harriman System. Its Creation. Its Magnitude. The Rapid Rise of the late E. H. Harriman to Financial Power.
On the death of the late Edward H. Harriman, which occurred on the 9th of September, 1909, it was said that he was the absolute dictator of 75,000 miles of railroad in the United States—about one-third of the country’s total mileage of railways—besides being a leading director in four ocean steamship lines, two trust companies, and three banks. Some time previously the Interstate Commerce Commission, in the report of its investigation of the Union Pacific Railroad management, said of him: "Mr. Harriman may journey by steamship from New York to New Orleans, thence by rail to San Francisco, across the Pacific Ocean to China, and, returning by another route to the United States, may go to Ogden by any one of three rail lines, and thence to Kansas City or Omaha, without leaving the deck or platform of a carrier which he controls, and without duplicating any part of his journey."
In the same report, referring to one of the most questionable of Harriman’s financial operations, the Commission remarked that it was "rich in illustrations of various methods of indefensible financing," but added that it was no part of the Harriman policy to permit the properties under the Union Pacific control to degenerate. "As railroads," it was said, "they are better properties to-day, with lower grades, straighter tracks, and more ample equipment than they were when they came under that control. Large sums have been generously expended in the carrying on of engineering works and betterments which make for the improvement of the service and the permanent value of the property."
On the occasion of Mr. Harriman’s death, the New York _Evening Post_, reviewing his career, said of him that "his worst enemies are forced to admit that as a railroad executive he had no peer. What he found on taking charge of the Union Pacific was two dirt ballasted streaks of rust. The stations along the mountain grades were tumbled-down shacks, and most of the equipment was fit only for the scrap pile. Moreover, there was no organization. From top to bottom of the staff the men had lost heart. In 1898 the Union Pacific was suffering from bankruptcy, brought on by years of political and financial intrigue. But when Harriman got his grip on the property he said to his associates: ‘We will rebuild it and do it right away.’
Harriman’s plans called for hundreds of millions of dollars for new rails, lower grades, and modern cars, locomotives, and terminals. After a struggle the Union Pacific directors came around to his way of thinking."
"It is necessary to remember," said the _Post_, in another article, "in summing up the Wall Street side of Mr. Harriman’s history, that fifteen years ago he was hardly known, even in railway circles; that ten years ago, his name would have conveyed no meaning or association to the general public; that even at the inception of the celebrated Northern Pacific fight of 1901 [see above, under date of 1901-1905], in which he was actually a chief protagonist, Wall Street mentioned his name only incidentally in connection with it. The fight, as the Stock Exchange and the newspapers then saw it, was waged between the ‘Standard Oil interest,’ and the ‘Morgan interest,’ and the Union Pacific’s chairman cut little individual figure in the public view."
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1903 (February). Act of Congress to Further Regulate Commerce with Foreign Nations and among the States, known commonly as "the Elkins Law."
The following are the essential provisions of the Act, approved February 19, 1903, which is commonly referred to as the Elkins Anti-Rebate Law:
"The willful failure upon the part of any carrier subject to said Acts to file and publish the tariffs or rates and charges as required by said Acts or strictly to observe such tariffs until changed according to law, shall be a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof the corporation offending shall be subject to a fine not less than one thousand dollars nor more than twenty thousand dollars for each offense; and it shall be unlawful for any person, persons, or corporation to offer, grant, or give or to solicit, accept, or receive any rebate, concession, or discrimination in respect of the transportation of any property in interstate or foreign commerce by any common carrier subject to said Act to regulate commerce and the Acts amendatory thereto whereby any such property shall by any device whatever be transported at a less rate than that named in the tariffs published and filed by such carrier, as is required by said Act to regulate commerce and the Acts amendatory thereto, or whereby any other advantage is given or discrimination is practiced. Every person or corporation who shall offer, grant, or give or solicit, accept or receive any such rebates, concession, or discrimination shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine of not less than one thousand dollars nor more than twenty thousand dollars. In all convictions occurring after the passage of this Act for offences under said Acts to regulate commerce, whether committed before or after the passage of this Act, or for offenses under this section, no penalty shall be imposed on the convicted party other than the fine prescribed by law, imprisonment wherever now prescribed as part of the penalty being hereby abolished. Every violation of this section shall be prosecuted in any court of the United States having jurisdiction of crimes within the district in which such violation was committed or through which the transportation may have been conducted; and whenever the offense is begun in one jurisdiction and completed in another it may be dealt with, inquired of, tried, determined, and punished in either jurisdiction in the same manner as if the offense had been actually and wholly committed therein.
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"In construing and enforcing the provisions of this section the act, omission, or failure of any officer, agent, or other person acting for or employed by any common carrier acting within the scope of his employment shall in every case be also deemed to be the act, omission, or failure of such carrier as well as that of the person. Whenever any carrier files with the Interstate Commerce Commission or publishes a particular rate under the provisions of the Act to regulate commerce or Acts amendatory thereto, or participates in any rates so filed or published, that rate as against such carrier, its officers or agents in any prosecution begun under this Act shall be conclusively deemed to be the legal rate, and any departure from such rate, or any offer to depart therefrom, shall be deemed to be an offense under this section of this Act."
_Statutes at Large of the United States, Fifty-seventh Congress, Session II, chapter 708._
In comment on the above Act, Professor Ripley wrote, sometime after its passage:
"Two years ago, at the instance of the railways, which were desirous of stopping large leakages of revenue due to rate cutting, Congress enacted the so-called Elkins law. This was distinctly a railway measure. Hence the ease and quiet of its passage. It roused none of the corporate watch dogs of the Senate, ostensibly guardians of the public welfare. Nor was it a compromise. There was no need of compromise. Both railways and shippers were agreed in the wish to eliminate rebates. Section 3 of this law of 1903 recites ‘that whenever the Interstate Commerce Commission shall have reasonable ground for belief that any common carrier is engaged in the carriage of passenger or freight traffic between given points at less than the published rates on file, _or is committing any discriminations forbidden by law_’ (our italics), it may petition any circuit judge for the issuance of an injunction summarily prohibiting the practice. Such a remedy would seem to be prompt, efficient, and adequate. It is the basis of the universal railway testimony that no further legislation on the subject is needed, but that the Interstate Commerce Commission should quit talking and get down to business. …
"That the Elkins law adds nothing to the original statute of 1887 is indisputable. It deals with means, not ends. It provides motive power, but not intelligent direction, for the wheels of justice. The law remains absolutely unchanged in its definition of rights and wrongs."
_W. Z. Ripley, President Roosevelt’s Railway Policy (Atlantic Monthly, September, 1905)._
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1905. International Railway Congress.
The International Railway Congress had its meeting of 1905 at Washington, on the invitation of the American Railroad Association. Between three and four hundred American railroad men were in attendance during the Congress, which lasted from May 4 to May 13. The delegates from oversea numbered three hundred and twenty, and included representatives from every country in the world. Germany, for the first time, was adequately represented in the Congress; while at no previous Congress were there so many delegates from Great Britain and from British colonies.
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1906. Reconstruction of the Interstate Commerce Commission.
See (in this Volume) INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION.
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1906-1909. Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States on the Constitutionality of the "Commodities Clause" of the Hepburn Act. The Railroad Monopoly of the Anthracite Coal Trade.
The Act of 1906 (known commonly as the Hepburn Act) which amended the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 (see above, under date of 1870-1908), contains an important provision which was specially intended to dissolve the monopolistic combination by which a group of railroads operating in Pennsylvania have established control of the mining and marketing, as well as the transportation of anthracite coal. This was inserted in the Act on motion of Senator Elkins and is sometimes referred to as the "Elkins Clause," sometimes as the "Commodities Clause" of the Railway Rebate Act. This clause declared it to be unlawful "for any railroad company to transport from any State to any other State or to any foreign country any article or commodity other than timber manufactured, mined, or produced by it, or under its authority, or which it may own in whole or in part, or in which it may have any interest, direct or indirect, except such articles or commodities as may be necessary and intended for its use in the conduct of its business as a common carrier."
Since 1874 the Constitution of Pennsylvania had declared that "no incorporated company doing the business of a common carrier shall, directly or indirectly, prosecute or engage in mining or manufacturing articles for transportation over its works; nor shall such company directly or indirectly engage in any other business than that of common carrier, or hold or acquire lands, freehold or leasehold, directly or indirectly, except such as shall be necessary to carry on its business." But this constitutional prohibition had not sufficed to restrain the owners of the railways which tap the anthracite coal district from acquiring practical ownership of so large a part of its mines as to be able, by combinations and understandings among their managers, to monopolize the market of that most important commodity. It was thought that the power vested in the General Government to regulate the commerce in coal between Pennsylvania and other States might be brought into exercise against this anthracite monopoly with more effect.
On the 1st of May, 1908, the "commodities clause" of the Hepburn Act became operative, and soon thereafter a suit was brought in the United Slates Circuit Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, to test its constitutionality. In this trial of the question the Government met defeat. Two of the three Judges of the Court, namely Gray and Dallas, filed opinions against the constitutionality of the enactment, their colleague, Judge Buffington, dissenting. The case went then on appeal to the Supreme Court, and there, by a judgment so nearly unanimous that Judge Harlan alone dissented on a single point, the decision of the Circuit Court was reversed and the constitutionality of the law upheld.
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The following summary of its opinion was given out by the Supreme Court at the time of the announcement, May 3, 1909:
"(1.) The claim of the government that the provision contained in the Hepburn act, approved June 29, 1906, commonly called the Commodities Clause, prohibits a railway company from moving commodities in interstate commerce because the company has manufactured, mined, or produced them, or owned them in whole or in part, or has had an interest direct or indirect in them, wholly irrespective of the relation or connection of the carrier with the commodities at the time of transportation, is decided to be untenable. It is also decided that the provision of the commodities clause relating to interest, direct or indirect, does not embrace an interest which a carrier may have in a producing corporation as the result of the ownership by the carrier of stock in such corporation irrespective of the amount of stock which the carrier may own in such corporation, provided the corporation has been organized in good faith.
"(2.) Rejecting the construction placed by the government upon the commodities clause, it is decided that that clause, when all its provisions are harmoniously construed, has solely for its object to prevent carriers engaged in interstate commerce from being associated in interest at the time of transportation with the commodities transported, and therefore the commodities clause only prohibits railroad companies engaged in interstate commerce from transporting in such commerce commodities under the following circumstances and conditions:
"(a) When the commodity has been manufactured, mined, or produced by a railway company, or under its authority, and at the time of transportation the railway company has not in good faith before the act of transportation parted with its interest in such commodity;
"(b) When the railway company owns the commodity to be transported in whole or in part;
"(c) When the railway company at the time of transportation has an interest direct or indirect in a legal sense in the commodity, which last prohibition does not apply to commodities manufactured, mined, produced, owned, etc., by a corporation because a railway company is a stockholder in such corporation.
"Such ownership of stock in a producing company by a railway company does not cause it as the owner of the stock to have a legal interest in the commodity manufactured, etc., by the producing corporation.
"(3.) As thus construed the commodities clause is a regulation of commerce within the power of Congress to enact. The contentions elaborately argued for the railroad companies that the clause, if applied to preexisting rights, will operate to take property of railroad companies and therefore violate the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment, were all based upon the assumption that the clause prohibited and restricted in accordance with the construction which the government gave that clause and for the purpose of enforcing which prohibitions these suits were brought.
"As the construction which the government placed upon the act and seeks to enforce is now held to be unsound, and as none of the contentions relied upon are applicable to the act as now construed, because under such construction the act merely enforces a regulation of commerce by which carriers are compelled to dissociate themselves from the products which they carry and does not prohibit where the carrier is not associated with the commodity carried, it follows that the contentions on the subject of the Fifth Amendment are without merit.
"(4.) The exemption as to timber, etc., contained in the clause is not repugnant to the Constitution.
"(5.) The provision as to penalties is separable from the other provisions of the act. As no recovery of penalties was prayed, no issue concerning them is here presented. It will be time enough to consider whether the right to recover penalties exists when an attempt to collect penalties is made.
"(6.) As the construction now given the act differs so widely from the construction which the government gave to the act, and which it was the purpose of these suits to enforce, it is held that it is not necessary, in reversing and remanding, to direct the character of decrees which shall be entered, but simply to reverse and remand the case with instructions to enforce and apply the statute as it is now construed.
"(7.) As the Delaware and Hudson Company is engaged as a common carrier by rail in the transportation of coal in the channels of interstate commerce, it is a railroad company within the purview of the commodities clause, and is subject to the provisions of that clause as they are now construed."
Six railway companies, namely, the Delaware and Hudson, the Erie, the Central of New Jersey, the Lackawanna, the Pennsylvania and the Lehigh Valley, were involved in the test suit on which this decision was given; but the ruling will affect all roads engaged in coal mining. Justice Harlan dissented from that part of the decision which relates to the ownership of stock in a producing company; otherwise the opinion, announced by Justice White, was the opinion of the entire Bench.
By ruling that "ownership of stock in a producing company by a railway company does not cause it as the owner of the stock to have a legal interest in the commodity manufactured, etc., by the producing company," the court appears to have made further legislation necessary, if the companies are to be barred from controlling the production and marketing of the coal through subsidiary corporations.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL, &C.: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1907-1909.
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1907. Regulative Legislation in the States.
"Never in the history of railroad legislation have our transportation systems run counter to a campaign so comprehensive, wide-spread, and disturbing as the general trend of ‘regulation’ in almost every State Legislature in session during 1907. It seems as if a legislative tempest against the railroads had been unloosed simultaneously in more than thirty States upon a given signal. The welcome accorded it by our lawmakers is inexplicable, unless we are prepared to admit that our Government, as has been charged frequently, is one of impulse. On this hypothesis it is readily understood.
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"Thirty-five States, in all, attempted to enact laws reducing freight or passenger rates, establishing railroad commissions, increasing the powers of existing commissions, regulating car service, demurrage, safety appliances, block signals, free passes, capitalization, liability for accidents to employees, hours of labor, blacklisting, strikes, etc. … Uniformity was sought without discrimination or foresight. Railroads in densely populated districts and those in sparsely settled rural localities were given alike a two-cent rate. Worse than this: roads of different earning power in the same State were assigned a level rate. The prosperous and well-established road and the struggling pioneer were bracketed,—to sink or swim.
"But all of their work was not wasted. Real constructive legislation was enacted in many States in regard to corporate control, safety appliances, block signals, working hours, rights of employees, railroad mergers, valuation, capitalization, publication of rate schedules, etc., while in the States of South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Wisconsin the rate question was given fair and temperate consideration. …
"An analysis of the general results shows that passenger fares were either actually reduced or affected in twenty-one States: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. Two-cent rates now prevail in Arkansas, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin; and in Ohio, since 1906; two-and-one-half-cent rates in Alabama and North Dakota. North Carolina has established a two-and one-quarter-cent rate; West Virginia, a two-cent rate for railroads over fifty miles in length; Iowa, a sliding scale of from two to three cents per mile; Michigan, a two, three, and four cent rate; Kansas, Maryland, and Mississippi, two-cent rates for mileage books; the railroad commissions of Georgia and South Dakota have been authorized to establish a two-cent and a two-and-one-half-cent rate, respectively; and Oklahoma specifies in its new constitution a maximum charge of two cents for passenger fare. Virginia’s Corporation Commission has adopted a two-cent rate for trunk lines, a three-cent rate for minor roads and a three-and-one-half-cent rate on one or two lines.
"Freight charges were lowered in many States. The Commodity Freight Rate law of Minnesota is probably the most scientific and equitable, and is being used by many Western roads as a basis. Commissions in other States have adopted it as a model.
"Laws prohibiting free passes were enacted in Alabama, Indiana, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, and Texas.
"Eleven States created railroad commissions: Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Vermont. Sixteen others gave increased power to existing commissions, apart from rate regulation: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin."
_Robert Emmett Ireton, The Legislatures and the Railways (Review of Reviews, August, 1907)._
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1907. Limitation of Working Hours for Trainmen.
An Act of Congress passed in January, 1907, prohibits railways engaged in interstate and foreign commerce from requiring or permitting those of their employés who have to do with the movement of trains to work more than sixteen hours consecutively, or more than an aggregate of sixteen in each twenty-four hours, and requires that when an employé shall have worked for sixteen hours there shall follow a period of rest of not less than ten hours before he shall resume his duties. Certain exceptions are made to provide for accidents, the failure of trains to make their regular schedules, connections, etc. Violation of the act is declared to be a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of from $100 to $1,000, and the Interstate Commerce Commission is charged with the duty of enforcing the law.
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1907. Strike on roads west of Chicago averted by Federal Intermediation.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1907 (APRIL).
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1907-1908. Limitation of State Authority in matters of Interstate Commerce.
Serious collisions between Federal and State authority which occurred in 1907, in the States of Alabama, North Carolina, and Minnesota, on questions relating to interstate railways and their commerce, were cleared by important decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, rendered in the spring of 1908. The States in question had enacted laws which had the effect of intimidating railway companies and their agents from appealing to Federal courts, by the severity of the penalties they imposed. Suits undertaken in consequence against the State officials acting under these laws raised the question which was carried to the Federal Supreme Court. The bearing of the judgment rendered by that Court in the Minnesota case, Justice Harlan alone dissenting, is indicated by two passages from it, as follows:
"The provisions of the acts relating to the enforcement of the rates, either for freight or passengers, by imposing such enormous fines and possible imprisonment as a result of an unsuccessful effort to test the validity of the laws themselves, are unconstitutional on their face, without regard to the question of the insufficiency of those rates."
"If the act which the State Attorney-General seeks to enforce be a violation of the Federal Constitution, the officer in proceeding under such enactment comes into conflict with the superior authority of that Constitution, and he is in that case stripped of his official or representative character and is subjected in his person to the consequences of his individual conduct. The State has no power to impart to him any immunity from responsibility to the supreme authority of the United States."
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RAILWAYS: A. D. 1908. Decision in Armour Packing Company Case.
A decision by the United States Supreme Court in the case of the United States vs. the Armour Packing Company covered cases in which identical proceedings were pending against three other packing companies and the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad Company. The packing company had contracted with the railway company for a rate from the Mississippi to New York, to continue for seven months, soon after which the railway company filed, published, and posted a much higher rate, continuing, however, to give transportation to the packing company, on through bills of lading to foreign ports for the lower rate of the contract. The Supreme Court sustained the Circuit Court in deciding this to be in violation of the law against discrimination in rates, since that law, being in force when the contract was made, was necessarily "read into the contract" and "became part of it."
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1908 (April). Passage of Act relating to the Liability of Common Carriers by Railroad to their Employés in Certain Cases.
See (in this Volume) LABOR PROTECTION: EMPLOYERS’ LIABILITY.
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1908 (November). Supreme Court Decision in Case of Virginia Railroads vs. the State Corporation Commission of Virginia.
"Justice Holmes today [November 30, 1908] announced the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of the Virginia railroads versus the state corporation commission of Virginia, calling into question the order of the commission fixing a uniform rate of two cents a mile for carrying passengers in the state. The decision reversed the decision of the United States circuit court for the eastern division of Virginia on the technical ground that the railroads should have appealed from the commission’s order to the supreme court of Virginia before seeking the intervention of the federal courts. In effect the court directs that the railroad companies take their case to the state court of last resort and that in order to prevent injustices through the possible application of the statute of limitations, the case be retained on the docket of the United States circuit court, by which it was originally decided favorably to the roads."
_Washington Despatch to the Associated Press._
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1908-1909. The Missouri River Rate Case. Permanent Injunction against the Interstate Commerce Commission.
By an order made on the 24th of June, 1908, the Interstate Commerce Commission forbade the charging of a through rate on first class matter, by the railroads, from the Atlantic seaboard to the Missouri River ($1.47 per hundred pounds), which equalled the rate charged from the Atlantic to the Mississippi (87 cents) plus the rate from the Mississippi to the Missouri (60 cents). In other words, the Commission sought to impose a through rate to the Missouri which would be nine cents per hundred pounds less than the sum of the rates charged on two parts of the same distance. The western railway companies affected by the order applied to the United States Circuit Court, at Chicago, for a permanent injunction to restrain its enforcement. The injunction was granted on the 24th of August, 1909, Judges Grosscup and Kohlsaat concurring in the decision, Judge Baker dissenting.
"The question raised," said Judge Grosscup, in rendering the opinion, "in its larger aspects is not so much a question between the shippers and the railroads as between the commercial and manufacturing interests of Denver and of the territory east of the Mississippi River on the one side, and the commercial and manufacturing interests of the Missouri River cities on the other. …
"We are not prepared to say the commission has not the power to enter upon a plan looking toward a system of rates wherein the rates for longer and shorter hauls will taper downward according to distance, providing such tapering is both comprehensively and symmetrically applied—applied with a design of carrying out what may be the economic fact, that, on the whole, it is worth something less per mile to carry freight long distances than shorter distances.
"But it does not follow that power of that character includes power, by the use of differentials, to artificially divide the country into trade zones tributary to given trade and manufacturing centres, the commission in such cases having as a result to predetermine what the trade and manufacturing centres shall be; for such power, vaster than any one body of men has heretofore exercised, though wisely exerted in specific instances, would be putting into the hands of the commission the general power of life and death over every trade and manufacturing centre in the United States."
In the dissenting opinion of Judge Baker he said: "The question is not whether a lawful power or authority has been shown to have been wrongly exercised, but whether there is any law at all for the power or authority claimed and exercised." He found the necessary law, and added: "If Congress cannot constitutionally make a general declaration that the rates shall be reasonable and not unjustly discriminatory and then trust an executive body to hear evidence and decide questions of fact respecting reasonableness and just discrimination, the power of Congress over rates would be worthless."
In September it was announced that the Commission would appeal from the injunction to the Supreme Court.
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1909. The Seventh Transcontinental Line.
The seventh transcontinental line of railway in America, the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul system, was announced as completed on the 1st of April, 1909. As its name indicates, it is an extension of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul system by a line fourteen hundred miles long from Mobridge, South Dakota, to Seattle and Tacoma, in the State of Washington.
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1909. Fines imposed on the New York Central Railroad Company.
Fines aggregating $134,000, imposed on the New York Central Railway Company by the United States Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York for rebates granted to the American Sugar Refining Company in violation of law, were affirmed in February, 1909, by the Supreme Court of the United States, and were paid on the 12th of May.
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1909 (May-June). The Georgia Railroad Strike.
See (in this Volume) RACE PROBLEMS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909.
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RAILWAYS: A. D. 1910. Special Message of President Taft touching Interstate Commerce.
The important Special Message addressed to Congress by President Taft on the 7th of January, 1910, recommending amendatory legislation on the two subjects of interstate commerce and the combinations called "trusts," opened with the following statement:
"In the annual report of the Interstate Commerce Commission for the year 1908 attention is called to the fact that between July 1, 1908, and the close of that year sixteen suits had been begun to set aside orders of the commission (besides one commenced before that date), and that few orders of much consequence had been permitted to go without protest; that the questions presented by these various suits were fundamental, as the constitutionality of the act itself was in issue, and the right of Congress to delegate to any tribunal authority to establish an interstate rate was denied; but that perhaps the most serious practical question raised concerned the extent of the right of the courts to review the orders of the commission; and it was pointed out that if the contention of the carriers in this latter respect alone were sustained, but little progress had been made in the Hepburn act toward the effective regulation of interstate transportation charges. In twelve of the cases referred to, it was stated, preliminary injunctions were prayed for, being granted in six and refused in six.
"‘It has from the first been well understood,’ says the commission, ‘that the success of the present act as a regulating measure depended largely upon the facility with which temporary injunctions could be obtained. If a railroad company, by mere allegation in its bill of complaint, supported by ex-parte affidavits, can overturn the results of days of patient investigation, no very satisfactory result can be expected. The railroad loses nothing by these proceedings, since if they fail it can only be required to establish the rate and to pay to shippers the difference between the higher rate collected and the rate which is finally held to be reasonable. In point of fact it usually profits, because it can seldom be required to return more than a fraction of the excess charges collected.’
"In its report for the year 1909 the commission shows that of the seventeen cases referred to in its 1908 report, only one had been decided in the Supreme Court of the United States, although five other cases had been argued and submitted to that tribunal in October, 1909.
"Of course, every carrier affected by an order of the commission has a constitutional right to appeal to a Federal Court to protect it from the enforcement of an order which it may show to be _prima facie_ confiscatory or unjustly discriminatory in its effect; and as this application may be made to a court in any district of the United States, not only does delay result in the enforcement of the order, but great uncertainty is caused by contrariety of decision. The questions presented by these applications are too often technical in their character and require a knowledge of the business and the mastery of a great Volume of conflicting evidence which is tedious to examine and troublesome to comprehend. It would not be proper to attempt to deprive any corporation of the right to review by a court of any order or decree which, if undisturbed, would rob it of a reasonable return upon its investment or would subject it to burdens which would unjustly discriminate against it and in favor of other carriers similarly situated. What is, however, of supreme importance is that the decision of such questions shall be as speedy as the nature of the circumstances will admit, and that a uniformity of decision be secured so as to bring about an effective, systematic, and scientific enforcement of the commerce law, rather than conflicting decisions and uncertainty of final result.
"For this purpose I recommend the establishment of a court of the United States composed of five judges designated for such purpose from among the circuit judges of the United States, to be known as the ‘United States Court of Commerce,’ which court shall be clothed with exclusive original jurisdiction over the following classes of cases:
"(1.) All cases for the enforcement, otherwise than by adjudication and collection of a forfeiture or penalty, or by infliction of criminal punishment, of any order of the Interstate Commerce Commission other than for the payment of money.
"(2.) All cases brought to enjoin, set aside, annul, or suspend any order or requirement of the Interstate Commerce Commission.
"(3.) All such cases as under section 3 of the act of February 19, 1903, known as the ‘Elkins Act,’ are authorized to be maintained in a circuit court of the United States.
"(4.) All such mandamus proceedings as under the provisions of section 20 or section 23 of the Interstate Commerce law are authorized to be maintained in a circuit court of the United States.
"Reasons precisely analogous to those which induced the Congress to create the Court of Customs Appeals by the provisions in the tariff act of August 5, 1909, may be urged in support of the creation of the Commerce Court."
Further recommendations of the Message are summarized in the following:
Pooling arrangements as to rates to be allowed under direct supervision of the commission.
The commission to be empowered to pass upon freight classifications.
The commission to be empowered to hold up new rates or classifications by railroads until an inquiry can be made as to their reasonableness. If found to be unreasonable, the commission may forbid the increase.
Shippers to be given the choice of established routes on through freight.
From and after the passage of the amendments, it is provided that no railroad shall acquire any stock or interest in a competing line, except that where a road already owns 50 per cent, or more of the stock of another road, it may complete the purchase of all the stock. Also in cases where one road is operating another under a lease of more than twenty-five years’ duration, it shall have a right to acquire the demised road. Allowing these acquisitions of stock does not exempt any road from prosecution under the Anti-Trust law.
Stocks must be issued at par value for money paid in or for property or services, rates at full value, under an inquiry by the Federal authority, who shall supervise all stock and bond issues.
----------RAILWAYS: End--------
RAISULI, The Moorish Brigand.
See (in this Volume) MOROCCO: A. D. 1904-1909.
RALLIÉS.
A political party in France said to be made from fragments from the former Bonapartists, Orleanists, and Boulangerists.
RAMSAY, Sir William.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE, RECENT: RADIUM; also, NOBEL PRIZES.
RATE REGULATION, Railway.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1870-1908.
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RAYLEIGH, Lord.
See (in this Volume) NOBEL PRIZES.
REBATE RESTRICTION, Railway.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1870-1908, and 1903 (February).
RECIPROCITY TREATY: United States and Newfoundland: The Hay-Bond Treaty. Its Amendment to Death by the United States Senate.
See (in this Volume) NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1902-1905.
RECLAMATION OF ARID LANDS.
See (in this Volume) CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: UNITED STATES.
RED CROSS SOCIETY, The American National.
By an Act of Congress passed in 1904, the American National Red Cross was incorporated under the laws of the District of Columbia and brought directly under Government supervision. Its charter provided that five members of its Board of Incorporators were to be chosen from the Departments of State, War, Navy, Treasury, and Justice. Its accounts were to be audited by the disbursing officer of the War Department. The entire support, however, aside from the income from a small endowment, comes from the dues of individual members and voluntary contributions. The election of Mr. Taft, then Secretary of War, as the first president of the reorganized Red Cross, emphasized its new relationship to the Federal Government and its new position as a body of really National scope. At the annual meeting of the Society in December, 1908, Mr. Taft, then President-elect of the United States, consented to be reelected to the presidency of the Red Cross organization in the United States.
Throughout all the many calamities of the past decade, from earthquake, volcanic eruption, fire, flood, war, famine, and pestilence, the Red Cross Society has always been instant in readiness for effective humane service, from almost every civilized country of the world, and for any call to any quarter of the globe. In the United States it has lately undertaken a continuous and permanent service in connection with the anti-tuberculosis crusade.
RED CROSS SOCIETY: In Japan, before and during the Russo-Japanese War.
"The Red Cross Society of Japan is by no means merely a copy of the Red Cross societies of Europe, as its name would seem to indicate; for the idea of assisting the wounded soldiers and allaying the suffering caused by war arose spontaneously in Japan. …
"In 1867, two years before the Restoration, when Japan was considered a savage country by the West, and when she possessed neither railways nor telegraphs, machinery, etc., Count Sano, an enthusiastic humanitarian, was sent by the Shogun to the Exhibition in Paris, where he had the opportunity of studying the Red Cross societies of various countries. Again, in 1873, when this gentleman was ambassador in Vienna, he carefully observed the Red Cross Society, and especially its activity during the Franco-German War of 1870. When the Civil War of 1877 broke out in Japan, Count Sano was back in his native country, and he conceived the idea of forming a society after the model of the European Red Cross societies. The nobility of Japan received his ideas most favourably, and a society was founded which was called Hakuaisha (Benevolent Society). …
"The Mikado countenanced the objects of the Society and assisted it in every way. From 1887 onward he gave it a yearly contribution of 5,000 yen, to which in 1888 a gift of 100,000 yen was added. After the Chino-Japanese War, the Mikado’s yearly contribution was increased to 10,000 yen, in recognition of the progress which the Society had made and of the great assistance which it had given during that campaign. Besides this sum he contributes yearly 5,000 yen to the Red Cross Society for the patients, and from time to time makes generous gifts to the Society. The motto of the Japanese Red Cross Society is ‘Pay your debt to your country by helping its soldiers’; and this motto has quickly made the Society immensely popular throughout the country. …
"The war with China of 1894-1895 demonstrated the excellence of the Japanese Red Cross Society, and proved at the same time its best advertisement, for at the end of 1895 there were more than 160,000 members. Since the Society had proved its immense practical utility, the number of its members rose by leaps and bounds, and at the end of 1898 there were 570,000 members, and the yearly receipts had reached 1,582,622 yen; at present it must count about 1,000,000 members, and must have an income of at least 3,000,000 yen, or about £300,000 per annum, a truly enormous sum for a country like Japan, where a yen goes about as far as ten shillings go in Great Britain. The latest available figures give the following record: Number of members, 920,000; funds in hand, £794,000; annual income, £231,000."
_O. Eltzbacher, The Red Gross Society of Japan (Contemporary Review, September, 1904)._
REDEMPTORISTS: Forbidden to teach in France.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1903.
REFERENDUM, Initiative and Recall: In Switzerland.
According to a report on the subject made to the State Department at Washington, in June, 1902, by the United States Minister to Switzerland, the Honorable Arthur S. Hardy, down to that time, "since the referendum has been in force, 226 Federal laws and resolutions have been enacted, of which 40 were submitted to the people, 14 by the compulsory and 26 by the optional referendum. The people have exercised the initiative five times since its adoption in 1891, rejecting the measures proposed four out of five times."
REFERENDUM, Initiative and Recall: In the United States.
"The first State to adopt a constitutional amendment providing for the initiative and referendum was South Dakota in 1898. Next came Utah (1900) with an amendment which is not self-executing, and the Legislature has not so far passed the necessary enabling act. Oregon followed in 1902, Montana in 1906, and Oklahoma in 1907. South Dakota, Oregon, and Oklahoma have also extended the constitutional amendments so as to provide for the initiative and referendum in municipal corporations. Maine, Missouri, and North Dakota are soon to vote upon constitutional amendments embodying the initiative and referendum for State matters; and Maine proposes to extend this right to municipal corporations concerning their local affairs.
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In 1907 Iowa and South Dakota each enacted a general law under which cities may, if they so choose, have charters embodying the general features of the ‘commission plan of government,’ and acquire with them the right to have the initiative, the referendum, and the recall. In South Dakota the Constitution specifically gives to the people the right of the initiative and referendum, but in Iowa no mention thereof is made in the Constitution. The Supreme Court of Iowa, however, has held that the statute conferring the right upon cities of a certain class to adopt a commission plan of government which included the initiative, referendum, and recall was constitutional, as the State Constitution did not specifically forbid the granting of these rights. In Texas cities of a designated size can be incorporated by special act, and since Galveston obtained its new form of government several cities of Texas have been given charters by special acts, some embodying the initiative, referendum, and recall, others one or two of these rights, and some none of them or only in a modified form. The recall is the most recent of the three new measures of relief. Los Angeles in 1903 seems to have been the first city to have made the recall a part of its city charter. In 1905 San Diego, San Bernardino, Pasadena, and Fresno, California, followed. In 1906 Seattle joined the list, and in 1907 there were added Everett, in Washington, and six other California cities—Santa Monica, Alameda, Long Beach, Vallejo, Riverside and San Francisco. No State has a constitutional provision for the recall."
_The Outlook, August 15, 1908._
On the 25th of May, 1908, the Initiative and Referendum League of America addressed a memorial to Congress, asking for the passage of a Bill which had been introduced in the Senate (Senate Bill No. 7208), "For a modern system whereby the voters of the United States may instruct their National Representatives," and, further, for the passage of Senate Joint Resolution No. 94, "asking the States to establish the machinery for taking a referendum vote on national issues whenever Congress shall so direct."
REGENERADORES.
See (in this Volume) PORTUGAL: A. D. 1906-1909.
REGGIO: Its Destruction by Earthquake.
See (in this Volume) EARTHQUAKES: ITALY.
REGIE, The San Domingo.
See (in this Volume) SAN DOMINGO: A. D. 1901-1905.
REGINA: Capital of the Province of Saskatchewan.
See (in this Volume) CANADA: A. D. 1905.
REID, George Houston: Premier of Australia.
See (in this Volume) AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1903-1904.
REID, Sir Robert T.: Lord Chancellor of England.
See (in this Volume) England: A. D. 1905-1906.
REINSCH, Paul S.: Delegate to Third International Conference of American Republics.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM: Its Limitations in Russia.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA. A. D. 1905 (APRIL-AUGUST), and 1909 (JUNE).
RELIGIOUS TEACHING, in State Supported Schools: The Controversy.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1903; CANADA: A. D. 1905; EDUCATION: ENGLAND: A. D. 1902 and 1906.
RENAULT, Louis.
See (in this Volume) NOBEL PRIZES.
RENNENKAMPF, General.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905 (SEPTEMBER-MARCH).
REPATRIATION OF THE BOERS.
See (in this Volume) SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1902-1903.
REPUBLIC, The Rescue of the Steamship.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE AND INVENTION: ELECTRICAL.
RESCHAD, Mohammed: Raised to the Turkish Throne.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1909 (JANUARY-MAY).
RESEARCH, Original.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE AND INVENTION: CARNEGIE INSTITUTION.
RESOURCES, Conservation of Natural.
See (in this Volume) CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES.
REVAL, Disorders in.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1905 (FEBRUARY-NOVEMBER).
REVOLUTION, Persia.
See (in this Volume) PERSIA.
REVOLUTION, Turkish.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1908 (JULY-DECEMBER), and after.
REYES, Rafael: President of Colombia.
See (in this Volume) COLOMBIA: A. D. 1905-1906, and 1906-1909.
RHODES, CECIL J.: His death. His continued Influence in South Africa. His Policy carried on by Dr. Jameson.
See(in this Volume) SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1902-1904.
RHODES, CECIL J.: His Will, endowing Scholarships at Oxford for Students in the British Colonies and the United States.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: RHODES SCHOLARSHIPS.
RHODESIA: A. D. 1908. Report of the British South Africa Company.
The annual report of the directors of the British South Africa Company, presented at a meeting of shareholders in London in February, 1909, contained the following statements:
"During 1908 there has been a remarkable improvement in the circumstances of Rhodesia. This improvement has been evident in every department of trade and industry, and is reflected in the returns of administrative receipts, railways, mines and land. It was pointed out last year what an important effect even a slight increase in general prosperity would exercise upon the whole financial position, and the figures now available show that this view was correct. The administrative revenue of Southern Rhodesia during the year 1908-1909 will suffice to cover administrative expenditure without any call whatever upon the commercial income of the company; the shortages of the railway companies in respect of the same period will be less by £100,000 than in 1907-1908; during the year ending 31st March, 1910, large additional revenue will be derived from the carriage from the port of Beira of the materials and stores for the extension of the railway into the Congo territory. … The negotiations for the extension northwards of the Rhodesian Railway system have been brought to a successful conclusion. With the coöperation of the Tanganyika Concessions (Limited) a company has been formed called the Rhodesia-Kantanga Junction Railway and Mineral Company (Limited), which will construct a standard gauge line from the present terminus at Broken Hill to a point on the frontier of the Congo Free State; from the frontier to the Star of the Congo Mine the line will be constructed by the Couipaguie du Chemin de Fer du Kantanga. … On the completion of the first section to the frontier, Rhodesia will be traversed by a trunk line from south to north.
{561}
"The European population shows a net increase of over 1,100 since the intermediate census, in September, 1907, when it numbered 14,018. An area of 1,169,305 acres of land has been settled and occupied during the past year. The output of gold has increased from £2,178,886 in 1907 to £2,526,037 in 1908. Imports have increased by about £100,000 during the past year."
See (in this Volume) SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1904.
RIBEIRO, HINTZE.
See (in this Volume) PORTUGAL: A. D. 1906-1909.
RICHMOND, Virginia: A. D. 1907. Great Reunion of Confederate War Veterans. Unveiling of Monument to Jefferson Davis.
A great gathering of the surviving veterans of the Confederacy, to the number of about 15,000, at Richmond, late in May and early in June, was brought about in connection with the unveiling of an impressive monument to Jefferson Davis. An equestrian statue of General J. E. B. Stuart was also unveiled on one of the days of the reunion.
RIFF, The.
See (in this Volume) MOROCCO: A. D. 1904-1909.
RIGA, Disorders in.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1905 (FEBRUARY-NOVEMBER).
RIKKEN SEIYU-KAI.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1903 (JUNE).
RIO DE JANEIRO: A. D. 1903-1905. Eradication of Yellow Fever.
See (in this Volume) PUBLIC HEALTH: YELLOW FEVER.
RIO DE JANEIRO: A. D. 1906. Third International Conference of American Republics.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
RITCHIE, C. T.: Chancellor of the Exchequer in the British Government.
See (in this Volume) ENGLAND: A. D. 1902 (JULY).
ROBERT, CHRISTOPHER R.: Benefactor of Robert College.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: TURKEY, &C.
ROBERT COLLEGE: Its Influence in Turkey and the Balkan States.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: TURKEY, &C.
ROBERTS, SIR FREDERICK SLEIGH ROBERTS, FIRST EARL: On the British Territorial Force and the need of Compulsory Military Training.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR: MILITARY.
ROCHAMBEAU MONUMENT: The unveiling at Washington. Representatives of the families of Rochambeau and Lafayette invited Guests of the Nation.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1902 (MAY).
ROCKEFELLER, John D.: Stupendous Endowment of the General Education Board.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1902-1909.
ROCKEFELLER, John D.: Gift for the eradication of the Hookworm Disease.
See (in this Volume) PUBLIC HEALTH: THE HOOKWORM DISEASE.
ROCKEFELLER, John D., Jr.: Investing in a Concession in the Congo State.
See (in this Volume) CONGO STATE: A. D. 1906-1909.
ROCKHILL, W. W.: Minister to China.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1901-1908.
ROENTGEN.
See (in this Volume) RONTGEN.
ROGHI, EL.
See (in this Volume) MOROCCO: A. D. 1909.
ROJESVENSKY, ROZHDESTVENSKY, ADMIRAL.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905 (OCTOBER-MAY).
ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.
See (in this Volume and Volume IV.) PAPACY.
ROMAÑA, PRESIDENT EDUARDO DE.
See (in this Volume) PERU.
ROME: A. D. 1903. General Strike of Workmen.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: ITALY.
ROME: A. D. 1908. Election of Ernesto Nathan to be Mayor.
See (in this Volume) ITALY: A. D. 1909.
RONTGEN, Wilhelm Conrad: Recipient of Nobel Prize.
See (in this Volume) NOBEL PRIZES.
----------ROOSEVELT, Theodore: Start--------
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: Becomes President of the United States on the Assassination of President McKinley.
See (in this Volume) BUFFALO: A. D. 1901.
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: On the Federal Control of Corporations engaged in Interstate Trade.
See (in this Volume) Combinations, Industrial, &c.: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1903.
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: On Railway Rate Regulation.
SEE RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1870-1908.
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: His intermediation in the Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1902-1903.
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: Message recounting the Circumstances of the Secession from Colombia and recognized Independence of Panama, and the Treaty with Panama for the Building of the Isthmian Canal.
See (in this volume) PANAMA CANAL.
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: On the Wrong done to the Chinese.
See (in this Volume) RACE PROBLEMS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1905-1908.
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: On the Strike of the Teamsters’ Union at Chicago.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1905 (APRIL-JULY).
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: Elected President of the United States.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1904 (MARCH-NOVEMBER ).
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: Mediation between Russia and Japan.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1905 (JUNE-OCTOBER).
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: Initial Invitation to the holding of the Second Peace Conference.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1907.
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: Account of Visit to Porto Rico.
See (in this Volume) PORTO RICO: A. D. 1906.
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: On the Rendering of Aid to San Domingo.
See (in this Volume) SAN DOMINGO: A. D. 1904-1907.
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: On the Progressive Taxation of Fortunes.
See (in this Volume) WEALTH, THE PROBLEMS OF.
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: Defense of Japanese Treaty Rights.
See (in this Volume) RACE PROBLEMS: UNITED STATES.
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: Recommends remission of part of Boxer Indemnity to China.
See CHINA: A. D. 1901-1908.
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: On the Conservation of Natural Resources.
See (in this Volume) CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: UNITED STATES.
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: Appointment of Country Life Commission, and Message on its Report.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1908-1909 (AUGUST-FEBRUARY).
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: On the Japanese Question in California.
See (in this Volume) RACE PROBLEMS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1904-1909.
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: Recipient of Nobel Prize for Promotion of Peace. Its devotion to the Creation of a Foundation for the Promotion of Industrial Peace.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1907.
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: Veto of the Census Bill.
See (in this Volume) CIVIL SERVICE REFORM: UNITED STATES.
{562}
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: Renunciation of Third Term Candidacy.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1904 (NOVEMBER).
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: Progress of Civil Service Reform under his Administration.
See (in this Volume) CIVIL SERVICE REFORM: UNITED STATES.
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: After leaving the White House.
Shortly before the ending, March 4, 1909, of his second term in the Presidency of the United States, Mr. Roosevelt became connected, as "Contributing Editor," with _The Outlook_, and began the discussion of current topics in signed articles, published in that weekly magazine. For some time it had been known that Mr. Roosevelt intended, when released from office, to enjoy a long vacation in Central Africa, hunting wild game. His preparations were made before he left the White House, and on the 20th of March, to correct misunderstandings as to the recreation he contemplated, he published the following announcement in _The Outlook_:
"I am about to go to Africa as the head of the Smithsonian expedition. It is a scientific expedition. We shall collect birds and mammals for the National Museum at Washington, and nothing will be shot unless for food, or for preservation as a specimen, or unless, of course, the animal is of a noxious kind. There will be no wanton destruction whatever.
"I very earnestly hope that no representative of any newspaper or magazine will try to accompany me or to interview me during any portion of my trip. Until I actually get to the wilderness my trip will be precisely like any other conventional trip on a steamboat or railway. It will afford nothing to write about, and will afford no excuse or warrant for any one sending to any newspaper a line in reference thereto. After I reach the wilderness of course no one outside of my own party will be with me, and if any one pretends to be with me or pretends to write as to what I do, his statements should be accepted as on their face not merely false but ludicrous. Any statement purporting to have been made by me, or attributed to me, which may be sent to newspapers should be accepted as certainly false and as calling for no denial from me. So far as possible I shall avoid seeing any representative of the press, and shall not knowingly have any conversation on any subject whatever with any representative of the press beyond exchanging the ordinary civilities or courtesies. I am a private citizen, and I am entitled to enjoy the privacy that should be the private citizen’s right. My trip will have no public bearing of any kind or description. It is undertaken for the National Museum at Washington, and is simply a collecting trip for the Museum. It will be extremely distasteful to me and of no possible benefit to any human being to try to report or exploit the trip, or to send any one with me, or to have any one try to meet me or see me with a view to such reporting or exploitation. Let me repeat that while I am on steamer or railway there will be nothing whatever to report; that when I leave the railway for the wilderness no persons will have any knowledge which will enable them to report anything, and that any report is to be accepted as presumably false." THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
The ex-President took steamer from New York on the 30th of March, and one of the journals which had been among the sharpest of his critics and opponents for years, the New York _Times_, had this to say of him that day:
"There is no need to tell him that he will carry with him wherever he goes the abiding affection of nearly 80,000,000 of people. They who dislike Colonel Roosevelt, or think they do, scarcely count in the Census. Wherever he goes he will make friends among human beings, and impress everybody with a reasonably high yet easily appreciable ideal of the American citizen. Courage, energy, quick co-ordination of muscle and brain, persistent alertness, boundless sympathy, and good fellowship are characteristics of Colonel Roosevelt. Everybody likes such a man."
Returning from his African expedition in the spring of 1910, the ex-President accepted invitations in Europe which took him to Naples, Rome, Vienna, Paris, Brussels, The Hague, Christiania, Berlin, London, and was received with extraordinary honors at every capital.
----------ROOSEVELT, Theodore: End--------
----------ROOT, ELIHU: Start--------
ROOT, ELIHU: Secretary of War and Secretary of State.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1905, and 1905-1909.
ROOT, ELIHU: Correspondence relating to the establishment of the Republic of Cuba.
See (in this Volume) CUBA: A. D. 1901-1902.
ROOT, Elihu: On the Alaska Boundary Commission.
See (in this Volume) ALASKA: A. D. 1903.
ROOT, Elihu: Correspondence on American Fishing Rights on the Newfoundland Coast.
See (in this Volume) NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1905-1909.
ROOT, Elihu: Visit to South American Republics, 1906. Address at the Third International Conference of American Republics in Rio de Janeiro.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
ROOT, Elihu: Speech in 1906 summarizing recent Governmental Action against Corporate Wrong-doers.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1906.
ROOT, Elihu: Address to Central American Peace Conference at Washington.
See (in this Volume) CENTRAL AMERICA: A. D. 1907.
ROOT, Elihu: At Peace Congress in New York.
See (in this Volume) WAR: THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1907.
ROOT, Elihu: On the Japanese Question in California.
See (in this Volume) RACE PROBLEMS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1904-1909.
ROOT, Elihu: Exchange of Notes with Japan, embodying a Declaration of Common Policy in the East.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1908 (NOVEMBER).
ROOT, Elihu: On National Duty in State Legislation.
See (in this Volume) LAW AND ITS COURTS: UNITED STATES.
----------ROOT, ELIHU: End--------
ROSE, URIAH M.: Commissioner Plenipotentiary to the Second Peace Conference.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1907.
ROSEBERY, ARCHIBALD F. PRIMROSE, EARL: Opposition to Home Rule for Ireland.
See (in this Volume) England: A. D. 1905-1906.
ROSEBERY, ARCHIBALD F. PRIMROSE, EARL: On the State of Peace in Europe and the Preparations for War.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR.
ROSEBERY, ARCHIBALD F. PRIMROSE, EARL: To the House of Lords on the Budget of 1909.
See (in this Volume) ENGLAND: A. D. 1909 (APRIL-DECEMBER).
ROSEN, BARON ROMAN: Russian Ambassador at Washington and Plenipotentiary for negotiating Treaty of Peace with Japan.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1905 (JUNE-JULY).
ROSS, Dr. Ronald.
See (in this Volume) NOBEL PRIZES.
{563}
ROTA, The.
See (in this Volume) PAPACY: A. D. 1908.
ROTATIVOS.
See (in this Volume) PORTUGAL: A. D. 1906-1909.
ROUMANIA: A. D. 1902. Oppression of the Jews. Remonstrance of the United States.
See (in this Volume) BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: ROUMANIA.
ROUVIER, Maurice: Prime Minister of France.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1905-1906.
ROUVIER, Maurice: Agreement with Germany for the Conference at Algeciras.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1905-1906.
ROUVIER, Maurice: Fall of his Ministry.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1906.
ROWE, Dr. L. S.: Delegate to Third International Conference of American Republics.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
ROZHDESTVENSKY, ROJESVENSKY, ADMIRAL.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905 (OCTOBER-MAY).
RUEF, ABRAHAM.
See (in this Volume) MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: SAN FRANCISCO.
RUNCIMAN, Mr.: President of the English Board of Education. Statements.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: ENGLAND: A. D. 1909.
----------RUSSIA: Start--------
RUSSIA: A. D. 1870-1905. Increase of Population compared with other European Countries.
See (in this Volume) [Other countries or regions]: A. D. 1870-1905.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1901 (July). Russianizing of the Finnish Army. Autocratic Violation of the Constitution of Finland.
See (in this Volume) FINLAND: A. D. 1901.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1901-1904. Persistent Occupation of Manchuria, despite Treaty with China. Japanese Complaints and Demands.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1901-1904, CHINA: A. D. 1901-1902.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1901-1904. The Disaffection among the Students of the Universities. Famine in Eastern Districts, and Industrial Depression in the Cities. Assassination of Sipiagin. Advent of Plehve to Power. Atrocities of his Administration. Witte, Minister of Finance. Assassination of Plehve.
In Volume VI. of this work, which went to press in the spring of 1901, the record of events in Russia was brought down to March and April of that year. The revolutionary temper, then rapidly rising in heat throughout the Empire, found its most
## active manifestation among the students of the universities,
whose outbreaks of disaffection were punished mercilessly, by Siberian exile, by draft into the army, or more summarily by the Cossacks’ knout. The Tsar, however, had seemed at last to recognize the special grievances of the students and to wish to have remedies found for them. To succeed M. Bogoliepoff, the late Minister of Instruction, whom a student had shot on the 27th of February, the Tsar appointed to that office a General Vannovsky, who was credited with having a clear and sympathetic understanding of the wrongs to the student body which provoked their disorderly conduct. It was believed, too, that full powers had been given to him for reforming the government of the universities. But, whatever may have been the excellence of disposition in General Vannovsky and in the Tsar, the projected reforms were so obstructed, in some manner, that the students became more and more openly revolutionary in their action, and the new minister resigned in the second year of his endeavors.
A number of immediate causes of misery in the Empire were now added to the many causes which a despotic and corrupt government kept always in operation. Harvests in large parts of Eastern Russia had failed, bringing the horrors of famine on some 24,000,000 people. Simultaneously with this, an industrial crisis came, to close great numbers of factories and shops and to create a vast army of the unemployed. M. Witte, as Minister of Finance, had been extraordinarily skilful and successful in developing new industries in Russia; but had done so by measures of unnatural stimulation which had this unfortunate result. High tariffs for the protection of home manufactures from foreign competition, and the offer of attractive inducements to foreign capital, had brought about many investments which proved to be unprofitable, and the time had come, as happens always and everywhere in such cases, when the unsound structure of productive enterprise must collapse. Thus the country, having all of its industrial centers filled with suffering unemployed workmen and many of its rural districts filled with starving peasants, was a field most perfectly prepared for the seed of insurgent passion which countless agents were now busied in sowing.
Students and workmen became associated in flagrant revolutionary demonstrations, flaunting the red flag of rebellion and singing seditious songs, at St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kieff, Kharkoff, Odessa, and other cities, fighting vain battles with savage Cossacks and police. To excite the peasantry to action, a forged ukase was circulated among them, in the districts of Poltava and Kharkoff, announcing that the land, held wrongly by the nobles, had been restored to them by the Tsar; that they could take possession of it, and, with it, the present contents of granaries and barns. They proceeded accordingly to strip many estates (see below, Russia: A. D. 1902), and suffered piteously from the soldiery that came in haste to stop their deluded work. It was at this time that M. Witte set on foot an extensive inquiry into agricultural conditions, the important political outcome of which will be spoken of later on.
On the 15th of April, 1902, the Minister of the Interior, M. Sipiagin, was killed by a student named Belmatcheff. This murderous exploit of the revolutionary terrorists brought a man into power who gave Russia an experience in the next two years, of heartlessness and foulness in despotism which surpassed all that it had known before.
{564}
"Sipiagin, when Minister of the Interior, had already brought matters so far by his reactionary policy of violence that the news of his assassination at the hands of Belmatcheff was received with unmixed joy in all classes of Russian society. But the fullest proof of the irreconcilableness of autocracy with things like improvement and progress was furnished by the successor of Sipiagin, Von Plehve, who soon proved himself to be the complete personification of all evil, heartlessness, and corruption. … The attention of the highest circles was drawn to his person when, after the assassination of Alexander II., he conducted the prosecution at the arraignment of the
## participators in the deed. Later, on being appointed State
Secretary, he was able, by his persistent zeal in the service of the reaction, to place himself on a good footing with those in power, particularly with the Procurator of the Holy Synod, Pobiedonostseff, who, when the policy of destroying the Finnish constitution was determined upon, found a good tool in Von Plehve. In the anti-Finn _coup d’état_ he played a considerable part, particularly as member of the secret committee which drafted the plan for the Russification of the Finnish Grand Duchy, and drew up the manifesto; while, still later, as Secretary for Finland, together with the then Governor-General Bobrikoff, he conducted and carried out the well-known policy of suppression.
"As Minister of the Interior, Von Plehve lost no time in showing what policy he intended to follow, as he declared the general dissatisfaction in Russia to be solely the result of the conspiracy and machinations of a handful of evil disposed persons, who could easily be rendered incapable of harm if only the police were sufficiently strengthened and received extensive powers. … The Minister came into conflict, shortly after his appointment, with a number of his colleagues, especially with the Finance Minister, De Witte, who had previously been practically omnipotent, and with the Minister of Justice, Muravieff. The difference with the latter hinged on the question of the treatment of 'political criminals,' the trials of whom Von Plehve wished to allocate to a special court-martial, the proceedings being conducted with closed doors, whilst the Minister of Justice required a public trial before the ordinary courts. The Tsar, as usual, followed the most reactionary counsel. … Of deeper significance and more far-reaching effects was the conflict with the Finance Minister, who, indeed was far more menacing to Von Plehve’s exalted position. Without being imbued with really liberal views, but being possessed of intelligence and a clear view as regards all social phenomena, De Witte, doubtless one of the most able statesmen Russia has possessed in recent times, recognized that, if matters in the Empire continued much longer in the same way, a catastrophe was unavoidable. …
"De Witte obtained the consent of the Tsar to the formation of committees, in the different parts of the country, consisting of representatives of agriculture, and including both large estate owners and men of the people, to whom was allotted the task of declaring their views as to the cause of the decline of Russian agriculture, and of indicating steps for the improvement of agricultural conditions. De Witte himself urged the committees to express themselves freely and openly as to the causes of the prevailing misery, and as to the means of remedying it. But in all probability he hardly expected that these utterances would go so far in their openness as they really did. Quite a number of committees were perspicacious enough to deal not merely with the economical, but likewise with the general political position, though recognising that the former was very closely connected with the latter. In this way the ice was broken. One committee after the other criticised the existing system of government with astonishing boldness, and required an unconditional and radical change therein. … it was the representatives of the _zemtsvo_ assemblies who played the chief part in the agricultural committees, and consequently hopes began to be cherished more or less everywhere that these assemblies would now receive amplified rights, and that in this way the basis would be laid for the future and for the constitution dreamt of by all. Such hopes were, however, not to the taste of Von Plehve, the new Minister of the Interior. … Finally they [the committees] were dissolved, without having achieved any other result than a number of reports which had been drawn up by them, and which ended by being pigeon-holed in one record office or the other. Von Plehve had conquered the Finance Minister. But his success was a Pyrrhic victory. At one stroke he converted a large number of liberal friends of reform into radical adherents of the emancipation movement, while to all others who had followed the proceedings of the agricultural committees with interest and expectancy he brought home a clear apprehension of the fact that a régime, under which the will or the whim of an irresponsible official could bring to naught plans having for their object the amendment of the conditions of life of many millions of people, could never contribute to the promotion of national development. Similar fruits were borne by Von Plehve’s policy in many other directions. …
"Never have the police been so numerous or so powerful as under Von Plehve’s regime; never were such trifling causes sufficient to deprive both sexes of citizens of their liberty, to expose them to ill-treatment, and to send them into exile. But never, on the other hand, have such means proved to be more powerless. … The so-called ‘Organisation of the Struggle,’ the same that had slain the previous Minister of the Interior, Sipiagin, also sentenced to death the Governor of Ulfa, Bogdanovitch. … At last Von Plehve, too, was overtaken by his fate. On the 28th of July, 1904, a member of the ‘Organisation of the Struggle’ threw a bomb into the carriage of the Minister as he was driving towards the Warsaw railway station in St. Petersburg, on his way to an audience with the Tsar. He was killed instantaneously; while the assassin, Sasonov, and a second terrorist, Sickocki, who had lent him assistance, were arrested and condemned to twenty and eleven years respectively of penal servitude."
_K. Zilliacus, The Russian Revolutionary Movement,
## chapter 16 (New York, Dutton and Company)._
{565}
RUSSIA: A. D. 1902. The Political Awakening of the Common People. Ideas of the Stundists. Peasants taking Possession of the Granaries. Floggings and Butcheries in Progress.
"The discontented crowds are unarmed, their only weapons are, so far, shouts, banners and martyrdom for Liberty, while the auto-bureaucratic regime meets these with the infliction of wounds and death. Still there are features in this uneven struggle which are of very ill-omen for auto-bureaucracy. Such is, in the first place, the hearty compact between the factory workers and the masses of the towns on the one hand, and the forward elements of the classes, mainly represented by students of the different higher educational institutions, on the other. Secondly, there is the persistency with which the cries ‘Down with Autocracy!’ ‘Long live Liberty,’ are now resounding throughout the Empire of the Tzars. The shooters are invariably beaten down, even shot down, as we shall see later on; but the cry is raised again and again. Revolutions are, unfortunately, not accomplished by shouts alone; but does not the Tzar’s Government take all possible pains to teach the population this simple truth? …
"Merciless wholesale flogging goes on in the Poltava province. Rifles have also been used; and a number of women and children have been wounded and several peasants shot dead. One of the bodies had fourteen bullets in it. In the Kharkov province ‘peace and order’ has been enforced with a still greater ‘respect to uniform and arms.’ The soldiers themselves state that the number of blows doled out with the bundles of birch to the peasants amounted at times to 250 per person. When fleeing from the torture eight peasants hit on a patrol. The commanding officer being drunk ordered ‘fire!’ and all the eight unarmed and helpless victims fell dead!
"But do these ‘energetic measures’ produce the desired effect? In the village of Kourlak, Province of Voronezh, the same merciless flogging was to be administered to all its inhabitants. When the thirty-seventh peasant received his portion of the torture, the villagers, after consultation, declared that they submitted. But they collected carefully _all_ the birch-bundles which served for the execution. ‘ They will be of use to us,’ said the peasants, ‘when _we_ shall flog _you!_’ All the official explanations given them by the authorities on this occasion led them to the conclusion that the administration acknowledged the righteousness of their claims on the land, and flogged them only for using wrong means for its recovery;—that therefore they would soon have the upper hand over the officials and landlords, and would then flog them in their turn.
"Nor does the movement in the Poltava Province (see above, Russia. A. D. 1901-1904) show any sign of abatement. According to the latest private information, which dates from the last day of April, the peasant movement there does not at all bear the character of devastation; although the landlords are undoubtedly ruined by the quiet doings of the villagers. There is no pillaging. The peasants, headed by their elective elders, open the granaries of the landlords and distribute the grain among themselves according to the needs of each family (the well-to-do receiving nothing), while the remaining grain, if any, is transferred to the communal stores. Part of this appropriated grain has already been used by the peasants for sowing their own fields, as well as those they have appropriated from the gentry. As soon as the troops are marched into the rebellious locality, they take possession of the appropriated grain still remaining in the communal granaries, and return it to its former owners. But as soon as the soldiery, after wholesale flogging of the peasantry, leave the locality, the peasants again take possession of the landlords’ grain. The prison at Poltava is crammed with peasants and students, and yet clandestine manifestoes are published with the regularity of the local official paper, and are distributed even among the soldiery. …
"The present peasant movement is not confined to the three provinces already mentioned. In these it originated simply on the ground of starvation, and similar events are reported from the provinces of Koursk, Ekaterinoslav and Podolia; also in those of Tomsk, Tobolsk, etc., in distant Siberia, where governmental grain stores suffered the fate of the landlords’ granaries in Europe. But the tension of the peasants’ spirit, their utter distrust of the present Government, and their readiness to take justice into their own hands may be said to be universal throughout the Empire.
"At the beginning of the Social Democratic movement in Russia no hopes of the Russian peasant were cherished by its leaders. But powerful agrarian organisations have since sprung up."
_Felix Volkhovsky, The Russian Awakening (Contemporary Review, June, 1902)._
RUSSIA: A. D. 1902. Russo-Chinese Treaty concerning Tibet.
See (in this Volume) TIBET: A. D. 1902.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1903 (April). The Massacre of Jews at Kishineff.
The British Vice-Consul at Odessa, Mr. Bosanquet, visited Kishineff in July, to learn the facts of the barbarous attack on the Jewish population of that town, which had been made by a mob in the previous April. The following particulars are taken from his official report, published soon afterward as a Parliamentary Paper:
"The riots began on Easter Sunday (O. S.), (the 19th April, N. S.), in the afternoon, in the eastern extremity of the town … and on that day were confined to the ordinary acts of a turbulent crowd—_e. g._, the smashing of windows and door-panels in Jewish houses. The area of Sunday’s disturbance was comparatively small." Early the next morning they began afresh in the same quarter, and spread to other parts of the town. "They were directed entirely against the Jews." "Monday was the day when the worst crimes were committed, and these were perpetrated by bands of rioters in different parts of the town. Many people believe the riots to be the work of organized companies."
"Besides the murders committed, the interiors of houses were utterly dismantled, pillows ripped up, Jewish Scriptures torn, floors destroyed, and furniture thrown into the street; while at an early stage wine was broached, that which was not drunk pouring into the street. The local authorities took no effective step to stop the riots, which continued unabated till 4 P. M., or later, the soldiers meanwhile being passive, if not sympathetic, spectators, and the police contenting themselves with the arrest of minor criminals; then the Governor, who had remained at home giving orders by telephone, which were disregarded, at length ventured to sign the necessary order for the troops to be employed. {566} The only case I heard of in which the latter used their weapons occurred shortly after the issue of the Governor’s order, when a Christian boy, pursuing a Jew with a stone, and refusing to desist, was knocked down and bayoneted by soldiers. An eye-witness of the scene related the facts to me. This boy (with one doubtful exception) was the only Christian killed in the disturbances. If resolute action had been taken by the authorities, it is believed that the riots could have been checked at an early stage. The more usual opinion seems to be that all the murders occurred on Monday. It is certain that none were perpetrated on Sunday, and very doubtful whether any took place after the order to employ the troops had come into effect. The disorders did not entirely cease, as next day (21st April) houses in the outskirts were pillaged; but, roughly speaking, the riots may be said to have ended on Monday. Some students are said to have taken part in the riots."
"Apparently a feeling existed among the lower classes that the Jews ought not to be in a majority at Kishineff. The fact is that they form about 50 per cent. of the population, which amounts to some 115,000 inhabitants, the other half consisting two-thirds of Moldavians, and after them of Russians, Greeks, Armenians, Poles, Germans, &c."
The victims of these melancholy occurrences are officially estimated at 41 Jews killed, or who died subsequently of wounds, 3 severely, and 300 slightly, wounded. Among the killed was one child accidentality suffocated by its mother. The deaths are placed by another (Jewish) authority at 43, including 2 young children, and by some even as high as 47, but this figure seems to include persons who died from shock, and not directly from violence. The official estimate of deaths is identical with the figure communicated to me at the Jewish hospital.
"Three hundred and eight persons have already been convicted of thefts and other minor offenses [in connection with the riots], and have been sentenced to terms of imprisonment ranging from one week to three months. … The accused still awaiting trial number 360. … Of the above prisoners 260 are accused of participation in the riots without actual violence and are out on bail in sums ranging from 200 to 300 roubles. Those in this category who are found guilty will be sentenced to imprisonment without hard labour in the Maison Correctionnelle, where the discipline is more severe than in prison. The remaining 100 are charged with murder in addition to other crimes, and those found guilty will be transported to undergo penal servitude in the Island of Sakhalin."
RUSSIA: A. D. 1903 (May-October). Intrigues against Opening Ports in Manchuria to Foreign Trade.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1903 (May-October).
RUSSIA: A. D. 1903-1904. Concert with Austria-Hungary in submitting the Mürzsteg Programme of Reform in Macedonia to Turkey.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1903-1904.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1904 (February-July). Opening of the War with Japan. Battles at the Yalu. First operations in Manchuria. First movements against Port Arthur.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (FEBRUARY-JULY).
RUSSIA: A. D. 1904 (July-September). War with Japan: Japanese Success in Manchuria. The great battle of Liao-Yang.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).
RUSSIA: A. D. 1904-1905. Reforming attempts of Prince Mirsky. Meeting of Zemstvo presidents. The Revolutionary Workman. Father Gapon. The Appeal to the Tsar. The answering Massacre of "Bloody Sunday." Assassination of Grand Duke Sergius. Witte’s practical premiership. The Call of the First Duma. The General Strike on the Railways. The Great General Strike. The Ukase of October 30, called the Constitution of Russia. Beginning of Reaction. The Postal Strike. Fatal Rising at Moscow.
The hated Plehve was succeeded by Prince Svyatopolk Mirsky, a broad-minded statesman, who began earnest efforts to set the government on a different course. One of the first measures of the prince was to win authority from the Tsar for a meeting of the presidents of the zemstvos, or provincial councils, which are bodies of a considerably representative character, exercising a limited power in their rural districts over matters of sanitation, public roads, and common schools. Ostensibly, the meeting was to concert measures of relief for the wounded in the war with Japan; but everybody knew that political questions could not escape discussion if such a meeting was held.
All the interests that uphold autocracy, aristocracy, and bureaucracy in Russia were quick to scent danger, and had no difficulty in persuading the weak-willed sovereign to recall his consent to the meeting. In his feeble, half-way manner of doing things, he forbade it as a public assembly, but allowed its members to meet unofficially and privately, in November, with no publication of their discussions or acts. They adopted resolutions setting forth a bold demand for a representation of the people in their government, and these were laid before the Tsar. He gave a public reply to them on the 26th of December, ignoring the demand for representative institutions, declaring that the government must remain autocratic, but making vague promises of reform in the laws, with especial assurances of liberty to the press and in religion; but everything granted must flow by gracious favor from the autocracy, through the channels of the bureaucracy, where it could not by any possibility run true and clear. The words of the Tsar, vague as they were, produced some encouragement, and a feeling of trust in his good intentions; but the effect was soon destroyed.
It was at about this time that Prince Trubetskoi, in authority at Moscow, addressed a letter to Prince Mirsky, from which the following was published in translation soon after:
"Through this letter I wish to explain myself to you, and ask you not to refuse me the privilege of representing to the Emperor, most humbly, the motives which prompted me to give the zemstvo permission to assert itself. According to public opinion, in which I concur unreservedly, Russia is, at present, facing an epoch of anarchy and revolutionary movement. What is going on is, by far, no mere agitation by the youth. The youth stands forth only as a reflection of the general state prevailing in society. This state is most dangerous and terrible for our entire country, as well as for all of us, and particularly so for the holy person of the Emperor. It is, therefore, the duty of every truly loyal subject to ward off the disastrous calamity with any and all means at his disposal. {567} A short time ago, I had the good fortune to be received by the Emperor, and to tell him, straightforwardly and truly, to the best of my effort and knowledge, about the present state of society. I endeavored to explain to him that what is going on is not a riot, but a revolution; that the Russian people is thus being drawn into a revolution, which it does not desire, and which can be forestalled by the Emperor. Yet there is but one way out of it, just one, and that is by the Emperor placing confidence in the strength of society and of the masses. In the depths of my soul I am firmly convinced that if the Emperor only wanted to confidently group these powers around himself, Russia would free itself from all the terrors of the impending disturbance, and would support its Czar, his will, and his absolute sovereignty. In view of the state of mind of all the people, who are filled with fear and horror over the things referred to above, it is really beyond human power to refuse them to speak about that which is vexing and tormenting everybody so fearfully."
"The opening of the next year (1905) was marked by the appearance of a new element in revolution. Certainly, there had been strikes and riots in the great cities before; there had been peasant risings and other forms of economic agitation in various parts. But as a whole the revolutionary movement as such had been inspired, directed, and even carried out by the educated classes—the students, the journalists, the doctors, barristers, and other professional men. It had been almost limited to that great division of society which in Russia is called ‘The Intelligence.’ … It was ‘the Intelligence’ who hitherto had fought for the revolution. … At length the first-fruits of their toilsome propaganda, continued through forty years, were seen, and the revolutionary workman appeared.
"He was ushered in by Father George Gapon, at that time a rather simple-hearted priest, with a rather childlike faith in God and the Tsar, and a certain genius for organization. His personal hold upon the working classes was probably due to their astonishment that a priest should take any interest in their affairs, outside their fees. … Father Gapon, with his thin line of genius for organization, had gathered the workmen’s groups or trade unions of St. Petersburg into a fairly compact body, called ‘The Russian Workmen’s Union,’ of which he was President as well as founder. In the third week in January the men at the Putiloff iron works struck because two of their number had been dismissed for belonging to their union. At once the Neva iron and ship-building works, the Petroffsky cotton works, the Alexander engine works, the Thornton cloth works, and other great factories on the banks of the river or upon the industrial islands joined in the strike, and in two days some 100,000 work-people were ‘out.’
"With his rather childlike faith in God and the Tsar, Father Gapon organized a dutiful appeal of the Russian workmen to the tender-hearted autocrat whose benevolence was only thwarted by evil counsellors and his ignorance of the truth. The petition ran, in part, as follows:—
"‘We workmen come to you for truth and protection. We have reached the extreme limits of endurance. We have been exploited, and shall continue to be exploited under your bureaucracy. The bureaucracy has brought the country to the verge of ruin and by a shameful war is bringing it to its downfall. We have no voice in the heavy burdens imposed on us. We do not even know for whom or why this money is wrung from the impoverished people, and we do not know how it is expended. This is contrary to the Divine laws, and renders life impossible. It is better that we should all perish, we workmen and all Russia. Then good luck to the capitalists and exploiters of the poor, the corrupt officials and robbers of the Russian people!
"‘Throw down the wall that separates you from your people. Russia is too great and her needs are too various for officials to rule. National representation is essential, for the people alone know their own needs. Direct that elections for a constituent assembly be held by general secret ballot. That is our chief petition. Everything is contained in that. If you do not reply to our prayer, we will die in this square before your palace. We have nowhere else to go. Only two paths are open to us—to liberty and happiness or to the grave. Should our lives serve as the offering of suffering Russia, we shall not regret the sacrifice, but endure it willingly.’
"On the morning of Sunday, January 22, 1905, about 15,000 working men and women formed into a procession to carry this petition to the Tsar in his Winter Palace upon the great square of government buildings. They were all in their Sunday clothes; many peasants had come up from the country in their best embroideries; they took their children with them. In front marched Father Gapon and two other priests wearing vestments. With them went the ikons, or holy pictures of shining brass and silver, and a portrait of the Tsar. As the procession moved along, they sang, ‘God save our people. God give our orthodox Tsar the victory.’
"So the Russian workmen made their last appeal to the autocrat whom they called their father. They would lay their griefs before him, they would see him face to face, they would hear his comforting words. But the father of his people had disappeared into space. As the procession entered the square, the soldiers fired volley after volley upon them from three sides. The estimate of the killed and wounded was about 1500. That Sunday—January 9th in Russian style—is known as Bloody Sunday or Vladimir’s Day, after the Grand Duke Vladimir who was supposed to have given the orders. Next morning Father Gapon wrote to his Union: ‘There is no Tsar now. Innocent blood has flowed between him and the people.’"
_Henry W. Nevinson, The Dawn in Russia, Introduction. (Harper’s, New York)._
If the atrocity of the 9th of January was intended to terrorize and paralyze the opposition to absolutism it failed. It maddened the more violent revolutionists, and increasingly desperate enterprises of assassination were provoked. The provocation was made greater by the appointment of Trepoff, notorious for brutality of temper, to a newly created office, of Governor-General of St. Petersburg. On the 17th of February the Grand Duke Sergius, uncle to the Tsar, Governor-General of Moscow, and conspicuously heartless and foul in his exercise of power, was assassinated as he drove through the streets. Strikes and riotous outbreaks were of constant occurrence in the industrial cities, especially violent in Warsaw, Lodz, and other Polish towns.
{568}
The Tsar issued a piteous manifesto on the 3d of March, appealing for a "rally round the throne" by all "who, true to Russia’s past, honestly and conscientiously have a care for all the affairs of the state such as we have ourselves." On the same day he published a rescript in which he said: "I am resolved henceforth, with the help of God, to convene the worthiest men, possessing the confidence of the people and elected by them, to participate in the elaboration and consideration of legislative measures." But, even if this expressed the personal disposition of the weak-willed sovereign, it promised nothing to correspond to it in the
## action of government; as was shown by the promotion of Trepoff
to be Assistant-Minister of the Interior and Chief of Police. Prince Mirsky, baffled in his undertakings and hopeless of good from his service, had resigned the Ministry of the Interior, and his successor, M. Buliguine, held the office but a short time. M. Serguei Yulievitch Witte, former Minister of Finance, and latterly President of the Imperial Ministers, now acquired a substantial premiership in the administration, which does not seem to have belonged to his office before. Nothing of satisfaction came from the December promises of reformed law. Bureaucratic commissions were understood to be working on measures to make good the Tsar’s word, but months passed with no result. There were fitful relaxations of the censorship of the press, so capricious that no editor could know what he might and might not say.
In April, religious liberty was proclaimed, with special rights and privileges reserved to the Russian orthodox church. M. Witte had advocated a separation of the church from the state; but that was beyond hope. There must, however, have been an important weakening of church influence in the government, since the long despotic procurator-general of the Holy Synod, M. Pobiedonostzeff, resigned before the close of the year.
Early in the summer the heads of provincial zemstvos held another meeting, and discussed the popular demand for a constitutional and representative government without restraint. Then the Czar gave them a friendly audience, and declared to them that "the admission of elected representatives to works of state will be regularly accomplished"; but this was followed speedily by an official explanation that his majesty’s remarks must not be understood as containing "any indication of the possibility of modifying the fundamental law of the empire." This was to check an eager leaping of the public mind to high hopes.
On the 19th of August the long wavering imperial mind seemed brought to a definite intention at last, in a proclamation which summoned a national assembly, or duma, to meet "not later than the middle of January, 1906."
"The Empire of Russia," said the Tsar in his preamble, "is formed and strengthened by the indestructible solidarity of the Tsar with the people and the people with the Tsar. The concord and union of the people and the Tsar are a great moral force, which has created Russia in the course of centuries by protecting her from all misfortunes and all attacks, and has constituted up to the present time a pledge of unity, independence, integrity, material well-being, and intellectual development. Autocratic Tsars, our ancestors, constantly had that object in view, and the time has come to follow out their good intentions, and to summon elected representatives from the whole of Russia to take a constant and active part in the elaboration of laws, attaching for this purpose to the higher state institutions a special consultative body, entrusted with the preliminary elaboration and discussion of measures, and with the examination of the state budget. It is for this reason that, while preserving the fundamental law regarding autocratic power, we have deemed it well to form a State Duma, and to approve regulations for the elections to this Duma."
By the terms of the call it will be seen, "the fundamental law regarding autocratic power" was preserved with care. And, said the proclamation, "we reserve to ourselves entirely the care of perfecting the organization of the duma." It was to have no power to initiate legislation, but only to discuss and pass judgment upon measures brought before it by the ministers of the Tsar, who thus held fast to the substance of his autocratic power.
The Duma was to consist of 412 members, representing 50 governments and the military province of the Don, and only 28 members representing towns. It was to be elected for five years, unless dissolved sooner by the Tsar. Its meetings were to be secret, except as the president, in his discretion, might admit the reporters of the Press.
The limited functions proposed for the Duma, and the indefinite prescription of procedure in its election, left not much in the Tsar’s project of a national assembly to satisfy the nation. In September a large meeting of representatives of the zemstvos, from all parts of the Empire, was held privately at Moscow, and it was there agreed that they should exert themselves to secure as many seats in the coming Duma as possible, with a view to making it instrumental in the movement for something better. The ultimate aim of present endeavor was defined in a programme which included: a representative national legislature; a systematic budget system; freedom of conscience, speech, press, meeting and association; inviolability of person and home; equal rights of all citizens; equal responsibility of all officials and citizens under the law; the abolition of passports.
In October, on the 21st, the workingmen organized their first great general strike, on the railways, which paralyzed travel and traffic, except as the government could operate some military trains. The strikers made bold demands, presented to Witte on the 24th: "The claims of the working classes," they said, "must be settled by laws constituted by the will of the people and sanctioned by all Russia. The only solution is to announce political guarantees for freedom and the convocation of a Constituent Assembly, elected by direct, universal and secret suffrage. Otherwise the country will be forced into rebellion." Witte replied: "A Constituent Assembly is for the present impossible. {569} Universal suffrage would, in fact, only give preëminence to the richest classes, because they could influence all the voting by their money. Liberty of the press and of public meeting will be granted very shortly. I am myself strongly opposed to all persecution and bloodshed, and I am willing to support the greatest amount of liberty possible. … But there is not in the entire world a single cultivated man who is in favor of universal suffrage." Two days after receiving this reply the Council of Labor Delegates, or "Strike Committee," declared a general strike of workmen throughout Russia, and about a million workingmen are said to have taken the risk of starvation by dropping work.
No doubt it was that evidence of determination in the revolutionary spirit of the country which drew from the Tsar, on the 30th of October, the famous ukase which was characterized hastily at the time as "the Magna Charta of Russia," "the surrender of autocracy," the founding of constitutional government. In reality, the document was no more than an injunction to the ministers of the autocrat to carry out his "absolute will" in certain matters, most of which were set forth with characteristic vagueness of terms. The following is a translation of the entire manifesto, as communicated to the Government of the United States from its embassy at St. Petersburg:
By the grace of God we, Nicholas Second, Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias, Tsar of Poland, Grand Duke of Finland, etc.
The rioting and agitation in the capitals and in many localities of our Empire has filled our heart with great and deep affliction. The welfare of the Russian Emperor is united with the welfare of the people, and its troubles are his troubles. The agitation which has broken out may bring confusion among the people and threaten the entirety and unity of our Empire.
The solemn vow of the imperial service commands us, with all the strength of intelligence and of our power, to endeavor to stop as quickly as possible agitations so dangerous to the Empire. In ordering the competent authorities to take measures to avert the disorders, the troubles, and violence, and to guard peaceful people who are eager to fulfill quietly the duties placed upon them, we have found it necessary, in order to insure the proper execution of the general measures marked out by us, to unify the action of the supreme government.
We lay upon the government the fulfillment of our absolute will:
1. To grant to the population the inviolable basis of free citizenship, on the ground of actual inviolable personality, freedom of conscience, speech, meeting, and unions;
2. Without stopping the intended elections for the State Duma, to include now in the participation of the Duma as far as possible, in view of the corresponding short term which remains before the convocation of the Duma, those classes of the population which up to now were entirely deprived of the right to vote and to allow in future the further development of the element of a general right of election which is to be established by new legislation; and
3. To establish as an inviolable rule that no law shall take effect without its confirmation by the State Duma and that the persons elected by the population should be guaranteed the possibility of actual control over the legal activity of the persons appointed by us.
We call on all the true sons of Russia to remember their duties toward their fatherland, to assist in combating these unheard-of agitations, and together with us to unite all their strength in establishing quietness and peace in their country.
Given in Peterhof on the 17th day of October in the year of our Lord 1905 and the eleventh year of our reign.
(Signed in his own hand.) NICHOLAS.
At the same time, the ministers of the autocrat were enjoined to "abstain from any interference in the elections of the duma;" they were to "maintain the prestige of the duma and confidence in its labors, and not resist its decisions so long as they are not inconsistent with the historic greatness of Russia." In the exercise of executive power they should embody "(1) straightforwardness and sincerity in the confirmation of civil liberty;" "(2), a tendency toward the abolition of exclusive laws;" "(3), the coordination of the activity of all the organs of government;" "(4), the avoidance of repressive measures in respect to proceedings which do not openly menace society or the state."
These orders and injunctions from the autocracy to the bureaucracy were to be the constitution of government for which Russia had made demands. They did not satisfy the demand—or satisfied only the small party who were afterwards called "Octobrists," because they asked for no more than was granted in this ukase of October 30, 1905. The general strike was not called off, but demands for a Constituent Assembly were reiterated persistently. Agitation was kept alive, and with it the murderous warfare waged by revolutionists against high officials and the police. At the same time, reactionary officials and army officers, enraged by what the Tsar had done, stirred up mobs in various parts of the country to attack the Jews, and add to the state of public disorder, thus furnishing arguments for a fresh resort to repressive measures by the military arm. Presently there were serious outbreaks of mutiny in army and navy, at Odessa, Kronstadt, and Sevastopol, and all the foundations of public order seemed really, for a time, to be breaking up.
It is evident there was serious alarm in the circles of the autocracy. Pobiedonostzeff, the bigoted Procurator of the Holy Synod, and Trepoff, the savage head of the police, resigned. On the 4th of November an amnesty to political offenders was proclaimed, and the ancient liberties of Finland were restored, by a decree which abolished that of February, 1899 (see, in Volume VI., FINLAND), and that also annulled a later military law, of 1901, by which the Finnish army had been put on the Russian footing.
These signs of yielding to the claims "of the nation soon gave place, however, to symptoms on the reactionary side of revived courage and obstinacy among the keepers and masters of the Tsar’s mind and will. A manifesto on the 12th of November declared that reforms would not be possible till the country was quieted. Another on the 13th proclaimed martial law in Poland; whereat the "strike committee" called another strike in sympathy with Poland. {570} On the 14th Witte published an appeal to the workmen, saying: "Brothers! Workmen! Go back to your work and cease from disorder. Have pity on your wives and children, and turn a deaf ear to mischievous counsels. The Tsar commands us to devote special attention to the labor question, and to that end has appointed a Ministry of Commerce and Industry, which will establish just relations between masters and men. Only give us time, and I will do all that is possible for you. Pay attention to the advice of a man who loves you and wishes you well." The renewed strike was not successful. Not many of the workingmen would face the suffering from non-employment which they had gone through already. The attempt was ended on the 20th; but the Committee which called it, in annulling the order, enjoined the workers of the Empire to organize "for the final encounter between all Russia and the bloody monarchy now dragging out its last days."
Meantime, on the 17th, the Tsar sought to conciliate the peasants by reducing for one year the payments on land that were due under the land distribution which went with emancipation in 1861, and remitting them entirely after January, 1907.
See (in Volume IV.) SLAVERY, MEDIEVAL AND MODERN: RUSSIA.
On the 20th of November a Peasants’ Congress of 300 delegates met in Moscow and formulated demands for the nationalization of land and for a constituent assembly. The delegates were arrested. An alarming mutiny in the fleet and army at Sevastopol broke out on the 26th, but it was soon suppressed. Two days later the whole body of employees in the postal and telegraphic service at Moscow began a most troublesome strike, which spread from there and was continued for some weeks. Mr. Nevinson, who was in Moscow at the time, describes it in one of his chapters:
"In those happy weeks when freedom still was young and living, two things ruled the country—speech and the strike, the word and the blow. The strike was everywhere felt. No letter or telegram went or came. Each town in Russia was isolated, and the whole Empire stood severed from the world. … In Moscow the cooks struck, and paraded the streets with songs never heard in the drawing-room. The waiters struck, and heavy proprietors lumbered about with their own plates and dishes. The nursemaids struck for Sundays out. The housemaids struck for rooms with windows, instead of cupboards under the stairs, or sections from the water closets. Schoolboys struck for more democratic masters and pleasanter lessons. Teachers struck for higher pay. … But at the back of the strikes and all the revolutionary movement lay the motive force of speech. … After these centuries of suppression, all Russia was revelling in a spiritual debauch of words."
On the 6th of December General Sakharoff, formerly Minister of War and now Governor-General of a district on the Volga, was shot by a woman, to avenge the sufferings he had caused to the peasants. On the 7th the Strike Committee called on the workpeople to withdraw their money from the savings-banks; and, a little later, a joint manifesto, issued by that committee and committees of Peasants, Social Democrats, and Social Revolutionists, appealed generally to the people, not only to withdraw money from the savings banks, but "to refuse to pay taxes, or to take bank-notes, or to subscribe to loans," as a means of crippling the government financially. All papers which published this manifesto were suppressed and their editors arrested.
Then, in the last twelve days of December, came the fatal rising at Moscow, which the government, forewarned by its spies, precipitated, while the revolutionists’ preparations were but half made, and which it crushed mercilessly, with ease. From a diary of the occurrences of these tragical days at Moscow, given in the report of the resident American Consul to Ambassador Meyer, at St. Petersburg, the following entries are taken:
"_December_ 24. Barricades were continually built during days and nights. The revolutionists were in hope that about 20,000 or 30,000 workmen from the factories in the suburbs would enter the city and join them, but this was not accomplished, as the military forces were sufficient to prevent this. The revolutionists spread a rumor amongst the workmen that the soldiers were in sympathy with the strikers and that they would not fire on the mob and would join their ranks, but this rumor turned out to be untrue, as the troops were loyal to the Government. …
"_December_ 27. At 6 o’clock P. M. the house where the chief of the secret police, Mr. Voilochenkoff, resides, was surrounded by a revolutionary party and by their insistent demands the front door was opened. Six men rushed into his apartments and arrested the chief, and read the death sentence of the revolutionary party to him. His wife and three children pleaded to the revolutionists for mercy, but the revolutionists would not listen to their pleading, and they gave Mr. Voilochenkoff a short time to prepare for death and then took him out into a side street where he was shot to death, and his body left in the street. Disturbances and shooting were carried on in the different parts of the city, and new barricades erected.
"_December_ 31. The troops bombarded the large Prochoroff spinning mills, where a large number of revolutionists made their last stand. Many houses in the vicinity of the mill were either burnt down or wrecked by cannon balls. Many of the revolutionists and strikers were killed, wounded, or captured and the weapons confiscated. The general strike has been called off."
This was practically the end of the abortive rising. On the 5th of January, 1906, Ambassador Meyer wrote to the State Department at Washington:
"In my cable of December 25 I stated that although fighting had been stubborn and gatling guns had been used, I believed that the estimates so far given out as to loss of life were much exaggerated. It appears now that I was correct in my surmise, for in a semi-official statement given by one of the papers, from statistics taken at all the hospitals and accident bureaus, the deaths were given as about 750 and the wounded as a little over a thousand.
"I am glad to state that as yet I have heard of no injuries occurring to American citizens in Moscow; in fact in all these disturbances that have taken place in the various cities the revolutionists and strikers have refrained in all instances from attacking foreign consulates, and I believe this also applies to the property of foreign individuals."
{571}
On the 29th of January Ambassador Meyer wrote to Washington: "The revolutionary party seems to have spent its force for the time being. Instead of aiding reforms, they have greatly hampered them. By the attempted capture of Moscow, by their riots and rebellions in other parts of the country, followed by destruction of life and property, they have forced the Government into repression and reactionary methods in order to restore law and order. All this has necessarily caused a delay in the classification of the newly enfranchised voters and has given an excuse for a continued waste of precious time due to bureaucratic formality.
"Some of the factions are finally waking up to the necessity of giving attention to registration and a better comprehension of the coming elections. The Constitutional-Democratic party have decided by a large majority to take part in the elections and the Douma. The Social Democrats have also decided to
## participate. On the other hand, the Russian
Social-Revolutionaries, at their first meeting in Finland, lately, voted in favor of a boycott of the elections.
"At its last meeting, the Constitutional-Democratic party, in view of obstacles to free election campaigning which the local authorities are using against all opposing parties, voted to protest against the government policy, which in any way impeded free elections to the Imperial Douma, and further urged the most energetic participation of its members in the approaching elections.
"At a meeting of the marshals of the nobility, held at Moscow last week, the following resolutions were adopted: 1.That the final settlement of the agrarian question should be made the first task of the Douma. 2. That in deciding the agrarian question, it should be based on the principle of inviolability of private property."
RUSSIA: A. D. 1904-1905. War with Japan: Siege and Surrender of Port Arthur.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (FEBRUARY-AUGUST) and 1904-1905 (MAY-JANUARY)
RUSSIA: A. D. 1904-1905 (October-May).--War with Japan: Voyage of the Baltic Fleet. Its Destruction in the Battle of Tsushima.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905 (OCTOBER-MAY).
RUSSIA: A. D. 1904-1905 (September-March). War with Japan: Campaign in Manchuria. From the Battle of Liao-Yang to the end of the Battle of Mukden.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905 (SEPTEMBER-MARCH).
RUSSIA: A. D. 1904-1909. General Consequences in Europe of the Weakening of Russian Prestige and Power by the Russo-Japanese War.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1904-1909.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1905.
## Action with other Powers in forcing Financial Reforms
in Macedonia on Turkey.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1905-1908.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1905 (February-November). Naval Mutiny. Army Revolt. Peasant Risings. Conflict in the Caucasus.
The most serious of the revolutionary outbreaks of the year was that of mutiny in the navy. "Already in February the sailors of the Black Sea fleet, instigated by the revolutionary propaganda, had burned down the barracks at Sebastopol and assaulted their officers, and on June 27 the crew of the ‘Kniaz Potemkin,’ the principal battle-ship of the Black Sea fleet, mutinied at sea while the squadron of which it formed part was manoeuvring, and killed nearly all its officers. The mutineers were in league with the working men at Odessa, who at the same time invaded the harbor, and, accompanied by a riotous mob, plundered and burnt in all directions. Property of immense value was consumed, and some of the troops refused to fire on the rioters. Ultimately fresh troops were brought up, the ‘Kniaz Potemkin’ sailed away to the Roumanian port of Constanza, where it was surrendered to the Roumanian authorities, who gave up the ship to the Russians, and the crew was landed and disarmed. The crew of another battle-ship, the ‘Georgei Pobiedonosets,’ took part in the mutiny, but surrendered to the Russian authorities at Odessa. Riots also took place at the same time at the seaports of Reval, Riga, Libau, and Kronstadt, where the dockers were joined by the navy men and struck for an increase of wages. … On July 10 Count Schouvaloff, Prefect of Police at Moscow, was assassinated, and a general strike was proclaimed at Minsk. … In the Baltic provinces the peasants, who are Letts, constantly attacked the landed proprietors, who are German in race and speech; many of the latter were killed, the municipal buildings at Reval, Riga and Mittau were sacked. … In September the conflict which had been going on between the Tartars and the Armenians in the Caucasus culminated in a series of horrible massacres, accompanied by much destruction of property. At Baku most of the naphtha wells were destroyed by incendiary fires, and very much of the oil industry was ruined. The Tartars, carrying green banners, proclaimed a holy war against the Armenians, many thousands of whom were killed. … On November 25 an organized revolt took place of the soldiers, sailors and workmen of Sebastopol. There was no rioting, but several officers were killed, and for some days the town was in the hands of the rebels. The revolt was only suppressed on November 30, when a regular battle took place between the rebels and 20,000 troops that had been brought up against them. Forts and loyal ships fired on mutinous ships, and the barracks held by the rebels had to be bombarded before they were forced to surrender. … Other mutinies of troops took place at the same time at Warsaw and in other places."
_The Annual Register 1905, pages 313-323._
RUSSIA: A. D. 1905 (April-August). The Tsar’s Decree of Religious Liberty. Minister Witte’s enlightened Memorial. The Emptiness of Results.
Early in May, 1905, there was announcement that the Tsar, on the morning of the Russian Easter Day, had published a decree proclaiming absolute religious liberty to all his subjects. Previous tolerance of all religions in Russia had been subject to important limitations. No member of the state church could leave it to enter another without losing all his civil rights, and no church other than the Orthodox could proselyte. Furthermore, when members of the Russian Church and those of any other church married, it was necessary to have the ceremony performed by an Orthodox priest, and the law insisted that the children of such marriages be brought up in the Orthodox faith. These restrictions were particularly hard on the Old Believers, as they are called,—a body which separated from the Orthodox Church two and a half centuries ago and has suffered all kinds of persecution. The new ukase recognized the various orders of priesthood among the Old Believers, and gave them the right to celebrate marriage. To all the dissenting sects—Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Jews, and others—is accorded the right to erect houses of worship without restriction.
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The Tsar’s decree of entire religious freedom was known soon to have been the fruit of a remarkably broad minded memorial addressed to him by M. Witte, the President of his Council of Ministers, and a translation of that memorial was published in the May issue of _The Contemporary Review_. It pictured a state of paralysis in the Russian Church, consequent on its bondage to the State. "Both the ecclesiastical and the secular press," said the writer, "remark with equal emphasis upon the prevailing lukewarmness of the inner life of the Church,—upon the alienation of the flock, particularly of the educated classes of society, from its spiritual guides; the absence in sermons of a living word; the lack of pastoral activity on the part of the clergy, who in the majority of instances confine themselves to the conduct of divine service and the fulfillment of ritual observances; the entire collapse of the ecclesiastical parish community, with its educational and benevolent institutions; the red-tapism in the conduct of diocesan or consistorial business, and the narrowly bureaucratic character of the institutions grouped about the Synod. It was from Dostoyevski that we first heard that word of evil omen, ‘The Russian Church is suffering from paralysis.’"
This condition M. Witte attributes to the position in which the Church was placed by Peter the Great. "The chief aim of the ecclesiastical reforms of Peter I. was to reduce the Church to the level of a mere government institution pursuing purely political ends. And, as a matter of fact, the government of the Church speedily became merely one of the numerous wheels of the complicated government machine. On the soil of an ecclesiastical government robbed by bureaucratism of all personal elements the dry scholastic life-shunning school arose spontaneously. This policy of coercing the mind of the Church, though it may have been attended for the moment by a certain measure of political gain, subsequently inflicted a terrible loss. Hence that decline in ecclesiastical life with which we now have to deal."
The wise President of the Tsar’s Council made so much impression on the mind of his master as to draw from him the ukase of general religious freedom; but three months later, in the August number of _The American Review of Reviews_, Dr. E. J. Dillon, whose intimate knowledge of Russian affairs is well known, described how effectually the decree had been smothered by the bureaucracy, which is stronger than the Tsar. He wrote: "The most welcome of all the concessions emanating from the throne was that which Nicholas II. bestowed upon his subjects last Easter Sunday. Inspired and drafted by M. Witte, it was at first spoken of as liberty of conscience, but was soon afterward seen to amount to nothing more than religious toleration. And since then the bureaucracy has touched and killed it."
RUSSIA: A. D. 1905 (June-October). Ending of the War with Japan. Mediation by the President cf the United States. The Peace Treaty of Portsmouth.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1905 (JUNE-OCTOBER).
RUSSIA: A. D. 1905-1907. The Recent Russian Political Parties.
As explained by Mr. Maurice Baring in his interesting book entitled _A Year in Russia_, the crystallization of political parties in Russia began after the issue of the Manifesto of October, 1905. The most important was that of the Constitutional Democrats, nicknamed the "Cadets," a name formed from the letters "K. D." Similarly the party called Social Revolutionaries are nicknamed "S. R’s." and the Social Democrats "S. D’s." The party of the Constitutional Democrats was the product of a combination of Zemstvo members who had previously been united in a "League of Liberation" with the professional classes, whom Professor Milioukov had brought together in a "Union of Unions," which represented the great mass of educated Russia—the "Intelligenzia." This combination of the professional class with the Zemstvoists, who had more political experience than others could enjoy in Russia, was mainly the important work of Professor Milioukov.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1906. The First Duma. Election of Representatives. Its Conflict with the Government and its Dissolution. Rise of M. Stolypin. The Instigated Massacres (Pogroms).
In January, 1906, when the Duma promised by the Tsar on the 19th of the previous August should have met, the conditions in the country were such that the Government dared not permit the meeting to be held, and it was postponed without date. After some weeks a more submissive state of order was restored, and the meeting was appointed for the 10th of the following May. The elections were held in March, and Ambassador Meyer described the system on which they were conducted in an extended despatch to the State Department at Washington, from which the following is borrowed:
"The total number of members of the Duma, when the elections shall have finally been completed, will be 501. The elections are, however, not carried on the same day throughout the country. Governors and vice-governors, prefects of cities and their lieutenants cannot vote in their departments, nor can members of the army or navy who are on active service, or persons doing police duty in governments or cities when elections are taking place.
"The voters are divided into classes, and that it may be more clearly shown I have made the following table;
------------------------------------------------------------ Peasants.
Clergy Cities not in special list Volosts Workmen -------------------------> Delegates -> Electors -> Duma Members
Landed proprietors and special cities. -------------------------------------> Electors -> Duma Members
------------------------------------------------------------
{573}
"From this it will be seen that the peasants are in a class by themselves and, as a matter of fact, in the present elections are not given an opportunity of expression, as it is the volosts (elected at the mir, in most instances, before the Duma was even granted) that choose the delegates. The volosts, workmen, clergy (not lauded proprietors), voters of cities (not in special list), and class C of lauded proprietors, all choose delegates. These delegates, in turn, select electors, as do also landed proprietors, and qualified voters of cities on the special list. The electors vote for Duma members in their appropriate electoral college, and their choice is confined to a member of their own body. Therefore in every instance, in order to become a member of the Duma, a candidate must be an elector and previous to that a delegate, except in the case of landed proprietors and voters of special cities. …
"It is noticeable that the large cities in European Russia are limited to one member of the Duma, with the exception of Moscow and St. Petersburg, the former having an allotment of four and the latter of six.
"There is an exceptional provision with regard to the procedure of the peasant electors. … Elections to the Duma, with the exception cited as to the privilege of peasant electors, are finally effected in the governments and territories by the government electoral college, and in the cities by the municipal electoral college."
Mr. Meyer reported further that an imperial manifesto had announced that the Council of the Empire would in future "consist of an equal number of elective members and members nominated by the Emperor. It will be convoked annually by an imperial ukase at the same time with the Duma. The two assemblies will have equal legislative powers, and each can exercise the same initiative in introducing bills or interrogations. Every bill must be passed by both houses before being sent to the Tsar for his signature and approval. The elected members of the Council will be eligible for nine years, a third being reelected every three years." Of the 98 elective members of the Council (one half of the body), 18 were to be chosen from the nobles, 50 from the zemstvo of each government, 6 from the Orthodox Church, 6 from the universities, 12 from the representatives of the Council of Commerce and Industry, and 6 from representatives of the Polish landed proprietors.
On the 7th of April Ambassador Meyer wrote to Washington concerning the result of the elections: "The success of the Constitutional Democrats has made a great impression on the Government and created considerable nervousness. Witte is really anxious to resign and go out of the country for a much-needed rest. But he assured a mutual friend that he would stay and serve the Emperor as long as His Majesty desired. The elections so far have impressed upon his mind the want of confidence which exists among the people as to his administration. As he is without any supporters among the elected members of the Duma, it is difficult to believe that the Emperor will be able or even desirous of having him continue to serve as premier after the Duma is organized."
This anticipation proved correct. M. Witte had withdrawn from the ministerial premiership when the Duma assembled on the 10th of May, and M. Goremykin had taken his place.
There was conflict between the Duma and the Government from the moment that the former adopted its reply to the opening speech of the Tsar. With unanimity it demanded general amnesty for past political offenses, abolition of the death penalty, suspension of martial law, full civil liberty, universal suffrage, abolition of the council of the empire, a review of the fundamental law, responsibility of ministers and right of interpellation, a forced expropriation of land, and a guarantee of rights to trade unions.
M. Stolypin, Minister of the Interior, now coming to the front of ministerial leadership, made his first speech in the Duma on the 21st of June, and was assailed with cries of "Murderer" and "Assassin" when he defended illegal acts of police officials and provincial governors, in the suppression of disorder, and declared his determination to maintain order. Among the replies to him was one by Prince Urussoff, former Assistant Minister of the Interior, who made a powerful attack on the sinister methods of the Government—the "policy of massacre," as he named it—declaring that massacres were always organized by secret forces. "Any investigation," he said, "of the so-called ‘pogroms’ (massacres) will bring the investigator face to face with the following certain symptoms; they are identical in all cases; Firstly, a massacre is always preceded by reports of its preparation, accompanied by the circulation of appeals exciting the population and of one constant kind in form and substance. They are accompanied by a certain kind of stormy petrels in the person of little known representatives of the dregs of the population. Then, too, the cause of the massacre as officially announced is afterwards always without exception found to be false. Furthermore, in these massacres there is always to be found a certain similarity of plan which gives these actions the character of chance. The murderers act on the assumption of some kind of right, as though conscious that they will not be punished, and only continue to act as long as this confidence remains unshaken—after which the massacre stops extraordinarily quickly and easily."
What Prince Urussoff had intimated, as to the instigation of the massacres from high circles was declared most distinctly and positively, three years later, by Prince Kropotkin, in a letter to the London _Times_ of July 29, 1909. He wrote: "Something which never has happened anywhere in Western Europe happened then in Russia, as M. Obninsky, a member of the first Duma, says in a terrible book of statistics he has published in 1906 at Moscow, under the title, ‘A Half-Year of the Russian Revolution.’ In a hundred different cities men of the so-called ‘Black Hundreds’ came together on some public square, received there the benediction of the clergy, sent telegrams to the Palace circles in St. Petersburg, received answers from them, and then went on killing the Jews, the Armenians, the Poles, the Russian members of the Zemstvos, and Russian ‘Intellectuals’ altogether, under the protection of the military, the local police, and the local governors.
{574}
"For some time I could not believe that such _pogroms_ could have been organized from St. Petersburg by the authorities. Now the evidence is overwhelming. We know that proclamations inciting to _pogroms_ were printed by the gendarmes in the Secret Police offices, we know from the revelations of these gendarmes themselves that men and officers were sent to the provinces with proclamations and arms to organize the pogroms; and we know how the leaders of the Union of Russian Men were petted and given money by the Tsar and how they organized murders, wholesale and retail, with the aid of members of the Secret Police; and here is the net result which I have before me in a long, very long, list compiled by the Law Review _Pravo_.
"This list is simply horrifying. The Constitution manifesto was signed on October 30. The same day took place the _pogrom_ at Tver; the Zemstvo house was burnt, and 24 persons were wounded. At Moscow, November 2, 30 wounded; Odessa, October 31-November 3, more than 1,000 killed and 5,000 wounded; Kieff, October 31, 150 killed, 100 wounded; Tomsk, November 3, 150 killed and burned, 76 heavily wounded (all these, by the way, and many others are Russian towns); Minsk, 100 killed, 400 wounded; Tiflis, November 2, more than 100 killed; and so on, and so on. … The result of similar campaigns in different parts of Russia for twelve months only in 1905-1906 was—killed, more than 14,000; executed, about 1,000; wounded and partly died from wounds, about 20,000; arrested and imprisoned, mostly without judgment, 75,000. This last figure was given in the Duma by Professor Kovalevsky on May 2, 1906, in the presence of M. Stolypin, who did not contest it."
On the 22d of July the Duma was dissolved by imperial command, and the following manifesto to the people was published by the Autocrat on the following day:
"Persons selected by the people were called to the legislature. Trusting in the goodness of God, believing in the happy and grand future of our people, we were expecting from their labors the happiness and interest of the country. Great reforms had been indicated by us in all that concerns the life of the people, and our greatest care, which is to substitute education for the ignorance of the people and to lessen the difficulties of its life by improving the conditions under which it cultivates the ground, was foremost. A painful ordeal was reserved to our hopes. The elected of the nation, instead of turning their attention to legislative labors, have entered a field that was closed to them, and have begun to investigate the doings of authorities established by us, to indicate to us the imperfections of fundamental laws that can only be altered by our imperial will, and to commit illegal acts, such as the appeal addressed to the people of the Duma.
"The peasants, dazed by these disorders, without waiting for the legal improvement to their position, gave themselves up, in a great number of governments, to pillage and theft, refusing to submit to the law or to legal authorities. …
"By dissolving the actual Duma of the Empire we testify to our unalterable intention of maintaining, in all their force, the laws concerning the establishment of that institution, and, consequently, we have fixed, by our ukase given to the ruling Senate on the 8th July instant, the convocation of the new Duma on the 20th of February, 1907."
About two hundred members of the dissolved Duma went immediately from St. Petersburg to Viborg, in Finland, and held a meeting there, from which they published an address to the "Citizens of all the Russias," signed by one hundred and sixty of their number, protesting against the opposition which the Duma had encountered from the Government in all its undertakings, and practically refusing submission to its dissolution. "In the place of the present Duma," they said, "the Government promises to convoke a new one in seven months. … For seven months the Government will act as it likes, will wrestle with the movement of the people in order to obtain a submissive and desirable Duma, and if it succeeds in entirely crushing the movement of the people it will not convoke any Duma at all. Citizens, stand firmly by the trampled rights of the representatives of the people. Stand for the Duma of the Empire. Russia must not remain one day without representatives from the people. We have the means of obtaining this. The Government has not the right without our consent to collect taxes from the people, nor to call the people to military service, and therefore, now, when the Government has dissolved the Duma of the Empire, it is your right to refuse to supply it with soldiers or money. If the Government, in order to secure resources, makes loans, such loans, made without consent of the representatives of the people, will henceforth be invalid, and the Russian people will not recognize them and will not pay for them. Consequently, until the representatives of the people are convoked, do not pay a kopeck into the treasury nor send a man to the army. Be firm in your refusal; stand for your rights, all as one man. Against the united and absolute will of the people no power whatever can resist. Citizens, in this compulsory but inevitable struggle your representatives will be with you."
This proved to be futile action. The Government was prompt in arresting and imprisoning most of the signers of the appeal to the people, and none of them was allowed to be returned to the Second Duma when the new elections were held. Pending that election, some very substantial gifts of imperial favor were made to the peasants, to win their good will, but nothing appears to have been remembered of the October injunctions of the Tsar concerning the "confirmation of civil liberty." In August, 4,500,000 acres of crown lauds were transferred by an imperial ukase to the Peasants’ Bank, for sale to the peasants on easy terms; and on the 18th of October another ukase released them to a large extent from the restraints of the communal system, and decreed the equality of all citizens before the law. The following is part of the text of this important decree, as communicated in translation to the American government by Ambassador Meyer, and published in the report of 1906 on Foreign Relations.
"The Czar orders, on the basis of the fundamental law of 1906, that the following reforms be made:
"1. To accord all Russian subjects, without distinction of origin, with exception of the aborigines, equal rights with regard to the state service with persons of noble blood, and at the same time to abolish all special privileges of dress due either to official position or to the origin of the wearer.
{575}
"2. Peasants and members of other classes formerly taxable are freed (a) from the presentation of discharge papers on entering an educational institution or the civil service; further, from personal payment in kind and the performance of communal duties during the whole time the persons in question may be either in the educational institution or civil service; (_b_) from the necessity of demanding for entry into holy orders or a monastery the permission of the commune.
"3. The compulsory exclusion of peasant and other classes formally taxable from the following ranks and careers is abolished; (_a_) From entering the civil service; (_b_) from receiving rank; (_c_) from receiving orders and other distinctions; (_d_) from attaining learned grades and honors; (_e_) from completing educational courses and
## particularly from winning higher class rights.
"In all these cases the persons in question are allowed to retain all the rights arising from their connections with their commune, as well as the responsibilities thereof, until they have freely withdrawn from the commune or entered into other corporations of standing. With regard to the legal standing of the persons in question, there shall serve as a basis the regulations of the rank or profession which these persons have won."
See, also, below, RUSSIA: A. D. 1909 (APRIL).
Meantime, extensive plans of insurrection, with naval and military mutiny, in five cities, had been formed and had miscarried. The outbreak was premature at Sveaborg, late in July, and the sailors who started it were quickly overcome. The same failure occurred at Kronstadt, where the revolutionists and mutinous troops took Fort Constantine and the arsenal, but found no ammunition in the latter, and were defenseless when surrounded by loyal forces. At Libau, Odessa, and Sevastopol the intended rising was given up.
On the 25th of August a desperate plot of wholesale murder, intended to include M. Stolypin among its victims, was carried out by the explosion of a horribly destructive bomb at the country house of that Minister, on Aptekarsky Island. M. Stolypin was holding a reception, and the rooms were crowded with officials and others, when four conspirators, three of them dressed as gendarmes, drove up boldly, and were able, either to enter the house with a bomb or to throw it through a window. The effect of the explosion was so horribly destructive that the house was torn to pieces and thirty people were killed outright or injured mortally, besides an equal number that received curable wounds. Two of the Minister’s children were among the latter, and he himself received slight injuries. The Governor of Penza, M. Koshoff, who stood near him, was instantly killed. Two of the assassins were among the killed and the other two were wounded and captured. On the following day a young woman of the terrorist organization slew General Min, at Peterhof railway station, by shots from a revolver. He had been active in suppressing the insurrection at Moscow.
In October Ambassador Meyer, after a trip into Poland and to Odessa, reported as the result of his observations:
"On the whole, the revolutionary movement, for the time being, has lost its momentum. A year ago it was on the crest of the wave. Then a strike could be ordered and put in force without any difficulty, but now the workmen refuse to be used for political purposes or respond to the whims of the agitator. The present conditions are liable to continue until the next Duma, March 5. Yesterday, which was the first anniversary of October 17 (Russian Style), it had to be given out by some of the revolutionists that there would be strikes, uprisings, and agitations throughout the country. But the day passed off quietly. Mr. Stolypin is facing with much courage and resolution the stupendous task which confronts him. He is endeavoring to deal fairly, while at the same time it is necessary to reestablish law and order."
On the 21st of December Count Alexei Ignatieff was assassinated at Tver, while attending a meeting of the provincial zemstvo, the assassin stating that he had acted under orders of the Socialist revolutionary committee.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1906 (April). Invitation of the Nations to a Second Peace Conference by the Tsar.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST; A. D. 1907.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1906 (April). At the Algeciras Conference on the Morocco Question.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE A. D. 1905-1906.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1907 (August). Convention with Great Britain containing Arrangements on the subject of Persia, Afghanistan, and Tibet.
See EUROPE: A. D. 1907 (AUGUST).
RUSSIA: A. D. 1907. The Second Duma and its Early Dissolution. Increase of Radicalism among its Members. The New Electoral Law, under which a "Workable" Third Duma was elected. M. Stolypin’s Policy.
The promise that a second Duma would be summoned to meet in March, 1907, was fulfilled. Between the 21st of January and the end of February elections were held, with results that were exceedingly disappointing and irritating to the imperial government. It strove hard, by arbitrary measures and vigorous working of its police, to suppress the Constitutional Democrats,—the party which it fears the most. It pursued their leaders into exile or imprisonment, broke up their meetings, harassed them so in the canvass and the election that the return of deputies by the party was reduced from 185 in the First Duma to 108; but, on the other hand, the Socialist representation in the Second Duma was raised above that in the First from 17 to 77, and the Octobrists elected 31 deputies, gaining 18 more seats than they had filled before. On the whole, as a consequence, the Second Duma held more radicalism in its make-up, with less intelligence, than the First.
Its meetings were opened on the 6th of March, and soon gave evidence that the antagonisms in the body were too extreme for any influential political work. In June M. Stolypin accused most of the Socialist members of being parties to the revolutionary propaganda in the army and navy, and demanded their suspension by the Duma. It refused to suspend them without an investigation of the truth of the charge, and appointed a committee to receive such evidence as the government could bring. Thereupon the Tsar, by a manifesto published on the 16th of June, dissolved the Second Duma as summarily as he had dissolved the First, ordered new elections, to begin on the 14th of September, and summoned the Third Duma, then elected, to meet on November 14th.
{576}
At the same time a new electoral law was proclaimed, in flagrant violation of the so-called Constitution of October 30, 1905, which had declared, as an "immutable rule," established by the "inflexible will" of the Tsar, that "no law can ever come into force without the approval of the State Duma." The new law was planned carefully and skilfully to disfranchise great numbers in the classes of people which autocracy fears; to add weight to the votes of the classes on which it leans; to diminish the representation of industrial cities, as well as of non-Russian districts,—Poland, Siberia, etc.,—and, generally, to make a farce of the pretended concession of representative and constitutional government which the autocratic court had been playing for the amusement of the country during the past two years.
The new electoral law accomplished its purpose of securing a Duma that would keep workable relations with M. Stolypin. A very intelligent English publicist, Dr. Dillon, who discusses Foreign Politics every month in the _Contemporary Review_, whose views are broadly liberal as a rule, and whose acquaintance with Russian affairs seems to be specially intimate, inclines to justify the measure on this practical ground, or, rather, to accept it as approved by this result. When the make-up of the Third Duma had become known he wrote, in the _Contemporary Review_ of December, 1907, as follows:
"M. Stolypin’s electoral law has been criticised severely. And, to be frank, one must admit that from the point of view of men who advocate universal manhood suffrage it is a mere mockery. For it suspended the right of election in some places, arbitrarily lessened the number of representatives in certain provinces, created groups of electors, and authorised Government officials to decide how they should be formed; in a word, it is a means of manipulating the elections for the avowed purpose of having a certain stamp of men returned and another type of men eliminated. To say that the Chamber which has resulted from these expedients is not the elect of the nation is, of course, a truism. It is not, and was not, meant to be this. … The data respecting the intellectual and social status of the newly elected are still very defective and untrustworthy. But so far as they go, they show that among the men who are about to rescue Russia from ruin there are:—
Members of the nobility 157 Priests 51 Merchants 22 Peasants 77 Petty tradesmen 6 Working-men 15 Honorary burghers 8 Ex-officers 20 Officials 56 Zemstvo workers 27 Employees of municipalities 23 Marshals of nobility 36 Cantonal elders and secretaries 21 Men who have been educated in high schools 167 Men who have been educated in intermediate schools 82 Men who have been educated in primary schools 61 Members educated at home 23 Between the ages of 25-30 19 Between the ages of 30-40 81 Between the ages of 40-50 87 Between the ages of 50-00 47 Between the ages of 60-70 13 Between the ages of 70-80 l Members of the Second Duma 59 Members of the First Duma 7 Members of the Council of the Empire 3
A month later the same writer said:
"The Third Duma is already a month old, and has as yet done no work, has not even organised itself. Festina lente is evidently its maxim, with the accent on the second word. Debates there have been not a few, but they were as the noise of sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. The first discussion took place on the motion to thank the Tsar for the October Manifesto, which created the Legislative Chamber. A great majority of the deputies—including the Constitutional Democrats, who are adjusting themselves to their environment—were in favour of expressing their gratitude, but they could not agree how to call the institution for which they felt grateful. Some wanted to name it a Constitution, others ‘a renovated order of things.’ If it is a Constitution, then there is no Autocrat, the Octobrists argued, and consequently that title of the Emperor must be dropped. ‘If we are bent on thanking the Tsar,’ replied the Conservatives, ‘let us do it with a good grace. Whatever name we may give to the present _régime_, the title of the ruler has undergone no change. He was an Autocrat when he ascended the throne, and he is an Autocrat to day. Proofs? They are as plentiful as blackberries.’ …
"But the Constitutionalists—and among them the Octobrists favoured by M. Stolypin—insisted. ‘By the Manifesto,’ they argued, ‘the Tsar limited his authority and curtailed his prerogatives. Thus it is no longer in his power to issue laws without the approval of the Duma; neither can he abrogate any of the Organic Statutes.’ ‘You are mistaken,’ answered the Monarchists. ‘Have the Organic Statutes not been already altered? Has the "immutable" electoral franchise not been changed?’ … But the Octobrists stood their ground, and the address was voted with a flaw in the Tsar’s title. That was the work of one whole day and part of a night—an unlucky day—the 13th November Russian style. In this way the Duma offered the Sovereign a pot of honey mingled with wormwood. The Premier was upset, the Tsar offended, and the Monarchists indignant. ‘This, then,’ the Monarchists exclaimed, ‘is M. Stolypin’s Duma, the areopagus which is to prescribe remedies for the Russian nation now at death’s door?’
"Three days later came the Premier in a _quos ego_ mood. And he was at his best. Ever since his first appearance as a public orator, M. Stolypin has kept the high place he then won. His eloquence, like his character, is manly, and his utterance impressive. His look, his accents, his gestures, betoken sincerity, and his manner is warm with the heat of subdued enthusiasm. On this historic day he simply electrified the House, captivated his adversaries, and extorted applause from his bitter enemies. And yet he was battling with the Duma, swimming against the current. He spoke of the Autocratic power and of the Autocratic Sovereign, and had the satisfaction of being interrupted by enthusiastic cheers. …
{577}
"Happily M. Stolypin is a man of steadfast purpose rather than brilliant intellect, for his moral qualities may stand him in better stead, during the revolutionary crisis than would rare mental gifts. At bottom his temper is Liberal rather than Conservative, and mainly for that reason he would seem to have been chosen to be sexton of the old epoch and harbinger of the new. …
"No fair-minded man can doubt the sincerity of M. Stolypin’s Liberalism. It has withstood the test of time and the pressure of unfavourable circumstance. His faith in Liberal specifics is so firm that he declines to diagnose any diseases that call for more drastic remedies. … M. Stolypin is at present the only influential politician in Russia who is working efficaciously for the Liberal cause. He is systematically removing hindrances to Constitutionalism which are most formidable at the outset. …
"But the greatest service which any Minister could render a cause was performed by M. Stolypin for Liberalism at a time when it depended on him either to lay the groundwork for a Constitutional fabric or to establish firm Monarchical government. And for that service he deserves, and may yet receive, a public monument from Democratic Russia. He advised the Tsar to summon the Third Duma soon after the Second, and to issue no laws in the meanwhile. That was really the turning point in the history of Russia’s Constitution, the _magnum opus_ of M. Stolypin’s political life. And he followed it up with a step more extraordinary and decisive still. He himself had recourse to the Autocratic power which it is the tendency of his policy to annihilate, and he used it for the purpose of destroying Autocracy. That surely was a _coup de maître_ which entitled the Minister to the undying gratitude of all Liberal Russia. But not a Liberal uttered a word of thanks. This deadly blow was struck at the Autocracy in the following way:
"The Electoral Law opened the portals of the Duma chiefly to Democrats and other irreconcilable enemies of the Monarchy, and so long as it remained in force, no Duma acceptable to the Government was possible. Yet it could not be abrogated. For, together with the Organic Statutes, it had been declared part of the unchangeable Constitution. The Tsar’s hands, therefore, were tied, his word was pledged, and the result was a deadlock. Autocratic power could not be wielded anew without effecting a perilous _coup d'état_. Well, the Premier advised the Crown to seize once more the sword of the Autocracy, and with it to hew off the branch on which the Autocrat was sitting. That was the true significance of the measure against which the enemies of the Autocracy still cry out. For the object directly aimed at and immediately attained by this _coup d'état_ was the creation of the Octobrist Party, whose first work in the Duma was to declare that the Autocracy had gone forever."
_E. J. Dillon, Foreign Affairs (Contemporary Renew, January, 1908)._
RUSSIA: A. D. 1907 (November). Treaty with Great Britain, France, Germany, and Norway, guaranteeing the Integrity of Norway.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1907-1908.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1907-1909.
## Action in Persia during the Constitutional Revolution.
See (in this Volume) PERSIA.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1908. Evasion of the Conscription.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1908.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1908. North Sea and Baltic Agreements.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1908.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1908. Proxy Parliamentary Vote given to Women of Property.
See (in this Volume) ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1908. Policy of Prussia in her Polish Provinces dictated by her relations to Russia.
See (in this Volume) GERMANY: A. D. 1908 (JANUARY).
RUSSIA: A. D. 1908 (September). Withdrawal from Intervention in Macedonia.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1908 (JULY-DECEMBER).
RUSSIA: A. D. 1908-1909. Attitude toward the Austrian Annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Was the Government coerced by German Threats?
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1908-1909 (OCTOBER-MARCH).
RUSSIA: A. D. 1908-1909. Exercise of Disputed Authority in Northern Manchuria. The Kharbin question.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1909 (MAY).
RUSSIA: A. D. 1908-1909. Measures for the Destruction of the Constitutional Autonomy of Finland.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1908-1909.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1909. Oppressions continued. Executions, Imprisonment, Exile, Torture, Persecution.
On the 1st of August, 1909, a letter was addressed to the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs by one hundred and eighty men of distinction in Great Britain,—Members of Parliament, Peers, Bishops and other clergymen, University professors, authors, editors,—asking the Government to exert such influence as might be possible with that of Russia, to induce a relaxation of the system of repression still maintained in that unhappy country, and to ameliorate the dreadful barbarities which go with imprisonment there. "We know," said these memorialists, "how slow has been our own progress in the past, and how many points in our present condition are open to independent criticism. We are conscious of the difficulties that attend all reforms, and we desire that no feeling of impatience should cause us to withhold our sympathy from every sincere attempt to promote good government among a friendly people.
"It is in no spirit of ungenerous remonstrance that we are constrained to observe that for four years a system of repression has been maintained in Russia, which has not relaxed its severity though the evidences of any organized revolutionary movement have dwindled and disappeared. There has recently been an announcement of some relaxation in
## particular districts, but the greater portion of the Empire
remains, in time of peace, under some form of martial law. The number of capital sentences on civilians for the period between October, 1905, and December, 1908, has reached 4,002, and the number of executions was officially stated to be 2,118. These sentences were passed, moreover, not by ordinary civil process, but by exceptional military Courts. The number of persons in exile in Siberia and Northern Russia, mostly punished without trial by administrative process, under a system of exile, which involves much physical suffering and privation, was officially reckoned in October last at 74,000.
{578}
"The number of persons exiled without trial under administrative decree cannot be realized without a serious protest, but the evidence which has reached us through the Press, from trustworthy witnesses, and above all from the reports of the debates in the Duma, has persuaded us that the sufferings of those who remain in prison justify, nay, require, a stronger remonstrance. Over 180,000 persons—a total which has more than doubled since 1905—criminals and political offenders, are crowded together in prisons built to hold 107,000. In most of these prisons epidemic diseases, and especially typhus, are prevalent; the sick and the whole lie together—their fetters even in cases of fever are not removed. In some prisons the warders systematically beat and maltreat the sick and the whole alike. There is also evidence of more deliberate tortures, employed to punish the defiant or to extract confession from the suspect.
"Such excesses would move our indignation were all the victims ordinary criminals. We desire to base our protest on the ground of simple humanity; but it is none the less important to remember that many of these prisoners, if guilty at all, are suffering for acts or words which in any constitutional country would be lawful, or even praiseworthy.
"Our object in addressing you is to draw your attention to these facts and to place on record the impression which we have formed of them. That no direct intervention is possible we fully realize, nor do we wish to enlarge the area of international controversy. But there are probably means by which a friendly Government may exert an influence to ameliorate the lot of those who are suffering under the evils which we have described. The infliction of such wrongs upon Russians and the indignation which they excite among ourselves, are relevant and important factors in our mutual relations, of which the two Governments should be fully informed."
Later and more specific facts, illustrative of the arbitrary and barbarous oppression under which the Russian people are still suffering, were given in _The Outlook_ of October 9, 1909, from which the following is taken:
"In the first seven months of 1909 military courts sentenced 841 persons to death in Russia and up to the 1st of August 381 of the persons so sentenced had been hanged or shot. Nearly all were civil or political offenders, who, in a constitutional country, would have been tried with proper legal forms and guarantees in the regular civil tribunals. In these same seven months the publishers of 109 periodicals in Russia were fined in the aggregate sum of 54,425 rubles for publishing news or expressing opinions obnoxious to the Government, and in addition to these pecuniary punishments whole editions of papers and magazines were seized and destroyed, printing offices were closed, editors were arrested and employees were exiled—all by administrative process. In the month of June, 1909, three newspapers were suppressed altogether, and in August, 1909, the St. Petersburg journal Reitch (Speech), the organ of the Constitutional Democrats, was fined 500 rubles for printing a signed article entitled ‘Suicide in the Army,’ which was based wholly on reports of the Ministry of War.
"On the 28th of May, 1909, Mr. Selden, a St. Petersburg publisher, was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment in a fortress for publishing one of Count Tolstoy’s books, and on the 17th of August, 1909, the Count’s private secretary, Mr. N. N. Gusef, was exiled by administrative process to the province of Perm for distributing the venerable author’s brochure entitled ‘Thou Shalt Do No Murder.’ In July, 1909, Mr. W. Bogoras, author of Volume eleven of the Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History (one of the Volumes containing the scientific results of the Jessup North Pacific Expedition), was sentenced to two months' imprisonment for describing the beating of citizens of Tver by dragoons in 1905, a thing that he had personally witnessed. …
"In August, 1909, the ‘Authors’ and Scientists’ Mutual Benefit Society,’ a benevolent organization which had been in existence for eighteen years, which had eight hundred members, and which included most of the writers and scholars of Russia, was suppressed by order of Premier Stolypin, for the ostensible reason that it had given pecuniary aid to an indigent author named Vitashefski—a man of advanced age who had once, twenty years earlier, been sent to Siberia for political crime. It is believed, however, that the real reason for the suppression of the Society is the fact that most of its members are liberals. The existing Government is extremely intolerant toward social organizations that take an independent or critical attitude toward the reactionary policy now in force. On the 21st of July, 1909, the severest form of martial law, the so-called ‘law of extraordinary defense,’ was proclaimed in St. Petersburg for the seventh consecutive time. The city has been under some form of martial law ever since the assassination of Alexander II. in 1881. Almost the only encouraging feature of the present situation in Russia is the fact that the members of the Duma are still allowed to talk, and the newspapers are still permitted to publish verbatim reports of the debates. The lower house of the so-called Parliament has no independent power, and no real control even over the finances of the Empire; but it can criticise, interpellate the Czar’s Ministers, and promote to some extent the political education of the people.
"Three years ago Premier Stolypin defined his policy as ‘progressive reform, with the restoration of order.’ He has
## partly restored order, by hanging, imprisoning, or exiling to
Siberia a large part of the disorderly population; but his reforms have ‘progressed’ as the land-crab is popularly supposed to walk—backward. Whether he is wholly to blame for the reactionary policy that he is enforcing, or whether he acts more or less under compulsion, we shall not know, perhaps, until he retires from office and follows the example of General Kuropatkin and General Linevitch by writing his memoirs."
On the trial, in May, of M. Selden, for publishing and distributing Count Tolstoi’s pamphlets, "Thou shalt not Kill," "A Letter to Liberals," "Christianity and Patriotism," the venerable writer addressed a note to the court, challenging the prosecution of himself, instead of the publisher. "As these pamphlets," he wrote, "were written by me and published by one of my friends, not only with my consent but at my desire, M. Selden taking a purely passive part in the affair, all the measures which are being taken against M. Selden should logically and in equity be directed against me, especially because I have repeatedly declared, and now declare again, that I consider it my duty to my conscience to disseminate, so far as lies in my power, the pamphlets in question as well as my other works, and shall continue doing so as long as I am able. I feel constrained to inform you of this, and ask you to take whatever measures may devolve from my present statement."
{579}
But the magistrate did not venture to institute proceedings against the principal in the offense, and the Government took no notice of the challenge.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1909. Revived Censorship of the Press. Its Stupidity. Gains for Free Speech notwithstanding.
"At the present time, the liberties granted less than four years ago are mutilated. The censor is busy once more. The Russian journalist is again compelled to practice the arts of half-meaning, insinuation, and innuendo, which made his predecessors of a generation ago marvels of subtle expression. But that is only when a writer would say everything he wants to say. Undoubtedly, the range of the permissible has grown immensely since the early days of even Nicholas II. To write of labor wars, of conspiracies, of constitutional liberties, Russian newspapers need no longer confine themselves to telegraphic reports of foreign strikes, conspiracies, and constitutions. They need only print what the radicals in the Duma utter. Not even the full Duma’s reports may be privileged at present, but, after all, the Russian censor is a stupid fellow. The censorship, like the autocracy in general, is inefficient, spasmodic, allowing to-day what it prohibited yesterday, or even allowing in one column what it strikes out from another. St. Petersburg and Moscow in 1890 had eleven daily papers, and twenty weeklies. In 1900 the number had risen to twenty-four dailies and thirty-three weeklies. In all Russia there were then 287 periodical publications. In August, 1905, the number had risen to 1,630, of which St. Petersburg alone had 534. There were fifty daily papers at St. Petersburg and twenty-five at Moscow in those short days of freedom, when the pent-up speech of ages burst out in Russia. This, of course, was inflation. Periodicals were born and died with the rising and setting of the sun. The numerical strength of the press must be far smaller now. But much that was gained for freedom of speech in those stormy days has not been lost."
_New York Evening Post, March 23, 1909._
RUSSIA: A. D. 1909 (January-July). Dark Secrets of the Russian Police and Spy System brought to Light.
The first in a series of startling disclosures of the dark secrets of the Russian espionage and police system was made in January, 1909, when it came to public knowledge that the head and front of the Revolutionary Socialists of the Empire, one Azeff by name, had been discovered by his associates to be a secret agent of the police; had been tried and condemned by a tribunal of their party, at Paris, and had escaped into some hiding place, with avenging emissaries in pursuit, to take his life. A little later it appeared that a former Director of the Police in the Department of the Russian Ministry of the Interior, M. Lopukhin, had been arrested for treason, on the charge of having betrayed Azeff to the Revolutionists, by making known to them the double part that the latter played, as a so-called _agent provocateur_, drawing them into criminal plots of which he kept the police informed.
The preliminary trial of Lopukhin occurred in April, and it was stated in the indictment then published that Azeff had penetrated into the very centre of the Social Revolutionary machinations, and that part of his great services to the Secret Police were rendered during the period that M. Lopukhin occupied the post of Director of the Police Department in the Ministry of the Interior—_i.e._, from May, 1902, to March, 1905. It was affirmed that M. Lopukhin not only knew of the existence and activity of Azeff, but met the latter more than once both at his (M. Lopukhin's) house and at one of the conspiratorial headquarters in St. Petersburg. The indictment paid a warm tribute to Azeff’s ability in so long maintaining his connexion with the police without awakening the suspicions of the Social Revolutionaries as to his true character. It was eventually remarked, however, that the plots in which Azeff was concerned invariably failed, whereas many of the others succeeded, and accusations of treachery began to be levelled against him. In October, 1908, a commission of inquiry was appointed by the Social Revolutionaries in Paris to inquire into the charges brought against Azeff. Burtzeff, editor of a revolutionary organ, stated before this tribunal that he had seen M. Lopukhin, who had informed him of Azeff’s relations with the Russian police.
M. Lopukhin, on his trial, admitted having given this information to Burtzeff, but explained that it was in consequence of what the latter had told him of the revolutionist designs, including a pending plot against the life of the Tsar. He then felt it his duty to unmask Azeff, lest the murders which might otherwise have followed should lie on his conscience, and when the revolutionaries came to him for confirmation of what he had told Burtzeff he found it impossible to retract his words. He was convicted, however, on the 13th of May, and sentenced to five years of imprisonment at hard labor, with the loss of civil rights. The sentence was mitigated subsequently, and he was sent to exile at Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, his family being allowed to accompany him.
Prince Urussoff, whose bold speech in the First Duma on the instigation of massacres is quoted from above (A. D. 1906), is a brother-in-law of M. Lopukhin, and derived from him, no doubt, the information on which he spoke.
In July, a new disclosure of the character of the Russian secret service police was made, as revolting as that in the Azeff case. A personage known as M. Harting, chief of that Russian service in Paris, and so favorably regarded in the French capital that he was about to be made an officer of the Legion of Honor, was discovered to have been the leader of a plot to assassinate the Tsar Alexander III. in 1890, during that monarch’s visit to Paris; that he then bore the name of Landesen; that he had escaped arrest and was condemned by default to imprisonment for five years; that he subsequently, under the new name, secured secret service employment in the Russian police. All this was quickly proved to be fact by the French Government, and officially announced.
{580}
RUSSIA: A. D. 1909 (April). The Agrarian Law.
On the basis of the decree relative to the communes which is
## partly described above (see A. D. 1906), a law was brought
into force by the Government in 1906, known as the law of November 9, which supposedly was provisional and subject to ultimate ratification by the Duma. Writing of it in the New York _Evening Post_ of May 28, 1909, S. N. Harper says:
"This law of November 9 aims directly at the destruction of the commune. Before this law a two-thirds vote of the commune was necessary for the granting of the petition of a member to divide out. Now a local police official, whom by the way another project of reform abolishes as irresponsible and a source of abuse, can override the vote of a commune and grant the petition. A peasant who divides out receives that portion which he is using if there has been no redistribution for twenty-four years. If there has been a redistribution within twenty-four years, he receives what he would receive on the basis of a new redistribution—what this would be is again decided by the official. As we saw, no equitable reckoning is possible here.
"The peasant can sell this land which he receives from the commune, for it is now his private property. In one province which I visited this summer, in over one-half of the cases of dividing out the peasant had sold his land immediately—usually to the village ‘fist’—the prosperous village usurer and boss who holds his neighbors in his fist."
The law was operative for more than two years before it received the sanction of the Duma, in April, 1909. Of the parliamentary enactment then given to it the above writer says:
"The outcome of the debates was certain. It had been secured by the change of the electoral law for the third Duma, whereby the landed gentry had been given the predominant vote. … No more important than the vote of this assembly is the attitude of the country at large toward this law. The landed gentry are naturally for this measure. The village system is a source of danger to them. The law will establish ‘peasant’ landlords, whose interests will be much the same as theirs. But the peasants have shown quite plainly their hostile attitude toward this law. Only those peasants who are economically provided for and those who, for one reason or another, have become mere hangers-on of the local police officials are in favor of the law. It is these that have taken advantage of the law, with the support of the local official. But they have done so in spite of the protest of the other peasants, only their economic position making it possible, and their friend the official has not been able to prevent, therefore, the other peasants from giving a violent character to their protest. Those who have insisted on dividing out have in many instances been burned out the next week."
RUSSIA: A. D. 1909 (April-July). Advance of Russian Troops into Persia.
See (in this Volume) PERSIA: A. D. 1908-1909.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1909 (May). New Russo-Chinese Agreement, establishing Municipalities on the Line of the Chinese Eastern Railway.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1909 (MAY).
RUSSIA: A. D. 1909 (June). "Dreadnought" building.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR: NAVAL: RUSSIAN.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1909 (June). Stringent Orthodoxy of the Tsar.
A Press despatch from St. Petersburg, June 4, 1909, reported:
"Premier Stolypin spoke in the Duma to-day in defence of the government’s draft of a law dealing with the matter of changing from one faith to another and against the modifications removing all restrictions introduced in committee. He said that the Emperor, as head of the Orthodox Church, could not suffer backsliding from the orthodox to non-Christian beliefs, and that if such amendments were incorporated the bill would be vetoed. Continuing he defined the relations between church and state. He conceded that the church enjoyed full independence in matters of creed and dogma, but insisted on state control. The speech was a brilliant effort, but it fell upon cold ears, and brought out no applause. The premier, for the first time in the history of the third Duma, found himself fighting for a lost cause before an adverse house."
RUSSIA: A. D. 1909 (October-November). Differing Accounts of Political Conditions, of the work of the Duma, and of the Disposition of the Government.
The last weeks of 1909 brought from observers in Russia quite differing impressions and representations of the existing political conditions. Late in October a St. Petersburg correspondent of _The Evening Post_, New York, wrote:
"Stolypin has given Russia a packed Duma, the predominant party in which is elected by 130,000 rural gentry, who were unable to get many more than a dozen members into the first two Dumas. As might have been expected, this Duma has done nothing for Russia. Its Land law has not been accepted by the peasantry, its Religions law remains a dead letter, because, according to the premier, the Tsar refuses to sign it. There will be a deficit of about one hundred million in the new budget, and the country is faced by bankruptcy.
"But, to return to the Duma, it has been proved during the last session that the people have no control over the purse, thanks to a ‘rule’ made by Count Witte before the meeting of the first Legislature. This ‘rule’ says that if the Duma and the Council of Empire fail to agree on the budget, then the figures of the former year’s budget remain in force. As the Council of Empire (or Russian upper house) must always have a reactionary and bureaucratic majority, the Duma has no control of the national expenditure and never can have. This was brought home very forcibly to the lower house during the last session, when a humble suggestion which it made about including a sum of 350 million rubles in the extraordinary expenditure account was rejected by the Council of Empire, which thus taught the Duma that it has no control over even the most important loan operations. When the Duma (with the strong approval of even such conservative papers as the _Novoe Vremya_) refused to sanction the naval budget until the notoriously corrupt Ministry of Marine—the ministry accountable for Tsushima—had been reformed, the government laughed at it, and got the necessary money over the deputies’ heads."
Two weeks later than the above another St. Petersburg correspondent was writing to London:
"To judge from to-day’s proceedings the present session of the Duma bids fair to surpass the most sanguine hopes. Having disposed of the last of the Agrarian Bills and of the First Offenders Act, the Duma began the debate on the Bill reforming the local Courts. This measure represents the foundation of all political reform in Russia.
{581}
"The Duma Committee, after 35 sittings, adopted a proposal considerably extending the scope of the Government Bill besides providing for the re-establishment of elective justices of the peace, introduced in 1804, but repealed in 1889 in favour of the arbitrary jurisdiction of the Communal Court and the Zemsky Natchalnik--both long ago discredited institutions. Just as the Agrarian reforms are calculated to promote the private ownership of land and respect for the rights of property, so the reform of the local Courts will inculcate respect for the law.
"The details of the Bill may possibly give rise to differences with the Government and the Upper House, but its substantial features will be doubtless retained in the ultimate form which will receive the Imperial sanction."
The writer of this had communicated to his journal, a few days previously, the following report of an interview with "a leading member of the Government," and apparently gave credit to the sentiment it expressed. Said the Minister interviewed:
"You ask me what are the Government’s intentions regarding Poland. I can only repeat what I said before the Joint Commission on the Polish Municipal Reform Bill, which is to be laid before the Duma. We have decided to give Poland the full benefits of local government consistent with the interests of the Empire, but not autonomy. We cannot trust the Poles to that extent. We shall introduce a Bill creating a separate province of Holm, where the great majority of the population is of Russian stock, and extend to it the system of mixed Russian and Polish _Zemstvos_ to be introduced in the south-western provinces.
"I am satisfied with the progress of agrarian reform. You have seen from the speech of M. Krivoshein in the Duma that one million peasant households (about 5,000,000 souls) have already abandoned the communal system.
"The continuance of executions is, I know, a source of criticism. You know that the Emperor has given orders that death sentences should be confirmed only in the worst cases. Unhappily, I know of no constitutional method for putting down revolution. Russia is so vast. It has taken a long time to bring all the guilty to trial. I am also criticized for the arbitrary acts of our local authorities, but, I ask you, does the Government derive any interest from these arbitrary acts?
"Political reforms? Yes, they have been delayed. But what, for instance, is the good of hurrying through a Bill on the liberty of the person until we have first reformed the local Courts?
"You have heard and read the statements that the Octobrists have quarrelled with the Government; you have also been told that Russia is on the eve of a reaction. Believe neither. The Octobrists are taking a more advanced position. That is as it should be. It is better for the Duma and by no means disagreeable to the Government."
RUSSIA: A. D. 1909 (December). Assassination of the Chief of the Secret Police.
On the 22d of December Colonel Karpoff, Chief of the Secret Police, was killed by an infernal machine at a suburban lodging occupied by a certain Voskresensky, who is supposed to be a revolutionary and a police spy like Azeff.
----------RUSSIA: End--------
RUSSO-CHINESE BANK.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1901-1902.
RUTHERFORD, Professor Ernest.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE, RECENT: RADIUM; also NOBEL PRIZES.
RYAN, Thomas F.: Investing in a Concession in the Congo State.
See (in this Volume) CONGO STATE: A. D. 1906-1909.
RYAN, Thomas F.: Purchase of Controlling Stock of Equitable Life Assurance Society.
See (in this Volume) INSURANCE, LIFE.
RYAN, Thomas F.: Sale of interests to Morgan & Co.
See (in this Volume) FINANCE AND TRADE: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909-1910.
S.
SADR AZAM, The.
See (in this Volume) PERSIA: A. D. 1905-1907.
SAGASTA, Praxedes Mateo: Prime Minister of Spain. His Death.
See (in this Volume) SPAIN: A. D. 1901-1904.
SAGE FOUNDATION, The: For the Improvement of Social and Living Conditions in the United States.
See (in this Volume) SOCIAL BETTERMENT: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1907.
SAGE, Mrs. Russell: Gift to Yale University.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1910.
ST. GOTHARD RAILWAY: Acquisition by the Swiss Government.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: SWITZERLAND.
ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI: A. D. 1900-1904. The Unearthing of Thievery and Corruption by Attorney Folk. Prosecutions, Confessions and Convictions.
See (in this Volume) MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT.
ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI: A. D. 1904. The Louisiana Purchase Exposition.
Except the World’s Columbian Exposition at Chicago, in 1893, the most important of the industrial exhibitions that have been organized in America was that of 1904, at St. Louis, which commemorated the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase from France. The Exposition was opened on the 30th of April and closed December 1st. An estimated total of $44,500,000 was expended upon it in structures and management, of which sum about $22,000,000 was raised by the Exposition Company. The remainder was the expenditure of governments, Federal, State and Foreign, and of concessionaires. The total attendance, from first to last, was 18,741,073. The receipts fell far short of the expenditure, and subscribers to the undertaking can have had no returns; but the public gain from it was very great. About sixty foreign countries and colonies and nearly every State and Territory of the Union were represented in the exhibits.
{582}
A distinguished feature of the Exposition was the remarkable number and character of the gatherings, international and national, that were brought about in connection with it. The most notable of these was the International Congress of Arts and Sciences, which opened September 19th. "This Congress," said President Nicholas Murray Butler, of Columbia University, in an article describing its plan, "is not such a series of gatherings as took place at Chicago and at Paris, but is rather a carefully elaborated plan to educate public opinion, and the world of scholarship itself, to an appreciation of the underlying unity of knowledge and the necessary inter-dependence of the host of specialties that have sprung up during the past century. … For participation in this congress there will assemble a large body of the world’s greatest scholars. They will come from all parts of the world to contribute surveys of their several departments of knowledge, planning those surveys so as to emphasize the mutual relations of all the separate arts and sciences."
ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI: A. D. 1904. Meeting of the Interparliamentary Union.
See (in this Volume) WAR: THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1904-1909.
ST. MARK’S CATHEDRAL, at Venice: Fall of the Campanile.
See (in this Volume) VENICE: A. D. 1902.
ST. PETERSBURG: DISTURBANCES IN.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA.
ST. PIERRE: Volcanic Destruction of the City.
See (in this Volume) VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS: WEST INDIES.
ST. VINCENT ISLAND: Volcanic Eruption of La Souffrière.
See (in this Volume) VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS: WEST INDIES.
SAKHAROFF, General: Assassination of.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1904-1905.
SAKURAI, Lieutenant Tadayoshi, The story of.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905 (MAY-JANUARY).
SALISBURY, Lord Robert Cecil, Marquis of: Resignation of the Premiership in the British Government.
See (in this Volume) ENGLAND: A. D. 1902 (JULY).
SALONIKA: A. D. 1903. Dynamite Explosion by Insurgents.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1902-1903.
SALONIKA: A. D. 1903. Center of the "Young Turk" organization.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1908 (JULY-DECEMBER), and after.
SALOON QUESTION.
See (in this Volume) ALCOHOL PROBLEM.
SALT TRUST, Dissolution of the.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1906.
SALTON SEA, The.
At a point not far from where it runs into Mexican territory the Colorado River, for a long recent period, has been deflected by bordering sand deposits from a great depression in the neighboring desert, known as the Salton Sink. In 1901 an irrigation company began works for supplying water from the Colorado to lands in that vicinity, and seems to have taken no proper precautions for controlling the flow through its canals. The result was a break through the sand hills, into the Salton Sink, which converted it for the time being into the "Salton Sea,"—so described in all accounts of the catastrophe. For nearly two years the flood of the Colorado was poured into the Sink, forming a sea or lake which covered an area of about 400 square miles. It was not until February, 1907, that the combined exertions of the Southern Pacific Railway Company, the California Development Co. (whose works produced the trouble) and the engineers of the United States Reclamation Service, succeeded in returning the Colorado to the channel it had escaped from. Since that was done evaporation has been steadily emptying the Sink, at the rate of five or six feet annually, according to the Chief of the Weather Bureau, which has maintained a station there. At the end of a year of observations he was reported as saying: "We will get the data we want within another year probably and then we can cut off the Salton Sea station. The evaporation data we expect to obtain will be valuable for calculations on irrigation works and reservoirs."
SALVADOR.
See (in this Volume) CENTRAL AMERICA.
SAM, Theresias Simon: President.
See (in this Volume) HAITI: A. D. 1902.
SANBORN, Judge Walter H.: Opinion in Suit for the Dissolution of the Standard Oil Company.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL, &C.: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1906-1909.
SANTIAGO, Chile: First Pan-American Scientific Congress.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE AND INVENTION: INTERNATIONAL CONGRESSES.
SAN DOMINGO: A. D. 1901-1905. Financial Conditions. Dissipation of Revenues.
"Many years ago the government, being unable to raise money on ordinary security, adopted the practice of vesting the power of collection in its creditors. Duties are settled in _pagarés_, or promissory notes, duly indorsed, and payable usually in a month or two months. In order to secure loans, these _pagarés_ were handed over to the creditor, who collected the money directly from the importer or exporter. This expedient, which was designed to protect the creditor against the government itself as well as against its enemies, was in vogue when the government in 1888 sought financial relief in Europe. Such relief was obtained from Westendorp & Company, bankers, of Amsterdam, who in that year underwrote and issued, at 83½ per cent., 6 per cent. gold bonds of the Dominican government to the amount of £770,000 sterling, the government creating a first lien on all its customs revenues, and authorizing the Westendorps to collect and receive at the custom-houses all the customs revenues of the republic. Under this contract, which was ratified by the Dominican Congress, the Westendorps created in Santo Domingo an establishment, commonly called the ‘Regie,’ which collected the duties directly from the importer and exporter and disbursed them, the Westendorps sending out from Europe the necessary agents and employees. It was further stipulated that the Westendorps should, in case of necessity, have the right to constitute a European commission, which it was understood was to be international in character. The power of collection and disbursement was exercised by the Westendorps down to 1893, when it was transferred to the San Domingo Improvement Company, of New York, which continued to exercise it till January, 1901, when the company was, by an arbitrary executive decree issued by President Jimenez, excluded from its function of collecting the revenues, though its employees were permitted to remain in the custom-houses till the end of the year.
{583}
"As an assurance to the foreign creditor, whose legal security was thus destroyed, Jimenez constituted in the same decree a ‘Commission of Honorables,’ with whom the sums due to foreign creditors, including the American companies, were to be deposited; but their capacity as depositaries was not destined to be tested. Late in 1901, it became known that out of the reported revenues of the year, amounting to $2,126,453, the percentages for the domestic debt had not been set aside, and that no payment had been made on the floating interior debt, but that the Jimenez ‘revolutionary’ claims had been paid without previous warrant of law, and that there existed a deficit. Since that time, with the exception of comparatively small amounts, nothing whatever has been paid to the foreign creditor. The omission, however, has not been due to lack of revenues. It has been due to conditions which, if all the debts of the republic were with one stroke wiped out, would continue to prevent the government from meeting its ordinary expenses. The revenues have been seized and dissipated by the government and its enemies in ‘war expenses,’ and in the payment of '_asignaciones_' and ‘revolutionary claims.’ … That foreign governments will stand by and permit such conditions to continue cannot be expected. They have already manifested their desire to intervene."
_John Bassett Moore, Santo Domingo and the United States (American Review of Reviews, March, 1905)._
SAN DOMINGO: A. D. 1901-1906.
## Participation in Second and Third International Conferences of
American Republics.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
SAN DOMINGO: A. D. 1904-1907. Years of almost Incessant Disorder and repeated Revolutions. Jimenez, Vasques, Wos y Gil, Morales and Caceres in succession at the Head of Government. Menace from the Creditors of the Republic. Appeal to the United States. American Treaty. President Roosevelt on the Situation.
The assassination of President Heureaux and the election of President Jimenez are related in Volume VI. of this work (see DOMINICAN REPUBLIC). Jimenez’s rule was not long, and he gave way to a provisional government, under General Vasques, which was upset by a revolt that broke out in March, 1903, and which planted General Wos y Gil so obviously in power that his Government was recognized by the United States in October. But the rapidly revolving wheel of political events seems to have soon whirled Wos y Gil out and brought Jimenez back, to be tossed into private life again in 1904 by General Carlos F. Morales, of whom Mr. Sigimund Krausz gave a most favorable account in _The Outlook_, of September 17, 1904. "The common idea," said Mr. Krausz, "that the population of Santo Domingo consists exclusively of a horde of savages, and that the generals and politicians causing the kaleidoscopic sequence of revolutions are of the same class, and, without exception, uneducated brutes and degenerates, is quite erroneous, and has been created for the sake of sensationalism, largely by journalists and magazine writers without personal knowledge of Dominican conditions, or by native exiles who, naturally, are always enemies of the party in power. … While it is true that the vast majority of the Dominican people in the interior of the island live in a fearful state of ignorance, superstition, and even barbarism, caused by many decades of internal warfare, there is, however, also a class of natives who certainly ought not to be thrown in the same pot with them. These are the better citizens of the capital and the larger coast towns, among whom are many intelligent and educated men who had the advantage of fairly good schools and intercourse with foreigners. Among this class are a number who have received all or part of their education abroad, who speak two or three languages, and who, in their social intercourse and manners, may safely be pronounced gentlemen. They follow the occupations of merchants, planters, lawyers, physicians, etc., and while, as a rule, they keep aloof from politics, it is from their strata of society that spring most of the military and political leaders of Santo Domingo. There are few of these men who, by their appearance, betray the strain of negro blood in them, and the type is hardly distinguishable from that of Latin-Americans in general.
"Carlos M. Morales belongs to the better class of Dominicans mentioned before, masters French, English, and Spanish fluently, and has the advantage of an ecclesiastical education in a seminary of Santo Domingo City. He was, in fact, for eight years a priest, before disagreement with various dogmas of the Church and the desire to take an active part in the political affairs of his country induced him to throw aside the cassock. He is a close student of West Indian conditions, and well acquainted with the affairs of the world in general. While being an ardent admirer of the United States and its institutions, and sincerely desiring its political friendship, he is at the same time the strongest opponent of any policy that would tend to make Santo Domingo a political dependency of Uncle Sam, either in the form of annexation or a protectorate."
Morales was soon beset with claims from insistent foreign creditors, on account of debts which his predecessors had incurred, and which they had left nothing to satisfy. Several European governments were threatening forcible measures to secure payment for their subjects, and Morales asked for help from the United States. The situation and its outcome were reported subsequently to Congress by President Roosevelt, as follows:
"The conditions in Santo Domingo have for a number of years grown from bad to worse until a year ago all society was on the verge of dissolution. Fortunately, just at this time a ruler sprang up in Santo Domingo, who, with his colleagues, saw the dangers threatening their country and appealed to the friendship of the only great and powerful neighbor who possessed the power, and as they hoped also the will, to help them. There was imminent danger of foreign intervention. The previous rulers of Santo Domingo had recklessly incurred debts, and owing to her internal disorders she had ceased to be able to provide means of paying the debts. The patience of her foreign creditors had become exhausted, and at least two foreign nations were on the point of intervention, and were only prevented from intervening by the unofficial assurance of this Government that it would itself strive to help Santo Domingo in her hour of need. {584} In the case of one of these nations, only the actual opening of negotiations to this end by our Government prevented the seizure of territory in Santo Domingo by a European power. Of the debts incurred some were just, while some were not of a character which really renders it obligatory on, or proper for, Santo Domingo to pay them in full. But she could not pay any of them unless some stability was assured her Government and people.
"Accordingly the Executive Department of our Government negotiated a treaty under which we are to try to help the Dominican people to straighten out their finances. This treaty is pending before the Senate. In the meantime a temporary arrangement has been made which will last until the Senate has had time to take action upon the treaty. Under this arrangement the Dominican Government has appointed Americans to all the important positions in the customs service, and they are seeing to the honest collection of the revenues, turning over 45 per cent to the Government for running expenses and putting the other 55 per cent into a safe depositary for equitable division in case the treaty shall be ratified, among the various creditors, whether European or American. …
"Under the course taken, stability and order and all the benefits of peace are at last coming to Santo Domingo, danger of foreign intervention has been suspended, and there is at last a prospect that all creditors will get justice, no more and no less. If the arrangement is terminated by the failure of the treaty chaos will follow; and if chaos follows, sooner or later this Government may be involved in serious difficulties with foreign governments over the island, or else may be forced itself to intervene in the island in some unpleasant fashion. Under the proposed treaty the independence of the island is scrupulously respected, the danger of violation of the Monroe Doctrine by the intervention of foreign powers vanishes, and the interference of our Government is minimized, so that we shall only act in conjunction with the Santo Domingo authorities to secure the proper administration of the customs, and therefore to secure the payment of just debts and to secure the Dominican Government against demands for unjust debts. The proposed method will give the people of Santo Domingo the same chance to move onward and upward which we have already given to the people of Cuba. It will be doubly to our discredit as a nation if we fail to take advantage of this chance; for it will be of damage to ourselves, and it will be of incalculable damage to Santo Domingo."
_President’s Message to Congress, December 5, 1905._
Twenty days after the above was sent to Congress President Morales was a fugitive from his capital, expelled by a sudden revolutionary movement in which Vice-President Caceres and most of the Morales Cabinet appear to have taken a leading part. Some fighting occurred; but the Morales forces were beaten decisively in the first week of January, 1906, and their General, Rodrigues, was killed. Morales, wounded, sought protection at the American Legation and resigned the Presidency, January 12. Caceres succeeded to the office, and a treaty of peace between the contending parties was signed on the 17th, on board an United States vessel of war. The new Government of San Domingo adhered to the arrangement made by Morales with the United States.
As ratified ultimately, in the spring of 1907, by the United States Senate and the Dominican Congress, the treaty provided for the conversion of the embarrassed republic’s debt and the floating of a new issue of bonds, through the agency of a firm of New York bankers which had undertaken the management of the affair; while the Government of the United States, by its agents, was to continue its supervision of the collection of revenue.
SAN DOMINGO: A. D. 1905-1907. The American Receivership of Dominican Revenues. The Modus Vivendi of 1905 and the Treaty of 1907. The working of the Arrangement.
"By the _modus vivendi_ of March 31, 1905, it was provided that until the Dominican Congress and the Senate of the United States should act upon the convention of February 7, 1905, the President of the Dominican Republic, on the nomination of the President of the United States, should appoint a person to receive the revenues of all the custom-houses of the Republic. Of the net revenues collected, 45 per cent was to be turned over to the Dominican Government, and used in administrative expenses. The remainder, less the expenses of collection, was to be deposited in a bank in New York to be designated by the President of the United States, and to remain there for the benefit of all creditors of the Republic, Dominican as well as foreign, and not to be withdrawn before the Dominican Congress and the Senate of the United States should have acted upon the convention then pending. During the operation of the _modus vivendi_ all payments were to be suspended, without, however, in any way interfering with or changing the substantial rights of creditors. This _modus vivendi_ went into effect on April 1, 1905. Under the receivership created by this _modus vivendi_ there has been collected, to August 31, 1907, $7,183,397.56. Of this amount 45 per cent was turned over to the Dominican Government, and $3,318,946.97, to bear interest while on deposit, has been remitted to New York. This is in striking contrast with the results of the customs operations of former years, when, having control of the entire revenues of the Republic, the Dominican Government had not only been unable to pay its current expenses, but found its apparent public debt increased at an average rate of almost $1,000,000 a year for some thirty odd years. The convention between the United States and the Dominican Republic, signed at Santo Domingo City on February 8, 1907, was transmitted to the United States Senate on February 19, 1907, by the President, for ratification, and was ratified on the 25th of the same month. After formal ratification by the President of the United States and the Dominican Republic, ratifications were exchanged July 8, 1907, and formal proclamation made by the President on the 25th of the same month. Regulations have been drawn up for the application of its provisions. The treaty sets forth that the debts of the Dominican Republic amount to more than $30,000,000, nominal or face value, which have been scaled down by a conditional adjustment and agreement to some $17,000,000, including interest, in the payment of which the Government has requested the assistance of the United States. {585} The latter agrees to give this assistance subject to certain conditions set out in the treaty, the principal among which are
(a) the President of the United States shall appoint the general receiver of the Dominican customs and his assistants; and
(b) that the Dominican Government shall provide by law for the payment to such general receiver of all the customs duties of the Republic.
The money collected is to be applied as follows:
(1) To paying the expenses of the receivership;
(2) to the payment of interest on bonds issued by the Dominican Government in connection with the settlement of its debts;
(3) to the payment of the annual sums provided for amortization of said bonds, including interest upon all bonds held in the sinking fund;
(4) to the purchase and cancellation or the retirement and cancellation, pursuant to the terms thereof, of any of said bonds as may be directed by the Dominican Government, and
(5) the remainder to be paid to the Dominican Government.
On the 1st day of each calendar month the sum of $100,000 is to be paid over by the receiver to the fiscal agent of the loan, and the remaining collection of the last preceding month paid over to the Dominican Government, or applied to the sinking fund for the purchase or redemption of bonds, as the Dominican Government shall direct. Should the revenues thus collected exceed $3,000,000 for any one year, one-half of the surplus is to be applied to the sinking fund for the redemption of bonds."
_Report of the Chief of the Bureau of Insular Affairs, October 31, 1907 (Abridgment, Message and Documents, 1907, page 797)._
----------SAN DOMINGO: End--------
SAN FRANCISCO: A. D. 1901-1909. Water Supply. The Hetch Hetchy Project.
"Under this name is designated a plan for obtaining a water supply for the city of San Francisco from the head waters of the Tuolumne River in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The Hetch Hetchy Valley is one of the most widely known regions of the high Sierras, second only to Yosemite in scenic interest. It is formed by a widening of the gorge of the Tuolumne River, about 30 miles westerly from the crest of the Sierras. It is thus described in the United States Geological Survey, 21st Annual Report.
"‘The valley proper is about three and one-half miles long and of a width varying from one-quarter to three-quarters of a mile. The rugged granite walls, crowned with spires and upon battlements, seem to rise almost perpendicular upon all sides to a height of 2500 feet above this beautiful emerald meadow.
"‘The Tuolumne River leaves this valley in a very narrow granite gorge, the sides of which rise precipitously for 800 or more feet, thus providing naturally a most favorable site for a masonry dam.’ As the result of exhaustive investigations, in 1901, having reference to the procuring of an adequate water supply for the City of San Francisco, that city, through its proper officers, selected, surveyed, filed upon and made application for the reservoir rights of way in the Hetch Hetchy Valley and Lake Eleanor, which lie within the reservation known as Yosemite National Park. These reservoir sites were recognized and surveyed as such by the United States Geological Survey, in 1891, and the survey filings and application were made in conformity with the act of Congress of February 15, 1901, relating to rights of way through certain parks, reservations and other public lands.
"Lake Eleanor is situated 136 miles east of San Francisco on the west slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It is about 300 acres in extent and lies in a broad, flat valley enclosed by precipitous walls of granite, narrowing at the lower end of the valley. It is 4,700 feet above sea level and receives the direct drainage from 83 square miles, and by a diverting canal 6 miles long from 103 square miles additional of uninhabitable mountain slopes which reach an altitude of 11,000 feet, and receive a mean annual precipitation of from 40 to 50 inches, most of which is snow. About a mile and a quarter below the lake, the valley closes into a granite walled gorge and offers an excellent site and material for a dam. …
"Hetch Hetchy reservoir (site) is about 140 miles from San Francisco on the main fork of the Tuolumne River and is about 3,700 feet above sea level. It receives the drainage from 452 square miles of the uninhabitable slopes of the Sierra Nevada, reaching to elevations of over 13,000 feet. …
"The Hetch Hetchy project proposes to conduct the water liberated from these reservoirs by way of the gorge of the Tuolumne River 16 miles and thence by canals, tunnels and pipes."
_Frederick H. Clark, Head of History Department, Lowell High School._
The application of the City to the United States Government for the Lake Eleanor and Hetch Hetchy reservoir sites was denied, in the first instance (1903), by the Secretary of the Interior, the Honorable A. E. Hitchcock, but subsequently granted, on a reopening of the case and a rehearing, by Secretary James R. Garfield, in whose decision, rendered May 11, 1908, the considerations for and against the proposed use of these famous seats of natural beauty and sublimity were discussed at length and concluded to have the greater weight in favor of the application.
One stipulation made by Secretary Garfield was that within two years the City should submit the question of water supply to the vote of its citizens, as contemplated in its Charter. This was done on November 11, 1908, and the voters of San Francisco, notwithstanding the strenuous efforts of the private water company, recorded their approval of the Hetch Hetchy Project by the overwhelming vote of 34,950 for, to 5708 against the proposition. At the same election a sale of municipal bonds to the amount of $600,000 was authorized in order to enable the City to proceed to perfect its titles. These bonds have been sold and at this date (June, 1909) the acquisition of the required land is under way.
Almost passionate protests and pleadings against this use of the beautiful Hetch Hetchy Valley have been uttered by John Muir, the word-painter of "The Mountains of California," and many earnest voices from all parts of the country have been joined to his in the expostulation. Mr. Muir writes: "It is impossible to overestimate the value of wild mountains and mountain temples. They are the greatest of our natural resources, God's best gifts; but none, however high and holy, is beyond reach of the spoiler. These temple destroyers, devotees of ravaging commercialism, seem to have a perfect contempt for Nature, and instead of lifting their eyes to the mountains, lift them to dams and town skyscrapers. Dam Hetch Hetchy! As well dam for water-tanks the people’s cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man.
{586}
"Excepting only Yosemite, Hetch Hetchy is the most attractive and wonderful valley within the bounds of the great Yosemite National Park and the best of all the campgrounds. People are now flocking to it in ever-increasing numbers for health and recreation of body and mind. Though the walls are less sublime in height than those of Yosemite, its groves, gardens, and broad spacious meadows are more beautiful and picturesque. It is many years since sheep and cattle were pastured in it, and the vegetation now shows scarce a trace of their ravages. Last year in October I visited the valley with Mr. William Keith, the artist. He wandered about from view to view, enchanted, made thirty-eight sketches, and enthusiastically declared that in varied picturesque beauty Hetch Hetchy greatly surpassed Yosemite. It is one of God’s best gifts, and ought to be faithfully guarded."
When this work went to press, in May, 1910, Secretary Ballinger was giving hearings on the question of revoking the permit to San Francisco.
SAN FRANCISCO: A. D. 1901 1909. The Struggle with Political Corruption.
See (in this Volume) MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: SAN FRANCISCO.
SAN FRANCISCO: A. D. 1902. The Chinese Highbinder Associations. Report of the Industrial Commission on their Criminal and Dangerous Character.
"Investigations made under the directions of the Industrial Commission reveal the dangerous importance to be attached to the existence of the so-called associations of ‘highbinders’ among the Chinese population of San Francisco. It is variously estimated that of the total number of Chinese in that city, amounting to 25,000 or 30,000, there are about 1,000 members of the highbinder associations who represent the worst class of criminals. Many of them have been compelled to flee from their native country on account of crimes committed there. They are organized under the semblance of benefit societies, but for the purpose of blackmail and violation of the immigration laws. They impose fines arbitrarily upon the hard-working and prosperous Chinese, and enforce their decrees through criminal violence and even assassination. They nullify the judgment of American courts through their own secret tribunals and their paid assassins; they make a business of bringing to the United States slave girls and coolie laborers, and through their system of intimidation it is difficult, and often impossible, to secure witnesses who will testify to the truth. It is generally believed by those who have given attention to this matter, that if the country could be rid of this criminal class of Chinese, and the highbinders societies be permanently suppressed, one of the greatest factors in the commission of fraud in the administration of the Chinese exclusion laws would be eliminated. An eminent authority asserts that fully 75 per cent of all the frauds committed at the present time against the exclusion law can be traced directly to the highbinder associations. So perfect is the organization of these societies, and so thorough their reign of terrorism, that the efforts of the authorities to suppress them have never been successful. The only thing which they fear above all others, holding it in greater dread than our laws, our courts, and jails, is deportation to China. The only decisive remedy in that case is legislation through Congress, which should render aliens who are members of such societies, or any society having for its purpose the commission of crime or the violation of our laws, liable to deportation. What is true of the highbinders of San Francisco is probably true also of certain anarchistic societies which are recruited from Europe."
_Final Report (1902) of the Industrial Commission, page 1009._
SAN FRANCISCO: A. D. 1906. The Earthquake Shock of April 18, 1906. The Geological Explanation. Stupendous Destruction by Fire following the Earth Tremor. Conditions produced by the Fire. Relief Measures.
"On the morning of April 18, 1906, the coastal region of Middle California was shaken by an earthquake of unusual severity. The time of the shock and its duration varied slightly in different localities, depending upon their position with reference to the seat of the disturbance in the earth’s crust; but in general the time of the occurrence may be stated to be 5h 12m A. M., Pacific standard time, or the time of the meridian of longitude 120° west of Greenwich; and the sensible duration of the shock was about one minute.
"The shock was violent in the region about the Bay of San Francisco, and with few exceptions inspired all who felt it with alarm and consternation. In the cities many people were injured or killed, and in some cases persons became mentally deranged, as a result of the disasters which immediately ensued from the commotion of the earth. The manifestations of the earthquake were numerous and varied. … Springs were affected either temporarily or permanently, some being diminished, others increased in flow. Landslides were caused on steep slopes, and on the bottom lands of the streams the soft alluvium was in many places caused to crack and to lurch, producing often very considerable deformations of the surface. This deformation of the soil was an important cause of damage and wreckage of buildings situated in such tracts. Railway tracks were buckled and broken. In timbered areas in the zone of maximum disturbance many large trees were thrown to the ground and in some cases they were snapped off above the ground.
"The most disastrous of the effects of the earthquake were the breaking out of fires and, at the same time, the destruction of the pipe systems which supplied the water necessary to combat them. Such fires caused the destruction of a large portion of San Francisco, as all the world knows; and they also intensified the calamity due to the earthquake at Santa Rosa and Fort Bragg. The degree of intensity with which the earthquake made itself felt by these various manifestations diminished with the distance from the seat of disturbance, and at the more remote points near the limits of its sensibility it was perceived only by a feeble vibration of buildings during a brief period.
{587}
"The area over which the shock was perceptible to the senses extends from Coos Bay, Oregon, on the north, to Los Angeles on the south, a distance of about 730 miles; and easterly as far as Winnemucca, Nevada, a distance of about 300 miles from the coast. The territory thus affected has an extent, inland from the coast, of probably 175,000 square miles. If we assume that (he sea-bottom to the west of the coast was similarly affected, which is very probably true, the total area which was caused to vibrate to such an extent as to be perceptible to the senses was 372,700 square miles. Beyond the limits at which the vibrations were sufficiently sharp to appeal to the senses, earth waves were propagated entirely around the globe and were recorded instrumentally at all the more important seismological stations in civilized countries.
"Various manifestations of the earthquake above cited, including the cracking and deformation of the soil and incoherent surface formations, were the results of the earth jar, or commotion of the earth’s crust. The cause of the earthquake, as will be more fully set forth in the body of this report, was the sudden rupture of the earth's crust along a line or lines extending from the vicinity of Point Delgada to a point in San Benito County near San Juan; a distance in a nearly straight course, of about 270 miles. For a distance of 190 miles from Point Arena to San Juan, the fissure formed by this rupture is known to be practically continuous. Beyond Point Arena it passes out to sea, so that its continuity with the similar crack near Point Delgada is open to doubt; and the latter may possibly be an independent, tho associated, rupture parallel to the main one south of Point Arena. It is most probable, however, that there is but one continuous rupture. The course of the fissure for the 190 miles thru which it has been followed is nearly straight, with a bearing of from North 30° to 40° West, but with a slight general curvature, the concavity being toward the. northeast, and minor local curvatures. The fissure for the extent indicated follows the old line of seismic disturbance which extends thru California from Humboldt County to San Benito County, and thence southerly obliquely across the Coast Ranges thru the Tejon Pass and the Cajon Pass into the Colorado Desert."
_Report of the California State Earthquake Investigation Commission, Volume 1, pages 1-2._
SAN FRANCISCO: The Great Conflagration.
General Frederick Funston, commanding the United States troops at San Francisco, lost no time in ordering them out for service in the emergency, and his report gives many interesting particulars of the struggle with outbreaking and spreading fires, in which they took an heroic part.
"By 9 A. M.," he wrote, "the various fires were merging into one great conflagration, and were approaching the Palace Hotel, Grand Hotel, Call Building, Emporium, and other large buildings from the south. … By the morning of the 19th the fire had destroyed the main portion of the wholesale and retail section of the city, and was actively burning on a line from about the corner of Montgomery avenue and Montgomery street southwest on an irregular line to Van Ness avenue at Golden Gate avenue. … The progress of the fire was very slow. It averaged not more than one block in two hours. … By the night of the 19th about 250,000 people or more must have been encamped or sleeping out in the open in the various military reservations, parks, and open spaces of the city.
"On the night of the 19th, when the fire reached Van Ness avenue, Colonel Charles Morris, Artillery Corps, in command of the troops in that portion of the city, authorized Captain Le Vert Coleman to destroy a number of buildings far enough ahead of the fire to make a clearing along Broadway, Franklin and Gough streets, which space the fire was unable to bridge, and in this manner was stopped after it had crossed Van Ness avenue and the fire department seemed powerless. It is my opinion that if it had not been for the work done at this place the entire Western Addition of the city would have been destroyed.
"By the morning of the 20th the Western Addition, as that part of the city lying west of Van Ness avenue is called, was considered safe, except from the danger arising from a very threatening conflagration working along the slopes of Russian Hill toward that part of Van Ness avenue lying north of Broadway. All day of the 20th an heroic fight was made by the soldiers, sailors, firemen, and citizens to stop this fire, which had a frontage of about half a mile, and was working its way slowly against the wind. A number of buildings were destroyed here by high explosives, and back firing was resorted to. The fight, at this place was greatly aided by water pumped from the bay at Fort Mason. …
"By the most tremendous exertions the flames were prevented from crossing Van Ness avenue between that port (Fort Mason) and the point where they had once crossed and been fought out. By the morning of the 21st the Western Addition was considered safe, and the advancing flames south from the Mission district had been stayed; but a rising wind caused the fire to turn northeastward from Russian Hill and destroy a portion of the city along the bay shore that had hitherto been spared."
Of the work of dynamiting that was done, mainly by the soldiers, Major General A. W. Greeley, in a special report, says: "The authority for demolitions was in every case derived from the Mayor or his representatives. During all of the 18th and until the afternoon of the 19th the city authorities withheld their permission to blow up any buildings, except those in immediate contact with others already ablaze. Consequently, although we were able to check the fire at certain points, it outflanked us time and again, and all our work had to be begun over in front of the fire. … By [afternoon of April 19th] the Mayor gave permission to take more drastic measures to stop the fire."
SAN FRANCISCO: After the Fire.
Of conditions after the fire General Greeley gives a vivid description, partly as follows:
"On April 18 this was a city of 500,000 inhabitants, the commercial emporium of the Pacific coast, a great industrial and manufacturing center, adorned with magnificent buildings, equipped with extensive local transportation, provided with the most sanitary appliances, and having an abundant water supply. On April 21 these triumphs of human effort, this center of civilization, had become a scene of indescribable desolation, more than 200,000 residents having fled from the burnt district alone, leaving several hundred dead under its smoldering ashes. …
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"The burnt area covered 3,400 acres, as against 2,100 in Chicago and 50 in Boston. … Even buildings spared by the fire were damaged as to chimneys, so that all food of the entire city was cooked over camp fires in the open streets.
"Two hundred and twenty-five thousand people were not only homeless, losing homes and all personal property, but also were deprived of their means of present sustenance and future livelihood. Food, water, shelter, clothing, medicines, and sewerage were all lacking. Failing even for drinking purposes, water had to be brought long distances. Every large bakery was destroyed or interrupted. While milk and country produce were plentiful in the suburbs, local transportation was entirely interrupted so that even people of great wealth could obtain food only by charity or public relief."
SAN FRANCISCO: Loss of Life and Property.
General Greeley "gives the loss of life in San Francisco, including some who subsequently died from injuries received, as 304 known and 194 unknown. In addition, 415 persons were seriously injured. Estimates of the value of property destroyed made up from the reports of settlements by the insurance companies are given as follows in Best’s Special Report on San Francisco Losses and Settlement, published in New York, February 25, 1907:
‘The total loss to insurance institutions throughout the world was from $220,000,000 to $225,000,000. It is probable that the sound value of the property represented by this loss was nearly or quite $100,000,000 greater than the last named figure, so that this conflagration takes rank as the largest in history in point of values destroyed. The loss fell on 243 insurance institutions, plus those foreign companies (twenty or more in number) which have made no report to us.’"
SAN FRANCISCO: Maintenance of Order.
"After the arrival of state troops ordered into service by the governor of California, five separate organizations were maintaining order in San Francisco—the municipal police, the national guard of California, the United States navy, citizens’ committees, and the United States army. Under this multiplied control it was inevitable that some clashes of authority should occur, and that citizens should at times feel hampered by excess of regulation. ‘It bears testimony,’ says General Greeley, ‘to the judgment and forbearance of the personnel enforcing order and to the sensible, law-abiding qualities of the people of San Francisco, that during such prolonged and desperate condition of affairs there should have been but nine deaths by violence. All killed were men, and four of the cases have been the subject of investigation under the civil law.’
SAN FRANCISCO: Relief Measures.
"Invaluable service of relief was rendered by the railway companies, the Southern Pacific, under the personal direction of President E. T. Harriman, and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, giving free transportation over their lines from April 18th to the 26th, and affording every possible facility for the forwarding of relief supplies. The ferries and suburban lines did the same.
"Food, clothing and tents furnished by Pacific coast cities began to pour in, followed quickly by similar supplies from more distant points and by the War Department of the United States under special appropriation promptly made by Congress. The proper handling and distribution of these vast quantities of material and the control of the refugee camps that filled the public parks devolved upon the military authorities. Relief service was promptly systematized by the army officers, ably assisted after the opening week by Dr. Edward T. Devine, special representative of the National Red Cross. After July 2 the army was withdrawn from the refugee camps and the relief work passed under the control of the Red Cross and citizens’ organizations. Mr. J. D. Phelan of San Francisco, chairman of the Finance Committee of the Relief and Red Cross Funds, thus commends the services of the army in its management of the relief operations: ‘As citizens we feel that the army in time of peace has demonstrated its efficiency and usefulness as it has in our days of trouble signalized its splendid qualities on the field of battle.’
SAN FRANCISCO: Behavior of the People.
"General A. W. Greeley in his special report thus characterizes the behavior of the people of San Francisco.
‘It is safe to say that nearly 200,000 persons were brought to a state of complete destitution, beyond the clothing they wore or carried in their arms. The majority of the community was reduced from conditions of comfort to dependence upon public charity, yet in all my experiences I have never seen a woman in tears, nor heard a man whining over his losses. Besides this spirit of cheerful courage, they exhibited qualities of resourcefulness and self-respect which must command the admiration of the world. Within two months the bread line, which at first exceeded 300,000, was reduced to a comparative handful—less than 5 per cent. of the original number.’"
_Frederick H. Clark, Head of History Department, Lowell High School._
SAN FRANCISCO: A. D. 1906. Segregation of Oriental Children in Public Schools. Resentment of Japanese.
See (in this Volume) RACE PROBLEMS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1904-1909.
SAN FRANCISCO: A. D. 1906 (April-October). During and after the Suppression of Saloons.
See (in this Volume) ALCOHOL PROBLEM: CASUAL OCCURRENCES.
SAN FRANCISCO: A. D. 1906-1909. The Rebuilding of the Shattered and Burned City. Improvements in the Reconstruction.
"The great fire of April, 1906, practically obliterated the business section of San Francisco. Vast heaps of brick and stone and iron beams, twisted and bent, filled the area where the great hotels, banks and mercantile establishments, wholesale and retail, had stood. The opportunity to correct original errors and to make improvements in the ground plan of this portion of the city was at once recognized. People said to one another: ‘ London, Chicago, and Baltimore have bitterly regretted, since their great fires, that they did not improve their streets. Are we to fail to take advantage of their mistakes?’ A Citizens’ Committee on Reconstruction was appointed; many valuable suggestions were brought together; and an expert engineer was directed to study the plans and make practical estimates of the cost of the more important improvements. A set of most commendable changes was thus brought to the point of authoritative adoption. These changes included, particularly, the widening of streets needed for main thoroughfares, extension of a few main streets so as to facilitate the distribution of traffic, the extension of shipping facilities along the water front, and improving the thoroughfares leading thereto. The opportunity of making these improvements while the whole area was destitute of buildings was, of course, never likely to recur.
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"At this point the whole matter came to a standstill. It was the misfortune of San Francisco at this critical moment to be under a municipal administration, wholly incompetent and corrupt. Private enterprise was strained to the utmost in the effort to recover from the great losses, and from the want of governmental initiative, all projects of municipal improvement failed for the time. Under a reformed city-government after 1907, a great deal of municipal work was undertaken which will be indicated below.
"Rebuilding of private structures is a wonderful record of courage, energy and resourcefulness. The first stage was the rushing up of temporary wooden structures,—any sort of a building that would afford shelter and permit the resumption of business. For the most part the lumber yards of San Francisco were untouched by the fire, and thus the city had a considerable stock of material for immediate operations. Van Ness Avenue and other former residence streets were soon lined with one-story wooden buildings over which appeared the well-known names of down-town firms.
"The second stage in reconstruction was the removal of the ruins left by earthquake and fire. The business section of the former city was constructed mainly of brick. Whether from ignorance or prejudice the former building laws of San Francisco did not permit the use of concrete except for floors and foundations. Only a few of the more recently constructed buildings were of steel. Thus the first great problem was presented by the standing brick walls.
"For a few days the use of dynamite for the overthrow of standing walls was permitted, and in this way much additional damage was done to buildings not wholly ruined by the earthquake and fire. Subsequently it was found to be far more systematic and advantageous as well as safer to pull down the standing walls by means of wire cables and stationary engines. Pulling down old walls became for a time a trade in itself.
"Thousands of men found employment in cleaning the old bricks and stacking them up for use in rebuilding. For the removal of the vast quantities of debris,—twisted pipe and beams, broken brick and crumbled plaster, temporary railways were constructed over the level down-town district, and elaborate plans were made for a wholesale business by steam transportation. There was trouble over loading facilities, however, and the greater quantity was carried away by two horse dump-wagons, the material being used for filling in low lands along the water front and elsewhere. All California felt the demand for horses and wagons that this great work created.
"Immediately after the fire the work of revising the building laws was taken up. Fortunately this task received the intelligent guidance of a citizens’ committee composed of local builders, architects and engineers. The building regulations were rescued from their contradictions and confusion, and a clear, systematic ordinance was secured. The most notable forward step was the authorization of reinforced concrete buildings.
"Architects and engineers interested in the problems of reconstruction organized a ‘Structural Association’ as a clearing-house for improved building methods. The utmost pains were taken to study the effects of the earthquake and the conflagration in order to secure every possible advantage from the lessons inculcated. The results of this study may be summarized as follows.
"Steel frame buildings (Class A) were perfectly able to resist the effects of earthquake shock of the severity of the disturbance of 1906, and when properly protected, to endure the test of conflagration as well. Concrete, both plain and reinforced, rose rapidly in favor as structural material. Opinion as to the continued use of brick in construction was divided, but on account of the need of brick in the cheaper buildings, there was no tendency toward its falling into disuse. Wired glass, that is, plate glass in which a mesh of fine wire netting is embedded has been brought into favor, the idea being that when this glass is subjected to great heat it may crack, but will not fall.
"Along with the improved methods of construction, the rebuilding of office and business structures afforded an opportunity of modernizing them. Merchants went so far as to form a ‘Down-Town Association’ which held weekly meetings for the purpose of studying the problems of rehabilitation and of taking advantage of every suggestion for improvement. The new buildings have been perfected in lighting and sanitation and in exterior finish and interior arrangements have been brought up to the standard of the world’s best types. Thus the business district of the new city has been made immeasurably superior in durability, cleanliness and appearance, to what it was before the fire.
"The amount of reconstruction that has been done is shown in the following table taken from the San Francisco _Chronicle_ of April 18, 1909, which summarizes the work done in three years. The table was compiled from the municipal records.
"Private building operations, April 18, 1906 to April 18, 1909:
Number. Cost.
Class A 82 $19,391,982
Class B 109 8,042,831
Class C 1,369 42,416,072
Frame 12,352 50,962,813
Alterations 6,334 9,528,310
Total $130,344,008
"Class A buildings having steel frames; stone, brick or concrete facing, fire-proof floors. Completely fire-proof.
"Class B buildings of reinforced concrete, brick or stone, with steel beams entering into the main walls, fire-proof.
"Class C brick, stone or concrete buildings with floors and floor-framework of wood.
"As the actual cost usually exceeds the estimate that goes into the public record by about 15 per cent. it would be proper to estimate the cost of all this construction at $150,000,000. Of this amount it is estimated that less than $10,000,000 has been furnished from outside of San Francisco,—local capital having proven itself sufficient for this vast work. Within this same period the public service corporations have expended nearly $20,000,000 in reconstruction,—the greatest work being the practical rebuilding of the street-car lines. For municipal reconstruction the city has repaved nearly all of the business streets and has voted bonds for $18,200,000. From the funds thus provided permanent improvements of great importance are now (August, 1909) in progress.
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"The election authorizing the sale of bonds was held on May 11, 1908. The purposes for which these bonds were issued are thus announced by the Public Utilities Committee of the Board of Supervisors:
"‘Fire Protection Bonds, $5,200,000, for the installation of an extensive high pressure water system which will give superior fire protection to the greater part of the thickly built portion of the city, and designed to be the most serviceable of its kind in the world. With this installed it will be almost impossible for a conflagration to ever again visit the city.
"‘Sewer Bonds, $4,000,000, for the construction of a complete sewer system which will discharge the sewage in a manner that will perfectly safeguard the health of the city.
"‘School Bonds, $5,000,000, for the construction of school-houses to the number of more than thirty, replacing those destroyed by fire in April, 1906, and providing sites and additional structures in districts now inadequately supplied.
"‘Hospital Bonds, $2,000,000, for the construction of modern hospitals.
"‘Hall of Justice Bonds, $1,000,000, for the construction of buildings for the police and other departments of the city government.
"‘Garbage System Bonds, $1,000,000, for the construction of modern works for the disposal of the city’s waste in a sanitary manner.
"‘With these improvements the City of San Francisco will be equipped with public works that will insure it a prominent place in the cities of the world in respect to all things that go to make stability and give permanence to the community as a great trade and industrial center.’ The rapid recovery of San Francisco from the losses of the great fire is further shown by the following comparison of values from the Assessors Reports:
Value of Taxable Property.
1905. 1906. 1908.
Real Estate $304,136,185 $237,082,752 $258,642,215 Buildings 97,830,165 50,250,480 90,996,500 Personal Property 122,264,596 88,805,510 103,912,469 Total $524,230,946 $376,138,742 $453,551,184
_Frederick H. Clark, Head of History Department, Lowell High School._
SAN FRANCISCO: A. D. 1908 (July). Visit of the Battleship Fleet.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR: NAVAL.
SANITARY UNDERTAKINGS.
See (in this Volume) PUBLIC HEALTH.
SANTOS-DUMONT, A.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: AERONAUTICS.
SARRIEN-CLEMENCEAU MINISTRY.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1906.
SARTO, Giuseppe, Cardinal: Elected Pope.
See (in this Volume) PAPACY: A. D. 1903 (JULY-AUGUST).
SASKATCHEWAN: Organized as a Province of the Dominion of Canada.
See (in this Volume) CANADA: A. D. 1905.
SAXONY: A. D. 1906. Political Reform.
See (in this Volume) ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: GERMANY: A. D. 1906.
SCANDINAVIAN-AMERICAN SOLIDARITY.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: INTERNATIONAL INTERCHANGES.
SCHMITZ, EUGENE E.
See (in this Volume) MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: SAN FRANCISCO.
SCHOOL CHILDREN, UNDERFED.
See (in this Volume) POVERTY, PROBLEMS OF.
SCHOOL PEACE LEAGUE, The American.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1908.
SCHOOLS.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION.
SCHOUVALOFF, COUNT, ASSASSINATION OF.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1905 (FEBRUARY-NOVEMBER).
SCHREINER, W. P.: Opposition to Disfranchisement of Colored Natives in South Africa.
See (in this Volume) SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1908-1909.
----------SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: Start--------
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: Aeronautics: The Development of the Aeroplane and the Dirigible Balloon.
To be lifted from the earth by an inflated sack of gas lighter than air, and be drifted with it by the winds, was an interesting experience for a few adventurous people, after the Mongolfiers, in 1783, had found it could be done; but the practical advantages from it were slight, so long as the voyager of the air had no slightest control of his journeying. The possibility of such control only came within the range of inventors’ dreams when motor enginery had been carried far towards the promise of much power with little weight. The promise was half a century behind its fulfilment, however, when Henri Giffard, the notable French engineer, is said to have constructed a balloon which lacked nothing but the adequately light and vigorous motor in order to be as [much a] dirigible as any of the present day. But the needed motor began to take form, and success in the propulsion of balloons on steered courses, with some independence of the winds, began to be realized, in the experiments of Count Zeppelin, in Germany, and of M. Santos-Dumont in France, beginning about 1898.
Before that date, however, invention had been started on bolder lines, seeking independence of the clumsy gas-bag, and striving to mount the air as the bird does, by pushing against it the inclined planes of his wings. Otto Lilienthal, in Germany, began experiments to that end in 1893. He had no motor; but starting from a height, and "making judicious use of the movement of the wind," he accomplished gliding flights of about 1200 feet, and the machines he constructed were suggestive of ideas to the experimenters who followed him. He was killed by a fall in 1896. Many were then working at the problem of aerial flight without the lifting force of light gases. {591} Some studied it scientifically and some attacked it in the rough manner of sheer empiricism. Of the former, in the United States, were Octave Chanute, the engineer, and Professor Samuel P. Langley, the astronomer and physicist of the Smithsonian Institution; in England there was Sir Hiram Maxim. These gentlemen arrived at no practical success in their own experimenting, but they furnished good guidance to the work of their more fortunate successors. A little later the scientific students of the problem were joined by the inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell. And then came the two workers who advanced from empiricism to science in their undertaking, and who won the first great successes by a happy combination of the two.
The brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright have told, in an article contributed to _The Century Magazine_, how they were stirred to serious interest in the aviation problem in 1896 and began to read what Langley, Chanute, Mouillard and others had written on it. Entering, purely as a sport, on experiments in gliding flight, on Lilienthal’s lines, they became fascinated by the pursuit. From the first they appear to have chosen what is known as the biplane structure for their machines, the invention of which they credit to a previous inventor, Wenham, whose design of it had been improved by Stringfellow and Chanute. To this construction, of two planes, one above the other, for supporting surfaces, they have steadfastly adhered.
At the outset of their experimenting the Wrights found a difficulty in the balancing of "flyers" which previous workers did not seem to have treated seriously enough, and they settled themselves to the conquest of it at once. This and other problems soon carried them from empirical testing into scientific studies, which occupied several years. They found that the accepted measurements of wind pressure, on given plane surfaces exposed at different angles, were unreliable, and they applied themselves to the making and tabulating of measurements of their own. It was not until this work had given them "accurate data for making calculations, and a system of balance effective in winds as well as in calms," as well as the necessary data for designing an effective screw propeller, that they felt themselves prepared "to build a successful power-flyer."
So far, these thorough-going workers at the problems of aviation had been experimenting with a machine designed, as they said, "to be flown as a kite, with a man on board," or without the man, "operating the levers through cords from the ground." Their active experimenting began in October, 1900, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. In 1901 they made the acquaintance of Mr. Chanute, and he spent some weeks with them, observing and encouraging their work. In September and October, they say, "nearly one thousand gliding flights were made, several of which covered distances of over 600 feet. Some, made against a wind of thirty-six miles an hour, gave proof of the effectiveness of the devices for control." Late in 1903 they had reached the point of testing a power-machine, and sailed into the air with it for the first time on the 17th of December in the presence of five lookers-on. "The first flight," they tell us, "lasted only twelve seconds: a flight very modest compared with that of birds; but it was, nevertheless, the first in the history of the world in which a machine carrying a man had raised itself by its own power into the air in free flight, had sailed forward on a level course, without reduction of speed, and had finally landed without being wrecked. The second and third flights were a little longer, and the fourth lasted fifty-nine seconds, covering a distance of 852 feet over the ground against a twenty-mile wind."
In the spring of 1904 the experimenting of the Wright Brothers was transferred from Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, to a prairie not far from their home, at Dayton, Ohio. There they overcame final difficulties in the maintaining of equilibrium when turning their machine in circles of flight; and then, at the end of September, 1905, they suspended experiments for more than two years, which they spent in business negotiations and in the construction of new machines. Their experimenting was not resumed until May, 1908 (again at Kitty Hawk). At this time it was directed to the testing of the ability of their machine to meet the requirements of a contract with the United States Government to furnish a flyer capable of carrying two men and sufficient fuel supplies for a flight of 25 miles, with a speed of forty miles an hour.
Meantime, during the two years of suspended experimenting by the Wrights, other workers in Europe and America had been approaching their successes, so far as to be competitors for the important prizes now offered very plainly for winning in the aviation field. M. Santos-Dumont, turning his attention from dirigible balloons to aeroplanes, had made, at Paris, the first public flight on that side of the ocean; and though he covered no more than 220 yards, it was a long stride in practical success. Henry Farman, Louis Bleriot, M. Delagrange, in France, Glenn H. Curtiss and A. M. Herring, in the United States, were making ready to dispute honors with the Dayton aviators, of whose actual achievements the public knew little, as yet.
On all sides there was readiness for surprising and astonishing the public in 1908. Farman, at Paris, in March, exceeded a flight of two miles; Delagrange, at Milan, in June, covered ten miles, and more; Farman, in July, raised his record to eleven miles, and Delagrange carried his to fifteen and a half in September. The Wrights had made flights that ranged from eleven to twenty-four miles in the fall of 1905; and now, in their renewed trials of 1908, these distances were more than doubled. Wilbur Wright went abroad, to exhibit their machine in France and elsewhere, while Orville, in September, submitted it to official tests at Fort Myer, near Washington. There, on different days in that month, rounding circuits of the parade ground, he made time records of continuous flight that ran from 56 to 74 minutes, travelling estimated distances that stretched in one instance over fifty-one and a third miles. These trials at Fort Myer were interrupted sadly by an accident, from the breaking of a propeller-blade, which caused the machine to drop to the ground while in flight. Lieutenant T. E. Selfridge, U. S. A., who rode with Mr. Wright at the time, was killed, and Mr. Wright suffered a broken leg.
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Wilbur Wright, meantime, was entering on great triumphs in France. At Le Mans, on the 21st of September, he traversed 68 miles in a continuous flight of a little more than an hour and a half. This achievement was far surpassed by him on the 18th of December, when 95 miles were travelled in an hour and fifty-four minutes, and again, on the 31st of December, when the stay in the air was prolonged to two hours, nine minutes and some seconds, and the distance covered was 76½ miles.
These records of the Wrights for time of continuous flight were beaten by a number of European competitors, as will be shown below. Otherwise, the records of 1909 show no very marked advance beyond those of 1908; but the year had excitements in aviation, connected especially with attempted flights over the English Channel. Hubert Latham, a recent French practitioner in aviation, was the first to venture this leap through the air from France to England. His machine was described as being an Antoinette monoplane, designed by M. Levevasseur. He launched it from Calais in the early morning of July 19, and traversed about six miles of the passage when his motor failed and he fell to the water, unhurt, and was rescued by an attendant steamer. Six days after Latham's failure, on the 25th of July, Louis Bleriot, using another monoplane machine, made the crossing with brilliant success, flying from Calais to Dover, 21 miles, in 23 minutes, and winning the prize of £1000 which the Daily Mail, of London, had offered for the performance of the feat. M. Latham then repeated his attempt and was unfortunate again, his motor giving out after it had carried him within two miles of the Dover shore.
Orville Wright, at this time, July 27, was demonstrating at Fort Myer the ability of his aeroplane to carry two persons in a well-sustained flight. With Lieutenant Frank P. Lahm, of the Signal Corps, as a passenger, and having President Taft among his spectators, he made a flight of an hour, twelve minutes and forty seconds, accomplishing upwards of fifty miles at an average speed of forty miles an hour. A day or two afterwards he carried Lieutenant Benjamin D. Foulois over the ten mile course from Fort Myer to Alexandria at a speed of more than forty-two miles an hour.
In the last week of August the first race meeting for heavier-than air flying machines occurred at Rheims, France, and a dozen aviators from France, England and America competed for large prizes in long distance and duration flights. A number of new records was made, and new names acquired note. Louis Paulhan kept the air for two hours and forty-three minutes with a Voisin biplane, covering 83 miles. Hubert Latham surpassed this in distance and speed, making 96 miles in two hours and eighteen minutes; and this again was beaten by Henri Farman, who travelled 118 miles, remaining in the air over three hours. M. Latham used the Antoinette monoplane, and M. Farman a biplane of his own design. Mr. Glenn H. Curtiss won the prize for speed, doing 18 miles in twenty-five minutes and forty-five seconds.
Orville Wright had now gone abroad and his brother had returned to America. In August and September the former gave exhibitions at Berlin, breaking some of his own records, carrying a passenger in his machine for an hour and thirty-five minutes, on the 18th of September, and rising, on the 1st of October, to an unexampled height, believed to have exceeded 1000 feet. This, however, was greatly exceeded in January, 1910, by Hubert Latham, at Mourmelon, France, who rose to 3280 feet, and by Louis Paulhan, at Los Angeles, California, 4165 ft. On the 3d of October the Crown Prince of Germany was his companion in a short flight.
Meantime Wilbur Wright, in America, had endeavored to supply one of the spectacles arranged for the Hudson-Fulton celebration at New York; but the intended programme of aviation was spoiled by forbidding winds. He did, however, make one astonishing flight, on the 4th of October, from Governor’s Island, up the Hudson to Grant’s tomb, and, on his return, passing over the British battle-ships then lying in the river. The distance travelled was about twenty miles and the time of the journey thirty-three minutes and a half. Unfortunately it was unexpected, and was seen by a small part only of the millions who had been watching several days for a flight. On the next day Mr. Wright made the statement that no more public exhibitions would be given by his brother or himself. "Hereafter," he said, "we shall devote all our efforts to the commercial exploitation of our machines, and fly only as a matter of experiment, to test the value of whatever changes we decide to make in the construction."
Turning now back to the development of the motor-propelled and dirigible balloon, we find that field of aeronautics very nearly monopolized at the beginning of the twentieth century, so far as the public saw it, by the Brazilian millionaire, A. Santos-Dumont, who spent his time and his wealth at Paris in ballooning. The French Government had been authorizing army experiments in dirigible ballooning since 1884, and a motor-driven air-ship of that description, designed by Captain Renard, and named "La France," had made a trip from Chalais-Meudon to Paris and return in September, 1885, being the first balloon ever navigated back to its starting point; but not much in the same line to excite public interest appears to have been done in the next sixteen years. Then, on the 19th of October, 1901, a lively stir of interest everywhere was excited by the exploit of Santos-Dumont, in navigating his balloon from St. Cloud to and around the Eiffel Tower and back to the starting point. He had done the same privately three months before, at a very early morning hour of July 12, on which occasion he broke his rudder at an early stage of the journey, descended in the Trocadero Gardens, made repairs and then went on doing the whole round in an hour and six minutes, including the stop.
Expectation, however, that controllable navigation of the air, in average conditions of wind, might really be an approaching and not very distant fact, cannot be said to have had much awakening in the world until the performances, in 1908, of Count Zeppelin’s huge airship, 440 feet in length, called Zeppelin No. IV., which enclosed numerous envelopes of gas in a rigid aluminum frame. On the 2d of July, 1908, he drove this great balloon from Friedrichshafen, on Lake Constance, to Luzerne, 248 miles, within twelve hours. Starting again from Friedrichshafen, August 4, intending a 500 mile trip, he made a lauding at Oppenheim, 260 miles distant, returned thence to Stuttgart, and finally to Echterdingen, where a hurricane storm wrecked his airship completely, causing its motor to explode. Public sympathy with the veteran aeronaut and public faith in his work were so strong that a fund was raised promptly by subscription for the building of another of his costly balloons.
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With this he was ready for new voyages in the spring of 1909, and started from Friedrichshafen on the 30th of May, carrying two engineers and a crew of seven, travelled 456 miles to Bitterfield, where, without landing, he turned back; but landed later near Goeppingen, receiving a slight injury to the balloon in landing by contact with a tree. The whole distance travelled was about 850 miles, in 37 hours. Late in August the Count accomplished a long desired voyage from his headquarters on Lake Constance to Berlin; but was forced to land at Nuremberg for repairs, and again at Bitterfield, disappointing the great crowds which waited at Berlin, till late at night on the 29th, with the Emperor, to welcome his arrival. When he came, the next day, however, the public enthusiasm showed no cooling. "He was received," says a despatch from Berlin, "with all the honours which the Court and capital could pay him, and his triumphal entry into the city this afternoon as the honoured guest of the Emperor, was not merely a dramatic success but a national demonstration." And now, from this glancing survey of achievement thus far in the navigation of the air, with and without help from the levitation of gas, what expectations of further achievement can we reasonably indulge? Here is one answer, from a notably scientific mind,—that of the late Simon Newcomb, the astronomer:
"It would seem that, at the present time, the public is more hopeful of the flying-machine than of the dirigible balloon. The idea that because such a machine has at last been constructed which will carry a man through the air, there is no limit to progress, is a natural one. But to judge of possibilities, we must advert to the distinction already pointed out between obstacles interposed by nature, which cannot be surmounted by any invention, and those which we may hope to overcome by possible mechanical appliances. The mathematical relations between speed, sustaining power, strength of material, efficiency of engine, and other elements of success are fixed and determinate, and cannot be changed except by new scientific discoveries, quite outside the power of the inventor to make. That the gravitation of matter can in any way be annulled seems out of the question. Should any combination of metals or other substances be discovered of many times the stiffness and tensile strength of the fabrics and alloys with which we are now acquainted, then might one element of success be at our command. But, with the metals that we actually have, there is a limit to the weight of an engine with a given driving power, and it may be fairly assumed that this limit is nearly reached in the motors now in use. … Owing to the levity of the air, the supporting surface must have a wide area. We cannot set any exact limit to the necessary spread of sail, because the higher the speed the less the spread required. But, as we increase the speed, we also increase the resistance, and therefore we must have a more powerful and necessarily heavier motor. … Bearing in mind that no limit is to be set to the possible discovery of new laws of nature or new combinations of the chemical elements, it must be understood that I disclaim any positive prediction that men will never fly from place to place at will. The claim I make is that they will not do this until some epoch-making discovery is made of which we have now no conception, and that mere invention has nearly reached its limit. It is very natural to reason that men have done hundreds of things which formerly seemed impossible, and therefore they may fly. But for every one thing seemingly impossible that they have succeeded in doing there are ten which they would like to do but which no one believes that they can do. No one thinks of controlling wind or weather, of making the sun shine when we please, of building a railroad across the Atlantic, of changing the ocean level to suit the purposes of commerce, of building bridges of greater extent than engineers tell us is possible with the strength of the material that we have at command, or of erecting buildings so high that they would be crushed by their own weight. Why are we hopeless as to all these achievements, and yet hopeful that the flying-machine may be the vehicle of the future, which shall transport us more rapidly than a railroad train now does? It is simply because we all have so clear a mental view of the obstacles in the way of reaching such ends as those just enumerated that we do not waste time in attempting to surmount them, and we are hopeful of the flying-machine only because we do not clearly see that the difficulties are of the same nature as those we should encounter in erecting a structure which would not be subject to the laws of mechanics.
"I have said nothing of the possible success of the flying-machine for the purposes of military reconnaissance or any other operations requiring the observer to command a wide view of all that is on the landscape. This is a technical subject which, how great soever may be its national importance, does not affect our daily life."
_Simon Newcomb, The Prospect of Aerial Navigation (North American Review, March, 1908)._
Here is another, from Thomas A. Edison, the inventor:
"In ten years flying machines will be used to carry mails. They will carry passengers, too, and they will go at a speed of 100 miles an hour. There is no doubt of this."
These are the words of Mr. Edison in an interview published in the _New York Times_, August 1st, 1909. But while he is sure that the "flying machine has got to come," he is not at all sure that it will come along the lines pursued in the present experiments. "The flying problem now consists of 75 per cent. machine and 25 per cent, man," he said, "while to be commercially successful the flying machine must leave little to the peculiar skill of the operator and must be able to go out in all weathers." He continued:
"If I were to build a flying machine I would plan to sustain it by means of a number of rapidly revolving inclined planes, the effect of which would be to raise the machine by compressing the air between the planes and the earth. Such a machine would rise from the ground as a bird does. Then I would drive the machine ahead with a propeller."
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Mr. Edison believes it is a question of power. "Is it not thinkable that a method will be discovered of wirelessly transmitting electrical energy from the earth to the motor of the machine in mid-air?" He asked and answered his own question, saying:—"There is no reason to disbelieve that it can and will be done." He added, however, that there was great room for improvement in explosive engines. "Any day we are likely to read that somebody has made picric acid or something else work—done some little thing that will transform the flying machine from a toy into a commercial success." And when it is perfected, he says, the flying machine may end war by becoming a means of attack that cannot be resisted.
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: Agriculture: Dry Farming in the West.
For twenty consecutive years, in scores of places from the James River to the Arkansas, Mr. H. W. Campbell, of Lincoln, Nebraska, the pioneer "dry farmer" of Arid America, "has been uniformly successful in producing without irrigation the same results that are expected with irrigation, with comparatively little additional expense, but not without a great deal more watchfulness and labor. What Western people have become accustomed to calling the ‘Campbell system of dry farming’ consists simply in the exercise of intelligence, care, patience, and tireless industry. It differs in details from the ‘good-farming’ methods practised and taught at the various agricultural experiment stations; but the underlying principles are the same.
"These principles are two in number. First to keep the surface of the land under cultivation loose and finely pulverized. This forms a soil mulch that permits the rains and melting snows to percolate readily through to the compacted soil beneath; and that at the same time prevents the moisture stored in the ground from being brought to the surface by capillary attraction, to be absorbed by the hot, dry air. The second is to keep the sub-soil finely pulverized and firmly compacted, increasing its water-holding capacity and its capillary attraction and placing it in the best possible physical condition for the germination of seed and the development of plant roots. The ‘dry farmer’ thus stores water not in dams and artificial reservoirs, but right where it can be reached by the roots of growing crops.
"Through these principles, a rainfall of twelve inches can be conserved so effectively that it will produce better results than are usually expected of an annual precipitation of twenty-four inches in humid America. The discoverer and demonstrator of these principles deserves to rank among the greatest of national benefactors."
_John L. Cowan, Dry Farming the Hope of the West (Century Magazine, July, 1906)._
"It is difficult for one who is used to the commonplace methods of tilling the soil which obtained a quarter of a century ago to believe that a new method has been discovered which will triple and quadruple the results of the old system in those parts of the country in which the rainfall is somewhat restricted. The imagination cannot immediately grasp the statement that dry farming methods would lift the Kansas wheat crop from 75,000,000 to 216,000,000 bushels. Yet this is a fact.
"If the mind of the eastern farmer can grasp this tremendous fact he will be ready to credit the statement that there are millions of acres in the western country which were until a few years ago regarded as utterly worthless, but which are now cheap at $25 an acre. To the wheat industry alone of the western country the proved fact of the value of dry farming means more than any other development fact in the agricultural history of this country. What is true of increased yields in dry farming is equally true, and in a larger degree, perhaps, with respect to irrigation. For years the government has been warning the country that the increased production of wheat is not keeping pace with the increased consumption.
"Should this continue it would mean that ere long the United States would be compelled to draw a part of its wheat supply from the Canadian Northwest. It would also mean that the United States would lose the export wheat trade with the Orient, which is bound to increase rapidly. It is not generally known that the 400,000,000 people in China are being educated to the use of wheat and other cereals than rice, and that, therefore, the demand for wheat will continue to increase. …
"One of the facts which Mr. Harriman realized far in advance of any one else and which was an important factor in his transportation plans was the possibilities of dry farming as well as irrigation. Before he began to talk much about these subjects he set about to prepare his system to reap the first and most substantial part of the results of dry farming and of irrigation. Other railroad builders are now beginning to realize that Mr. Harriman is prepared to transport the products of the West, of the Northwest and the Southwest between almost any parts of this country, as well as through many ports from San Francisco to the South Atlantic ports, including one or two on the western coast of Old Mexico. Although he and former President Roosevelt were at war in many respects, it was Mr. Harriman that gave the former President much of the information he acquired regarding the boundless resources of the West. By doing so he caused the government to work even more energetically than it had been working for the conservation of the nation’s resources."
_Chicago Record-Herald, July 11, 1909._
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: Anniversary Celebrations.
The eightieth birthday of Dr. Rudolph Virchow, founder of cellular pathology, was celebrated on the 13th of October, 1901, by a remarkable assemblage of distinguished physicians and surgeons from many countries, who made pilgrimages to Berlin to do him honor.
The centenary of the birth of Charles Darwin, and the semi-centennial year of the publication, in 1859, of his work on "The Origin of Species," were commemorated in every part of the world; but the great collective demonstration of honor to Darwin’s memory, organized by the University of Cambridge, his _alma mater_, was a tribute of surpassing impressiveness. As described by the London _Times_, on the opening day of this extraordinary celebration, June 22, 1909, "the whole learned world, from Chile to Japan," was joined in the homage paid. "Some of those who will be present," said _The Times_, "were his comrades, most of them have been in some measure his working contemporaries. {595} Two hundred and thirty-five universities, academies, and learned bodies at home and abroad have nominated delegates to represent them; and of these 107 are situated in foreign countries and British dominions outside the United Kingdom. Thirty of the most famous institutions in Germany, thirty in the United States, fourteen in France, ten in Austria-Hungary, eight in Italy, as many in Sweden, seven in Russia, and lesser numbers in seven other foreign countries have honoured the occasion by naming some of their most distinguished members to take part in it. The distant seats of learning in the younger British countries have responded with not less cordiality; seven in Canada, seven in Australia, five in New Zealand, and the same number in South Africa have appointed delegates; India and Ceylon are represented by eight. Within the United Kingdom 68 universities and societies are lending their support; and, in addition to the appointed delegates, there are some 200 invited guests, who include men eminent in every walk of life. … No such academic tribute as the present festival has ever been paid to the memory of an individual within so short a time of his own life."
The commemorative exercises of the occasion were continued through three days.
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: Astronomy: The Astronomy of the Invisible.
"The discovery of double and multiple stars from the effects of the gravitational attraction on their luminous components is known as the ‘Astronomy of the Invisible.’ It was first suggested by the illustrious Bessel about 1840. … The greatest extension of the Astronomy of the Invisible has been made by Professor Campbell, of the Lick Observatory. In the course of the regular work on the motion of stars in the line of sight, carried out with a powerful spectroscopic apparatus presented to the Observatory by Honorable D. O. Mills, of New York, he has investigated during the past five years the motion of several hundred of the brighter stars of the northern heavens. … With such unprecedented telescopic power and a degree of precision in the spectrograph which can be safely depended upon, it is not unnatural that some new and striking phenomena should be disclosed. These consisted of a large number of spectra with double lines, which undergo a periodic displacement, showing that the stars in question were in reality double, made up of two components, moving in opposite directions,—one approaching, the other receding from the Earth. There were thus disclosed spectroscopic binary stars, systems with components so close together that they could not be separated in any existing telescope, yet known to be real binary stars by the periodic behaviour of the lines of the spectra so faithfully registered on different days. …
"Campbell’s work at the Lick Observatory derives increased importance from its systematic character, which enables us to draw some general conclusions of the greatest interest. He has thus far made known the results of his study of the spectra of two hundred and eighty of the brighter stars of the northern heavens. Out of this number he finds thirty-one spectroscopic binaries, or one ninth of the whole number of objects studied. … It seems certain that a more thorough study will materially increase the number of spectroscopic binaries; and Professor Campbell thinks one sixth, or even one fifth, of all the objects studied may eventually prove to be binary or multiple systems. Such an extraordinary generalization opens up to our contemplation an entirely new view of the sidereal universe. …
"If we accept the conclusion that with our finest telescopes, in the best climates, on the average one star in twenty-five is visually double, it will follow from Campbell’s work on some three hundred stars that five times that number are spectroscopically double. Thus, although over a million stars have been examined visually, and some five thousand interesting systems disclosed by powerful telescopes, the concluded ratio would give us, at last analysis, four million visual systems among the hundred million objects assumed to compose the stellar universe. On the other hand, the large ratio of spectroscopic binaries to the total number of stars examined by Campbell would lead us to conclude that in the celestial spaces there exist in reality no less than twenty million spectroscopic binary stars! Could anything be more impressive than the view thus opened to the human mind? …
"It may indeed well be that the dark and unseen portion of the universe is even greater than that which is indicated by our most powerful telescopes. Half a century ago Bessel remarked:
‘There is no reason to suppose luminosity an essential quality of cosmical bodies. The visibility of countless stars is no argument against the invisibility of countless others.’"
_T. J. J. See, Recent Progress in Astronomy (Atlantic Monthly, January, 1902)._
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: Biological: Mendel’s Law of Variation in Species.
"Gregor Mendel was Abbot of Brünn in Moravia when Darwin was at work on the Origin. He does not appear to have had any unusual interest in the problem of evolution; indeed, his main concern was with an essentially pre-Darwinian question,—the nature of plant hybrids. With this problem as an avocation from his serious clerical duties, the abbot busied himself in the garden of his cloister; a leisurely, clear-headed, middle-aged churchman in whom a great scientist was spoiled. For eight years he experimented with varieties of the common pea, and in 1865 communicated to the Society of Naturalists in Brünn the substance of the discovery which is hereafter to be known as Mendel’s law, ‘the greatest discovery in biology since Darwin.’ Unfortunately, at that time, the Brünn Society, like the rest of the world, had other things on its mind. … Somehow or other, Mendel’s discovery escaped attention until four years ago [1900], when De Vries reached it independently. Two years later Mr. Bateson, who had been among the first to realize its significance, made a translation of the two original papers. … Since then, Mendel’s Law has been found to hold for a considerable number of cases, both among animals and plants, but most unaccountably not to work for a few others; so that, as yet, no one knows how nearly universal it may prove to be, nor how it is to be reconciled with the older Law of Ancestral Heredity of Galton. …
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"One illustration will serve to make clear the practical workings of Mendel’s principle. If a single rough-coated guinea-pig of either sex be introduced into a colony of normal smooth-coated individuals, all its offspring of the first generation will be rough-coated like itself. In the next generation, if one of the parents is smooth and the other rough, the young will be half of one sort and half of the other, but if both parents are rough, three quarters will take the ‘dominant’ rough coat. In the next, and all subsequent generations, one half of these rough-coated individuals which had one smooth-coated grandparent, and one-third of those which had two smooth-coated grandparents, which were not mated, will drop out the 'recessive' smooth-coatedness, and become, in all respects, like their original rough-coated progenitor, even to having only rough-coated young, no matter what their mates may have. Thus Mendel’s law, though by no means simple, is very precise. The essential part of his great discovery is that in each generation of plants or animals of mixed ancestry, a definite proportion lose one half of their mingled heritage, and revert, in equal numbers, to one or other of the pure types."
_E. T. Brewster, Some Recent Aspects of Darwinism (Atlantic Monthly, April, 1904)._
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: The Carnegie Institution of Washington. Promotion of Original Research.
The following information relative to the founding, the plan and the work of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, is derived from the, authorities of the Institution:
The Institution was founded by Mr. Andrew Carnegie, January 28, 1902, when he gave to a board of trustees $10,000,000 in registered bonds, yielding 5 per cent annual interest. To this endowment fund an addition of $2,000,000 was made by Mr. Carnegie on December 10, 1907. The Institution was originally organized under the laws of the District of Columbia as the Carnegie Institution. Subsequently, however, it was incorporated by an act of Congress, approved April 28, 1904, under the title of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. The articles of incorporation declare, in general, "that the objects of the corporation shall be to encourage in the broadest and most liberal manner investigation, research, and discovery, and the application of knowledge to the improvement of mankind." By the act of incorporation the Institution was placed under the control of a board of twenty-four trustees, all of whom had been members of the original board referred to above.
The President of the Institution is Dr. Robert S. Woodward, formerly of the faculty of Columbia University. The Chairman of its Board of Trustees is Dr. John S. Billings, Director of the New York Public Library. The Board includes such notable members as William H. Taft, Elihu Root, Seth Low, Andrew D. White, Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, Henry L. Higginson and President Henry S. Pritchett.
Since the object of the Institution is the promotion of investigation "in the broadest and most liberal manner," many projects in widely different fields of inquiry have been considered, or are under consideration, by the Executive Committee. These projects are chiefly of three classes, namely:
First, large projects or departments of work whose execution requires continuous research by a corps of investigators during a series of years. Ten such departments have been established by the Institution. …
Secondly, minor projects which may be carried out by individual experts in a limited period of time. Many grants in aid of this class of projects have been made.
Thirdly, research associates and assistants. Under this head aid has been given to a considerable number of investigators possessing exceptional abilities and opportunities for research work.
An annual appropriation is made for the purpose of publishing the results of investigations made under the auspices of the Institution, and for certain works which would not otherwise be readily printed. Its publications are not distributed gratis, except to a limited list of the greater libraries of the world. Other copies are offered for sale at prices only sufficient to cover the cost of publication and transportation to purchasers. Lists are furnished on application.
Since its organization in 1902, about one thousand individuals have been engaged in investigations under the auspices of the Institution and there are at present nearly five hundred so engaged. Ten independent departments of research, each with its staff of investigators and assistants, have been established. In addition to these larger departments of work, organized by the Institution itself, numerous special researches, carried on by individuals, have been subsidized. Seven laboratories and observatories, for as many different fields of investigation and in widely separated localities, have been constructed and equipped. A building in Washington, D. C., for administrative offices and for storage of records and publications, is now approaching completion. A specially designed ship for ocean magnetic work has just been completed and started on her first voyage.
Mr. George Iles, in his "Inventors at Work," describes and characterizes the aims and guiding principles of the Institution as follows: "In its grants for widely varied purposes the policy of the Institution is clear: only those inquiries are aided which give promise of fruit, and in every case the grantee requires to be a man of proved ability, care being taken not to duplicate work already in hand elsewhere, or to essay tasks of an industrial character. Experience has already shown it better to confine research to a few large projects rather than to aid many minor investigations with grants comparatively small.
"One branch of work reminds us of Mr. Carnegie’s method in establishing public libraries—the supplementing of local public spirit by a generous gift. In many cases a university or an observatory launches an inquiry which soon broadens out beyond the range of its own small funds; then it is that aid from the Carnegie Institution brings to port a ship that otherwise might remain at sea indefinitely. Let a few typical examples of this kind be mentioned;—Dudley Observatory, Albany, New York, and Lick Observatory, California, have received aid toward their observations and computations; Yerkes Observatory, Wisconsin, has been helped in measuring the distance of fixed stars. Among other investigations promoted have been the study of the rare earths and the heat-treatment of some high-carbon steels. The adjacent field of engineering has not been neglected: funds have been granted for experiments on ship resistance and propulsion, for determining the value of high pressure steam in locomotive service. {597} In geology an investigation of fundamental principles has been furthered, as also the specific problem of the flow of rocks under severe pressure. In his remarkable inquiry into the economy of foods, Professor W. O. Atwater, of Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, has had liberal help. In the allied science of preventive medicine a grant is advancing the study of snake venoms and defeating inoculations.
"At a later day the Institution may possibly adopt plans recommended by eminent advisers of the rank of Professor Simon Newcomb, who points out that analysis and generalization are to-day much more needed than further observations of a routine kind. He has also had a weighty word to say regarding the desirability of bringing together for mutual attrition and discussion men in contiguous fields of work, who take the bearings of a great problem from different, points of view."
_George Iles, Inventors at Work
## Chapter XIX, page 276
Doubleday, Page & Co., New York https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48454_
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: Electrical: A New Electric Phenomenon.
Writing recently in the London _Times_, Professor Silvanus P. Thompson has described a discovery of effects which "appear to point to a true electric momentum." "To two men, Professor Nipher, of St. Louis, and Dr. Mathias Cantor, of Würzburg, the question seems to have occurred whether, if a flow of electricity is caused abruptly to turn its path round a sharp corner, anything is observable in the neighbourhood of the sharp corner, that would suggest a momentum of the electric corpuscles. Nipher employed as conductor a sharply-bent splinter of bamboo, carrying a high-tension discharge from a large influence machine. Cantor used a thin metallic film of gold or platinum formed by deposition on the faces of a glass plate bevelled to a sharp edge; the current being provided by a battery. Nipher, investigating by photographic plates, discovered that the current passing the sharp corner emitted radiations akin to the X-rays, and capable of giving shadow pictures, even through ebonite 3/16 of an inch thick. He has also used thin metal wires bent into a series of sharp corners, and finds that at every corner some of the electrons leave the wire, tending to persevere in their original direction of movement rather than undergo a sudden change of direction. Cantor, exploring electrically with a wire attached to a charged insulated electrometer, found the electrometer discharged by the emanations (or radiations) from the acute angle of his conducting film. Later, but without knowledge of what Nipher had accomplished, Cantor also exposed a photographic plate to the angle of the film, and found it marked with streaks as if charged particles had left the angle in a particular direction. Both experimenters had already made numerous observations under different circumstances before publishing their results. Nipher’s discovery was communicated to the American Philosophical Society in the early summer, and an account of his work appeared in _Science_ of July 17 last [1909] . Cantor’s observations were announced to the German ‘Naturforscher’ meeting at Cologne on September 23.
"If," remarks Professor Thompson, "we accept the modern doctrine that all inertia in what we call matter is due to the magnetic field surrounding a moving charge of electricity, this newly-discovered effect takes its natural place beside the other known effects."
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: TELEGRAPHY: The Printer System.
The _Electrical Review_ of January 2, 1909, gave the following account of the extent to which the "printer system" of telegraphy had then come into use in the United States: "Over fifty printer circuits are now in regular operation on the Western Union lines, between leading business centres of the United States, and additional wires are being equipped as fast as the printer apparatus can be installed. This is a system of rapid automatic telegraphy by which telegrams are transmitted at a high rate of speed and received at their destination printed on the regular message forms by a typewriter automatically operated by the electrical impulses transmitted over the wire. The appearance of the message as received is identical with a message turned out by the most expert typewriter operator on Morse circuits. The messages are ready for delivery as soon as they come off the wire, and the only attention required by the typewriter as it receives the messages from the wire is that of removing the blank when the message is completed and supplying a fresh, sheet to the machine for the next message."
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: Wireless Telegraphy. Statement from Marconi.
"Up to the commencement of 1902 the only receivers that could be practically employed for the purposes of wireless telegraphy were based on what may be called the coherer principle—that is, the detector, the principle of which is based on the discoveries and observations made by S. A. Varley, Professor Hughes, Calsecchi Onesti, and Professor Branly. Early in that year the author was fortunate enough to succeed in constructing a practical receiver of electric waves, based on a principle different from that of the coherer. … The action of this receiver is in the author’s opinion based upon the decrease of magnetic hysteresis, which takes place in iron when under certain conditions this metal is exposed to high frequency oscillations of Hertzian waves. …
"This detector is and has been successfully employed for both long and short distance work. It is used on the ships of the Royal Navy and on all trans-Atlantic liners which are carrying on a long-distance news service. It has also been used to a large extent in the tests across the Atlantic Ocean. … The adoption of this magnetic receiver was the means of bringing about a great improvement in the practical working conditions of wireless telegraphy by making it possible to do away with the troublesome adjustments necessary when using coherers, and also by considerably increasing the speed at which it is possible to receive, the speed depending solely on the ability of the individual operators. Thus a speed of over 30 words a minute has been easily attained. …
"In the spring of 1903 the transmission of news messages from America to the London _Times_ was attempted, and the first messages were correctly received and published in that newspaper. A breakdown in the insulation of the apparatus at Cape Breton made it necessary, however, to suspend the service, and, unfortunately, further accidents made the transmission of messages unreliable, especially during the spring and summer. {598} In consequence of this, the author’s company decided not to attempt the transmission of any more public messages until such time as a reliable and continuous service could be maintained and guaranteed under all ordinary conditions. … In October, 1903, it was found possible to supply the Cunard steamship _Lucania_ during her entire crossing from New York to Liverpool with news transmitted direct to that ship from Poldhu and Cape Breton."
_G. Marconi, Recent Advances in Wireless Telegraphy (Annual Report Smithsonian Institution, 1905-1906, pages 137-142)._
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: The Real Problem.
"It is well to remember that the year 1903 is the earliest date at which radio-telegraphy could be regarded as really workable, and of material practical utility. Previous to then, ‘wireless ’ working was very uncertain, but in that year tuning devices were introduced, the principle of which was originally due to Sir Oliver Lodge; and it is these that have made so much difference in the application of Hertzian waves for the purposes of telegraphy. Practical success in radio-telegraphy should not, in fact, be judged from the point of view of the distance at which signals can be sent—or received—but rather from the standpoint of non-interference and secrecy. The essential element in wireless telegraphy—above all others—is, indeed, a discriminating or selective method. For the main purposes of radio-telegraphy, immunity from interference by syntony is essential. Thus a selective system in time of war would be invaluable; a non-selective system almost worse than useless. Syntonic wireless telegraphy entails in the first place, a similar rate of oscillation, or time—i. e., a similar wave length—at the sending and receiving ends. Indeed, the real problem in wireless telegraphy is to arrange the receiving apparatus so that it is alive to notes of one definite frequency, or pitch, but deaf to any other notes, even though of but slightly different pitch. This is effected by the proper adjustment of inductance and capacity, as first shown by Sir Oliver Lodge. … It is, however, at present, impossible to secure really complete secrecy from any method of open wave radiation. A radio-telegraphist, with the right apparatus and a knowledge of the tune, could upset any system of Hertzian wave telegraphy. It should, therefore, be clearly understood that there are, as yet, definite limits to the practical results of tuning for securing absolute selectivity and secrecy."
_Charles Bright, The Useful Sphere for Radio-Telegraphy (Westminster Review, April, 1908)._
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: Singular Unexplained Phenomena.
Speaking at Stockholm, Sweden, on the occasion of his receiving the Nobel Prize, in December, 1909, Mr. Marconi gave the following account of some unexplained phenomena that are experienced in the working of radio-telegraphy. He said that "a result of scientific interest which he first noticed during the tests on the steamship _Philadelphia_ and which was a most important factor in long distance radio-telegraphy was the very marked and detrimental effect of daylight on the propagation of electric waves at great distances, the range by night being usually more than double that attainable during daytime. He did not think that this effect had yet been satisfactorily investigated or explained. … He was now inclined to believe that the absorption of electric waves during the daytime was due to the ionization of the gaseous molecules of the air effected by ultra-violet light, and as the ultra-violet rays which emanated from the sun were largely absorbed in the upper atmosphere of the earth, it was probable that the portion of the earth’s atmosphere which was facing the sun would contain more ions or electrons than that portion which was in darkness, and therefore, as Sir J. J. Thomson had shown, this illuminated and ionized air would absorb some of the energy of the electric waves. Apparently the length of wave and amplitude of the electrical oscillations had much to do with this interesting phenomenon, long waves and small amplitudes being subject to the effect of daylight to a much smaller degree than short waves and large amplitudes. …
"For comparatively short waves, such as were used for ship communication, clear sunlight and blue skies, though transparent to light, acted as a kind of fog to these waves. … It often occurred that a ship failed to communicate with a near-by station, but could correspond with perfect ease with a distant one. … Although high power stations were now used for communicating across the Atlantic, and messages could be sent by day as well as by night, there still existed short periods of daily occurrence during which transmission from England to America, or _vice versa_, was difficult."
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: Transatlantic Service.
"The Transatlantic wireless service was inaugurated in October, 1907, between Ireland and Canada, the charges being reduced from 1s. per word for business and private messages and 5d. per word for Press messages to 5d. and 2½d. respectively, these charges not including the land line charges on both sides of the Atlantic. …
"The first wireless messages across the Atlantic were sent from the Canadian station at Table Head, in Cape Breton, in 1902. This station was afterwards removed to its present site, five miles inland, and there greatly enlarged. Ever since 1902 Mr. Marconi has been conducting experiments and making new discoveries and improvements until, at the present day, wireless telegraphy across the Atlantic, over a distance of 2000 miles, is an assured success. … Press traffic … was started on October 17, 1907. On February 3, 1908, the service was extended to private and business telegrams between Montreal and London. The number of words transmitted during the past year is in the neighbourhood of 300,000."
_Correspondence of the London Times, June 25, 1909._
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: Equipments at Sea. Extent of the Service. Compulsory Legislation Pending.
"Although an installation was carried on the St. Paul for one trip in 1899, the credit of being the pioneers in the use of wireless telegraphy on the ocean belongs to the North-German Lloyd and Cunard Companies. The first vessel fitted was the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, and the lead of the Germans was immediately followed by the English company. Both vessels were fitted by the Marconi Company, which has the distinction of being the first company to equip vessels on a commercial basis. … The Marconi Company alone has up to the present fitted nearly 200 merchant ships, while the United Wireless Telegraph Company has fitted nearly 170 ships. …
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"A very large number of vessels engaged in the coasting trade of America and on the Great Lakes are fitted with wireless telegraphy; the American list shows that 133 vessels are equipped, while a statement issued by the United Wireless Telegraph Company shows 31 other vessels to have been fitted up to April 2, besides 15 Great Lake steamers either fitted or in course of equipment. …
"Nearly 500 warships belonging to nine different countries have been fitted, or are in course of equipment, with radio-telegraphy. According to the American list the United States Navy has been foremost among the navies of the world in the use of ‘wireless.’ On October 1 last 173 United States warships were fitted with various systems. The Berne lists, issued up to May 1 last, show Great Britain to have 157 vessels equipped, Germany 80, Netherlands 11, Denmark 9, and Spain 5.
"In February last the United States House of Representatives passed a Bill providing that ‘every ocean passenger steamer certified to carry 50 passengers or more, before being granted a clearance for a foreign or domestic port 100 miles or more distant from the port of her departure from the United States, shall be equipped with an efficient radio-telegraph installation, and shall have in her employ and on board an efficient radio-telegrapher.’ … The Bill, it is understood, will be considered by the Senate in the autumn, and will it is thought be passed after it has undergone some slight modification. Following the example of the United States Congress a Bill has been introduced in the Canadian House of Commons. … An Italian Royal Decree dated March 14 last provides that all vessels of whatever nationality clearing from Italian ports with emigrants shall carry a wireless installation. So far as this country [Great Britain] is concerned no legislative action is likely to take place, at least for the present."
_Correspondence of the London Times, July 2, 1909._
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: The Cry that brought Help to the Steamship "Republic."
On the 23d of January, 1909, the service of the wireless telegraph to imperilled ships was illustrated by an incident which thrilled the world. In a dense fog, off the island of Nantucket, 26 miles distant, the steamship "Republic," of the White Star Line, was struck amidships by an Italian liner, the "Florida." Two passengers on the former were killed and two were seriously injured, while four sailors of the other were killed. Both steamers were shattered to the sinking point, but the state of the "Republic" was the worse. Fortunately she was equipped with the wireless apparatus for telegraphy, and its operator, "Jack" Binns, was a man equal to the emergency. His appealing signals, "C. Q. D." ("Come Quick! Danger"), were flashed out into all surrounding space, and brought many responses from sea and shore; but then came the difficulty of finding the sinking ships in the black fog. The first rescuing vessel to reach their vicinity was the "Baltic" of the "White Star Line," and she was helped in her groping to them, not only by the ceaseless exchange of wireless messages, but by the sounding of the submarine bell of the Nantucket lightship. The "Baltic" was fitted with receivers for taking guidance from these bells, as her Captain described afterwards in a published account of his search. "On my ship," he said, "there are two apertures on either side of the bow, which you might call submarine ears. They are connected by wires with a telephone receiver on the bridge. By listening at this telephone and switching the instrument from the starboard ‘ear’ to the port ‘ear’ and back again, you can hear the faint tones of the lightship’s submarine bell when you get in range of it. If the tone is louder through the starboard ‘ear’ than through the port ‘ear,’ you know the lightship is on your starboard side. If the tone is exactly the same through both ‘ears,’ you know the lightship is dead ahead. This apparatus helped me greatly."
Nevertheless, the "Baltic’s" search for the "Republic" went on through twelve hours, like that of "a hound on the scent," as the Captain described it. Meantime, the passengers of the "Republic" had been transferred to the "Florida," which seemed well afloat, and the "Baltic" now took everybody from both, the total exceeding 1500. The "Republic" was then towed toward Martha’s Vineyard, but sank a few miles from land, her Captain remaining until the last minute on board. The conduct of all connected with the peril and the rescue was fine, and none more so than that of the sleepless and tireless operator of the wireless telegraph.
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: Marconi Coast Stations in Great Britain taken over by the British Government.
The following announcement was made by the British Postmaster General in the House of Commons on the 30th of September, 1909:
"I am glad to say that arrangements have been completed with the Marconi Company for the transfer to the Post Office of all their coast stations for communication with ships, including all plant, machinery, buildings, land, and leases, &c., and for the surrender of the rights which they enjoy under their agreement with the Post Office of August, 1904, for licences or facilities in respect of coast stations intended for such communication.
"In addition, the Post Office secures the right of using, free of royalty, the existing Marconi patents and any future patents or improvements, for a term of 14 years, for the following purposes:—Communication for all purposes between stations in the United Kingdom and ships, and between stations on the mainland of Great Britain and Ireland on the one hand and outlying islands on the other hand, or between any two outlying islands; and (except for the transmission of public telegrams) between any two stations on the mainland; and on board Post Office cable ships. The inclusive consideration to be paid to the company is £15,000.
"The arrangement is in no sense an exclusive one. All the stations will, under the International Radio-Telegraphic Convention, be open for communication equally to all ships, whatever system of wireless telegraphy they may carry; and the Post Office will be free to use or to experiment with any system of wireless telegraphy at its discretion. All inland communication of messages by wireless telegraphy will be entirely under the control of the Post Office. The company will retain the licence for their long-distance stations at Poldhu and Clifden, which are primarily intended for shore-to-shore communication with America. Arrangements have also been made with Lloyd’s for the transfer to the Post Office of their wireless stations for communication with ships, and for the surrender of all claims to licences for such communication."
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SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: Notes of Recent Progress.
A despatch from Seattle, March 5, 1909, reported that "the steamship Aki Maru of the Nippon Yusen Kaisha fleet accomplished her recent passage from Yokohama, Japan, to Puget Sound, a distance of 4,240 miles, without losing communication with wireless stations on either the Japanese or American coasts. The accomplishment was made possible by relaying messages through other vessels of the company, which were picked up between the Aki Maru and the coast. The Aki Maru was able to communicate directly with the Japanese coast stations, when she was 1,400 miles away."
According to Paris correspondence of the London _Daily Telegraph_, quoted in the New York _Evening Post_ of August 21, "wireless messages from New York are now received or intercepted almost daily by the military station on the Eiffel Tower. Occasionally radio telegrams have also been received from Canada, which, it is believed, forms a record in wireless telegraphy. The communications are at present only of a desultory nature, but the officer, Commandant Ferie, who is in charge of the station, hopes to be able soon to organize a regular service for government, and, perhaps, also for commercial, purposes. The new apparatus which is now being set up in the underground office on the Champ de Mars will be more powerful than any preceding ones, and will be ready probably by the end of next month. Wireless messages will then be exchanged regularly between Paris and the eastern coast of the United States, and perhaps also with Canada."
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: Electro-Chemistry: The Study of the Infinitely Little.
"A new branch of physical chemistry has lately been developed from the study of the infinitely little which promises to be the most important science of the future; for it deals most intimately with the problems of life. This subject is called electro-chemistry. It is based upon the effect of electricity in revealing the important reactions and motions of the smallest particles of matter. The literature of this subject in current periodicals already exceeds that of any other department of physical science. Until a comparatively late day, heat and light were considered the principal agents which chemists employed to study the reactions of matter. In the new subject of electro-chemistry, electricity occupies the first place, as a destroyer and a readjuster; and heat and light are merely subordinate parts of its manifestations, differing from it only in length of waves in the ether. The to-and-fro motion, which is our incontestable fact, is an electrical vibration. When we consider the investigations in electro-chemistry, we perceive that the most important actions of electricity are not those we are conscious of in their great practical applications; it is rather in subtle and silent effects that it works its greatest changes on life and matter."
_John Trowbridge, The Study of the Infinitely Small (Atlantic Monthly, May, 1902)._
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: Entomological Study: What we Owe to it? Practical Affairs.
"The insect friends and enemies of the farmer are getting attention. The enemy of the San José scale was found near the Great Wall of China, and is now cleaning up all our orchards. The fig-fertilizing insect imported from Turkey has helped to establish an industry in California that amounts to from fifty to one hundred tons of dried figs annually, and is extending over the Pacific coast. A parasitic fly from South Africa is keeping in subjection the black scale, the worst pest of the orange and lemon industry in California."
_Message of President Roosevelt to Congress, 1904._
"The business man, always on the outlook for a dividend, has sometimes complained that some of our inquiries do not seem to him practical, but he must have patience and faith. A few years ago no knowledge could seem so useless to the practical man, no research more futile than that which sought to distinguish between one species of a gnat or tick and another; yet to-day we know that this knowledge has rendered it possible to open up Africa and to cut the Panama canal."
_A. E. Shipley, on Research in Zoology, at Meeting of British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1909._
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: Esperanto.
Dr. Zamenhof, a Russian physician, inventor of the proposed international language called Esperanto, published his first pamphlet on the subject in 1887; but it was not until ten years later that the prospect of its extensive use as such began to be realized. "It was well received, first in Russia, then in Norway and Sweden. Then it was taken up in France, by M. de Beaufront. The latter had himself invented an artificial language, but gave it up as soon as he became acquainted with the admirable work of his Russian competitor. He is the man who forced the world at large to stop and seriously consider Esperanto as the solution of the great problem proposed by men like Roger Bacon, Descartes, Pascal, Leibnitz, Locke, Condillac, Voltaire, Diderot, and so many others. From France it went to Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, and finally to England, where thirty societies of Esperantists were created within a little over a year. …
"The general principle upon which Dr. Zamenhof has worked is this: to eliminate all that is accidental in our national languages, and to keep what is common to all. In consequence, and strictly speaking, he invents nothing; he builds entirely with material that has been in existence for a long time. Here, then, is the way in which he proceeds regarding the various elements that are necessary to the formation of a language.
"_The Sounds_. Sounds that are peculiar to one language are eliminated. The English _th_ and _w_ are not found in French or German, therefore they are dropped. On the other hand, the French _u_, the German _ü_, and the French nasals do not exist in English; they too are dropped. The Spanish _ñ_ and _j_, and the German _ch_, have the same fate. Thus, only sounds which are found everywhere are kept, and no one will have any difficulty about pronunciation, no matter to what country he belongs. Spelling is of course phonetic: one and the same sound for one letter. There are no mute letters, as in French; neither are there double letters. …
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"_The Accent_ is always on the penultimate syllable. Esperanto reminds one of Italian, when spoken, and has proved extremely melodious for singing.
"_The Vocabulary._ The principle of internationalism is applied here in a most ingenious fashion. Dr. Zamenhof proceeded thus: he compared the dictionaries of the different languages, and picked out first those words which are common to them all. He spelled them according to the phonetic system, dropped the special endings in each idiom, and adopted them as root-words in his proposed language. … Then he picked out those which appear in most languages, although not in all. … For the remaining words,—and there are comparatively few left,—which are never the same in the different languages, Dr. Zamenhof selected them in such a manner as to make the task of acquiring Esperanto equally difficult or equally easy for all concerned."
_A. Schinz, Esperanto: the Proposed Universal Language (Atlantic Monthly, January, 1906)._
The sixth international Congress of teachers and promoters of Esperanto is appointed to be held at Washington in 1910. An influential Esperanto Association has been organized in the United States, under the presidency of Dr. D. O. S. Lowell, of the Boston Latin School.
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: Eugenics: The Science and Art of being Well-born.
"We know that the old rule, ‘Increase and multiply,’ meant a vast amount of infant mortality, of starvation, of chronic disease, of widespread misery. In abandoning that rule, as we have been forced to do, are we not now left free to seek that our children, though few, should be at all events fit, the finest, alike in physical and psychical constitution, that the world has seen?
"Thus has come about the recent expansion of that conception of _eugenics_—or the science and art of being well-born, and of breeding the human race a step nearer towards perfection—which a few among us, and more especially Mr. Francis Galton, have been developing for some years past. Eugenics is beginning to be felt to possess a living actuality which it was not felt to possess before. Instead of being a benevolent scientific fad, it begins to present itself as the goal to which we are inevitably moving. … Human eugenics need not be, and is not likely to be, a cold-blooded selection of partners by some outside scientific authority. But it may be, and is very likely to be, a slowly growing conviction—first among the more intelligent members of the community, and then by imitation and fashion among the less intelligent members—that our children, the future race, the torch-bearers of civilisation for succeeding ages, are not the mere result of chance or Providence, but that, in a very real sense, it is within our grasp to mould them, that the salvation or damnation of many future generations lies in our hands, since it depends on our wise and sane choice of a mate. …
"Eventually, it seems evident, a general system, whether private or public, whereby all personal facts, biological and mental, normal and morbid, are duly and systematically registered, must become inevitable if we are to have a real guide as to those persons who are most fit or least fit to carry on the race. Unless they are full and frank, such records are useless. But it is obvious that for a long time to come such a system of registration must be private. … Through the munificence of Mr. Galton and the co-operation of the University of London the beginning of the attainment of these eugenic ideals has at length been rendered possible. The senate of the University has this year appointed Mr. Edgar Schuster, of New College, Oxford, to the Francis Galton Research Scholarship in Natural Eugenics. It will be Mr. Schuster’s duty to carry out investigations into the history of classes and of families, and to deliver lectures and publish memoirs on the subject of his investigations. It is a beginning only, but the end no man can foresee."
_Havelock Ellis, Eugenics and St. Valentine (Nineteenth Century, May, 1906)._
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: The Gasoline Engine.
Writing in 1905, in an article entitled "The Age of Gasoline," contributed to the _American Review of Reviews_, Mr. F. K. Grain, M. E., gave this brief account of the rapid development of its use as a producer of power, threatening to supersede coal: "About fifteen years ago we first began to hear much of the gasoline engine, which was then in a very crude state. Its possibilities, however, were so attractive, and the field for its use so large,—practically unlimited,—that inventors and manufacturers at once bent their energies to its development, with the result that the gasoline engine has reached a degree of perfection in the past few years that is surprising in view of the fact that the designers were working out a new problem in a practically unknown field, and consequently had no data, theoretical or practical, of any value to assist. … As a motive power, utilized by means of the internal-combustion engine, gasoline is at this time revolutionizing travel, through the automobile. The automobile, in turn, has been the means of adapting gasoline to propulsion of railway trains, as this form of power is found especially useful on short lines where the traffic is light. Several railroads are now building gasoline motor cars of considerable size. …
"The gasoline engine as now made is an adaptation of the steam engine, employing the gas produced by gasoline as a means of energy. Contrary to the general understanding, the gas or gasoline engine is but a high-pressure caloric motor. The power in the gasoline motor is derived by igniting the gas produced in the cylinder, which in turn by its heat expands, the atmosphere imparting energy to the piston by its expansion. A common error is the supposition that the explosion of the gas produces the power, the same as a blow from a hammer, whereas it is the heat generated by the ignition of the compressed gases acting expansively."
One of the speakers at a Congress of Applied Chemistry held in London in May, 1909, said that it seemed almost certain that for most purposes on land the internal combustion engine would before long replace the steam engine, at any rate for moderate powers; for whereas the best types of the latter furnish only about 12 per cent, of the energy of the fuel in the form of work, the former can ordinarily be made to yield 25 per cent., and in the case of the Diesel engine the return is as much as 37 per cent.
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SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: Interferometer, The: Principle of the Invention of Professor Michelson for Infinitesimal Measurements. Suggestion of an Unvarying Unit of Measurement.
"In the measurement of length or motion a most refined instrument is the interferometer, devised by Professor A. A. Michelson, of the University of Chicago. It enables an observer to detect a movement through one five-millionth of an inch. The principle involved is illustrated in a simple experiment. If by dropping a pebble at each of two centres, say a yard apart, in a still pond, we send out two systems of waves, each system will ripple out in a series of concentric circles. If, when the waves meet, the crests from one set of waves coincide with the depressions from the other set, the water in that particular spot becomes smooth because one set of waves destroys the other. In this case we may say that the waves interfere. If, on the other hand, the crests of waves from two sources should coincide, they would rise to twice their original height. Light-waves sent out in a similar mode from two points may in like manner either interfere, and produce darkness, or unite to produce light of double brilliancy. These alternate dark and bright bands are called interference fringes. When one of the two sources of light is moved through a very small space, the interference fringes at a distance move through a space so much larger as to be easily observed and measured, enabling an observer to compute the short path through which a light-source has moved. … Many diverse applications of the interferometer have been developed, as, for example, in thermometry. The warmth of a hand held near a pencil of light is enough to cause a wavering of the fringes. A lighted match shows contortions. … When the air is heated its density and refractive power diminish: it follows that if this experiment is tried under conditions which show a regular and measurable displacement of the fringes, their movement will indicate the temperature of the air. This method has been applied to ascertain very high temperatures, such as those of the blast furnace. Most metals expand one or two parts in 100,000 for a rise in temperature of one degree centigrade. When a small specimen is examined the whole change to be measured may be only about 1/10000 inch, a space requiring a good microscope to perceive, but readily measured by an interferometer. It means a displacement amounting to several fringes, and this may be measured to within of a fringe or less; so that the whole displacement may be measured to within a fraction of one per cent. Of course, with long bars the accuracy attainable is much greater.
"The interferometer has much refined the indications of the balance. In a noteworthy experiment Professor Michelson found the amount of attraction which a sphere of lead exerted on a small sphere hung on an arm of a delicate balance. The amount of this attraction when two such spheres touch is proportional to the diameter of the large sphere, which in this case was about eight inches. The attraction on the small ball on the end of the balance was thus the same fraction of its weight as the diameter of the large ball was of the diameter of the earth,—something like one twenty-millionth. So the force to be measured was one twenty-millionth of the weight of this small ball. In the interferometer the approach of the small ball to the large one produced a displacement of seven whole fringes."
_George Iles, Inventors at Work, pages 214-218 (Doubleday, Page & Co., New York)._
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: International Congresses of Science.
The most notable of the gatherings at St. Louis in 1904, connected with the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, was the Congress of Arts and Science.
See (in this Volume) ST. LOUIS: A. D. 1904.
Hardly less important from some points of view was the meeting of the First Pan-American Scientific Congress, at Santiago, Chile, beginning on the 25th of December, 1908. It had been preceded by three scientific congresses of the Latin-American states, at Buenos Aires in 1898, at Montevideo in 1901, and at Rio de Janeiro in 1905. The Pan-American comprehensiveness was given to a fourth one by an official invitation from the Chilean Government to the Government of the United States to send delegates to the meeting, and a further invitation from the Chilean Committee of Organization to fifteen of the prominent universities of the United States to do the same. The response to the invitation was cordial, and both of the American continents were well represented at the Congress. The programme of topics for discussion included a number of historically and politically scientific questions of specially American interest, such, for example, as the following:
"An explanation of the reasons why the colonies of English America were able to unite into a single state after they had attained their independence, while those of Spanish America never succeeded in establishing a permanent union.
"The extent to which America has come to possess a civilization, as well as interests and problems, different from those of Europe.
"Given the special circumstances of the states of the New World, would it be feasible to create an American international law? and if so, upon what bases should it rest, and how should it be composed?"
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: The Moving Picture Show. The Millions entertained by it in the United States.
In 1908, in the United States, "the moving-picture show drew an attendance of 4,000,000 daily, a total attendance of more than a billion; or an average of one visit a month to this form of amusement for every man, woman, and child in the whole country. Already this infant industry has developed to a point where $50,000,000 is invested in it, and 7,000 moving-picture houses are scattered over the country. Of the larger cities, Chicago has at present 313 moving-picture shows, and probably will have 500 before the end of the present year. New York has 300, St. Louis 205, Philadelphia 186, San Francisco 131, Pittsburgh 90, and Boston 31. Hundreds of smaller cities and towns have from one to a dozen, and the craze has extended to Mexico, Central and South America, and the Panama Canal Zone. Nearly 1,000,000 feet, or 190 miles, of films are shown every day in the United States. … Making of these films is in itself an enormous business. The organization which controls them not only has agents photographing scenes in every part of the world, but maintains theatres and out-of-door establishments, where complete plays and all sorts of other activities are presented before the camera."
_New York Evening Post._
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SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: Opsonins: A remarkable new Discovery in Biology.
Discovery of the functions of the white corpuscles found in the blood of animals was begun, it is said, by Dr. Augustus Waller, in 1843, and continued in much later years by Professor Metchnikoff, who was associated with the work of Pasteur. The latter determined the surprising and extremely important fact that the white corpuscles or cells are essentially minute living creatures, which serve the larger creature they inhabit as a sanitary guard, defending it against the invasion of microbes that are hostile to its health. They pursue and devour these malignant invaders; whence the name that has been given to them, of "phagocytes," or "eating cells."
"When we study the process familiarly known as ‘inflammation,’ we find the most perfect illustration at once of the duties of the white blood-cells and of the new phase and meaning of a common occurrence which are revealed by research. ‘Inflammation’ is a process which follows upon a large variety of injuries, and which marks the onset and course of many diseases, from a scratch on the finger to an inflammation of the lungs. … Given a simple scratch and the phagocytes stimulated by the injury to the tissues will come hurrying to the scene of the accident like ambulance men, eager to assist in the removal of any deleterious matter, and to give their aid in the healing process and in the formation of the new tissue, the production of which will complete the cure. But given a scratch that inoculates the finger with ‘dirt,’ which is only another name for microbes, and the nature of inflammation becomes clearer to us. In a few hours the finger will begin to feel painful; its temperature will rise; it will appear red and ‘inflamed,’ and it will exhibit swelling. Later on, if we puncture the swelling, we shall find a yellow fluid, which we name ‘pus,’ or ‘matter,’ escaping from the puncture. Now to what are the symptoms of inflammation due? The plain answer is, that they represent the results of a great migration of phagocytes from the blood-vessels, destined to attack, and if possible remove, the infective particles which threaten to do us injury. The inflammation, in this view, is the evidence of a battle being fought in our favour, and often with very long odds against us. If our phagocytes gain a complete victory, we escape the suppuration which we saw to result in the shape of the ‘festering’ finger. If, on the other hand, they sustain defeat, they will fight on, leaving their dead behind. It is the dead white blood-cells, which have fallen in the fray, which constitute the ‘pus’ or ‘matter’ we find in wounds. … These dead cells, like the corpses of soldiers who fall in battle, later become hurtful to the organism they in their lifetime were anxious to protect from harm, for they are fertile sources of septicaemia and pyaemia (blood-poisoning)—the pestilence and scourge so much dreaded by operative surgeons.
"Such is the story which forms the natural prologue to the history of ‘Opsonins.’ For many a day after the publication of Metchnikoff’s discoveries regarding the germ-killing power of the phagocytes, it was held that these living cells alone accomplished the duty of disposing of troublesome invaders. Later on, other opinions were advanced to the effect that while the phagocytes did undoubtedly accomplish their work in the direction indicated, they demanded aid to that end from an outside source. This source was indicated and represented by the plasma or blood-fluid itself. The fluid part of the blood had long been known to possess germ-killing properties, but the extent of its powers in this direction had not been duly determined, nor had the important point been settled whether the plasma as a whole or only part thereof aided the white blood-cells in their forays on microbes. … Researches made prior to the year 1903 gave cause for the belief in the importance of the blood-plasma in whole or in part, but it was in the year just named that very important investigations were undertaken with the view to determining the exact status of the blood-fluid in work of bactericidal kind. Drs. Wright and Douglas of St. Mary’s Hospital, London, undertook a piece of research conducted on lines somewhat different from those on which previous work of this nature had been carried on. They proceeded first of all by the aid of delicate processes to separate the blood-corpuscles from the blood-fluid. The white blood-cells were thus kept in a medium or fluid of neutral kind, while the blood-fluid itself on the other hand was obtained free from its corpuscles. Next in order an emulsion of certain microbes capable of producing disease was made in a solution of salt. When the phagocytes, alive, of course, in their neutral fluid, were allowed access to the germs they did not attack them. It was as if two contending armies had been brought face to face, waiting to attack, but restrained by some negotiations proceeding between the commanders. The case was at once altered, and the battle began, when the experimenters brought the separated blood-fluid into the field. Added to the germs and to the phagocytes these elements, which had been ‘spoiling for a fight,’ joined issue, and the white blood-cells performed their normal work of microbe-baiting. There was but one inference to be drawn from these facts. Clearly, the addition of the blood-fluid supplied some condition or other, necessary for the development of the fighting powers of the cells. … Our investigators are of the opinion that the real source of the power possessed by the blood-fluid or ‘plasma’ is to be sought and found in substances contained therein and called ‘Opsonins.’ We can now appreciate the meaning of this term. It is derived from the classic verb for catering, for preparing food or for providing food. The view taken of opsonic action justifies the use of the word, for it is believed that these substances perform their share of the germ-destroying work, not by urging on or stimulating the phagocytes to the attack, but, on the contrary, by acting on the microbes, by weakening their powers of resistance and by rendering them the easy prey of the white blood-cells. The ‘Opsonins’ are carried by the blood-stream everywhere, and it is when they come in contact with any microbe-colonies in the body that they exert their specific
## action on the germs. … The idea that the more active our white
blood-cells are, and the more extensive and complete their work, the greater the amount of ‘Opsonins’ present, is one which seems to be founded on a rational basis. This view regards these substances as the real cause of phagocytic
## activity. That ‘Opsonins’ furthermore appear to possess
definite degrees of power seems proved by the observation that a person’s blood may contain sufficient to deal with one disease in the way of stimulating the phagocytes to work, while the same quantity would not equal half that required to effect a satisfactory attack on another and different disease. What has been called the ‘opsonic index ’ of a person is the standard, if so we may call it, or measure of his germ-killing power, in so far as the amount of ‘Opsonins’ contained in his blood is concerned. By a technical procedure and calculation the experimenter can compute the opsonic power of a given specimen of blood."
_Andrew Wilson, About Opsonins (Cornhill, January, 1907)._
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SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: Medical.
See (in this Volume) PUBLIC HEALTH.
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: Physical: The New Conceptions of Electricity, Matter and Ether. Statement by Madame Curie. Sir Joseph Thomson’s Address to the British Association at Winnipeg. Sir Oliver Lodge on the Ether of Space.
"One point which appears to-day to be definitely settled is a view of atomic structure of electricity, which goes to confirm and complete the idea that we have long held regarding the atomic structure of matter, which constitutes the basis of chemical theories. At the same time that the existence of electric atoms, indivisible by our present means of research, appears to be established with certainty, the important properties of these atoms are also shown. The atoms of negative electricity which we call electrons, are found to exist in a free state, independent of all material atoms, and not having any properties in common with them. In this state they possess certain dimensions in space, and are endowed with a certain inertia, which has suggested the idea of attributing to them a corresponding mass.
"Experiments have shown that their dimensions are very small compared with those of material molecules, and that their mass is only a small fraction, not exceeding one one-thousandth of the mass of an atom of hydrogen. They show also that if these atoms can exist isolated, they may also exist in all ordinary matter, and may be in certain cases emitted by a substance such as a metal without its properties being changed in a manner appreciable by us.
"If, then, we consider the electrons as a form of matter, we are led to put the division of them beyond atoms and to admit the existence of a kind of extremely small particles able to enter into the composition of atoms, but not necessarily by their departure involving atomatic destruction. Looking at it in this light, we are led to consider every atom as a complicated structure, and this supposition is rendered probable by the complexity of the emission spectra which characterize the different atoms. We have thus a conception sufficiently exact of the atoms of negative electricity.
"It is not the same for positive electricity, for a great dissimilarity appears to exist between the two electricities. Positive electricity appears always to be found in connection with material atoms, and we have no reason, thus far, to believe that they can be separated. Our knowledge relative to matter is also increased by an important fact. A new property of matter has been discovered which has received the name of radioactivity. Radioactivity is the property which the atoms of certain substances possess of shooting off particles, some of which have a mass comparable to that of the atoms themselves, while the others are the electrons. This property, which uranium and thorium possess in a slight degree, has led to the discovery of a new chemical element, radium, whose radioactivity is very great. Among the particles expelled by radium are some which are ejected with great velocity, and their expulsion is accompanied with a considerable evolution of heat. A radioactive body constitutes, then, a source of energy.
"According to the theory which best accounts for the phenomena of radioactivity, a certain proportion of the atoms of a radioactive body is transformed in a given time, with the production of atoms of less atomic weight, and in some cases with the expulsion of electrons. This is a theory of the transmutation of elements, but differs from the dreams of the alchemists in that we declare ourselves, for the present at least, unable to induce or influence the transmutation. Certain facts go to show that radioactivity appertains in a slight degree to all kinds of matter. It may be, therefore, that matter is far from being as unchangeable or inert as it was formerly thought; and is, on the contrary, in continual transformation, although this transformation escapes our notice by its relative slowness."
_Madame Curie, Modern Theories of Electricity and Matter (Annual Report, Smithsonian Institution, 1905-1906, pages 103-104)._
A remarkable summary of recent advances in physical science, by Sir Joseph Thomson, in his presidential address at the opening (August 25, 1909) of the seventy-ninth annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Winnipeg, Canada, contains what is, without doubt, the most successful of endeavors to give some understanding of the new conceptions of matter, ether and electricity, with which scientists are now working, to minds that have not been scientifically trained. Sir Joseph treats the subject at more length than can be given to it here, but abridgment seems possible without robbing it of the more important parts of its rich content of information:
"The period which has elapsed since the Association last met in Canada [1897] has been," said the President, "one of almost unparalleled activity in many branches of physics, and many new and unsuspected properties of matter and electricity have been discovered. The history of this period affords a remarkable illustration of the effect which may be produced by a single discovery; for it is, I think, to the discovery of the Röntgen rays that we owe the rapidity of the progress which has recently been made in physics. A striking discovery like that of the Röntgen rays acts much like the discovery of gold in a sparsely populated country; it attracts workers who come in the first place for the gold, but who may find that the country has other products, other charms, perhaps even more valuable than the gold itself. The country in which the gold was discovered in the case of the Röntgen rays was the department of physics dealing with the discharge of electricity through gases, a subject which, almost from the beginning of electrical science, had attracted a few enthusiastic workers, who felt convinced that the key to unlock the secret of electricity was to be found in a vacuum tube. {605} Röntgen, in 1895, showed that when electricity passed through such a tube the tube emitted rays which could pass through bodies opaque to ordinary light; which could, for example, pass through the flesh of the body and throw a shadow of the bones on a suitable screen. … It is not, however, to the power of probing dark places, important though this is, that the influence of Röntgen rays on the progress of science has mainly been due; it is rather because these rays make gases, and, indeed, solids and liquids, through which they pass, conductors of electricity. … The study of gases exposed to Röntgen rays has revealed in such gases the presence of
## particles charged with electricity; some of these particles
are charged with positive, others with negative, electricity. The properties of these particles have been investigated; we know the charge they carry, the speed with which they move under an electric force, the rate at which the oppositely charged ones recombine, and these investigations have thrown a new light, not only on electricity, but also on the structure of matter. We know from these investigations that electricity, like matter, is molecular in structure, that just as a quantity of hydrogen is a collection of an immense number of small particles called molecules, so a charge of electricity is made up of a great number of small charges, each of a perfectly definite and known amount. … Nay, further, the molecular theory of matter is indebted to the molecular theory of electricity for the most accurate determination of its fundamental quantity, the number of molecules in any given quantity of an elementary substance.
"The great advantage of the electrical methods for the study of the properties of matter is due to the fact that whenever a
## particle is electrified it is very easily identified, whereas
an uncharged molecule is most elusive; and it is only when these are present in immense numbers that we are able to detect them. …
"We have already made considerable progress in the task of discovering what the structure of electricity is. We have known for some time that of one kind of electricity—the negative—and a very interesting one it is. We know that negative electricity is made up of units all of which are of the same kind; that these units are exceedingly small compared with even the smallest atom. … The size of these corpuscles is on an altogether different scale from that of atoms; the Volume of a corpuscle bears to that of the atom about the same relation as that of a speck of dust to the Volume of this room. Under suitable conditions they move at enormous speeds, which approach in some instances the velocity of light. The discovery of these corpuscles is an interesting example of the way Nature responds to the demands made upon her by mathematicians. Some years before the discovery of corpuscles it had been shown by a mathematical investigation that the mass of a body must be increased by a charge of electricity. This increase, however, is greater for small bodies than for large ones, and even bodies as small as atoms are hopelessly too large to show any appreciable effect; thus the result seemed entirely academic. After a time corpuscles were discovered, and these are so much smaller than the atom that the increase in mass due to the charge becomes not merely appreciable, but so great that, as the experiments of Kaufmann and Bucherer have shown, the whole of the mass of the corpuscle arises from its charge.
"We know a great deal about negative electricity; what do we know about positive electricity? Is positive electricity molecular in structure? Is it made up into units, each unit carrying a charge equal in magnitude though opposite in sign to that carried by a corpuscle? … The investigations made on the unit of positive electricity show that it is of quite a different kind from the unit of negative; the mass of the negative unit is exceedingly small compared with any atom; the only positive units that up to the present have been detected are quite comparable in mass with the mass of an atom of hydrogen; in fact they seem equal to it. This makes it more difficult to be certain that the unit of positive electricity has been isolated, for we have to be on our guard against its being a much smaller body attached to the hydrogen atoms which happen to be present in the vessel. … At present the smallest positive electrified particles of which we have direct experimental evidence have masses comparable with that of an atom of hydrogen.
"A knowledge of the mass and size of the two units of electricity, the positive and the negative, would give us the material for constructing what may be called a molecular theory of electricity, and would be a starting point for a theory of the structure of matter; for the most natural view to take, as a provisional hypothesis, is that matter is just a collection of positive and negative units of electricity, and that the forces which hold atoms and molecules together, the properties which differentiate one kind of matter from another, all have their origin in the electrical forces exerted by positive and negative units of electricity, grouped together in different ways in the atoms of the different elements. As it would seem that the units of positive and negative electricity are of very different sizes, we must regard matter as a mixture containing systems of very different types, one type corresponding to the small corpuscle, the other to the large positive unit. Since the energy associated with a given charge is greater the smaller the body on which the charge is concentrated, the energy stored up in the negative corpuscles will be far greater than that stored up by the positive. The amount of energy which is stored up in ordinary matter in the form of the electrostatic potential energy of its corpuscles is, I think, not generally realized. … This energy is fortunately kept fast bound by the corpuscles; if at any time an appreciable fraction were to get free the earth would explode and become a gaseous nebula. The matter of which I have been speaking so far is the material which builds up the earth, the sun, and the stars, the matter studied by the chemist, and which he can represent by a formula; this matter occupies, however, but an insignificant fraction of the universe; it forms but minute islands in the great ocean of the ether, the substance with which the whole universe is filled.
{606}
"The ether is not a fantastic creation of the speculative philosopher; it is as essential to us as the air we breathe. For we must remember that we on this earth are not living on our own resources; we are dependent from minute to minute upon what we are getting from the sun, and the gifts of the sun are conveyed to us by the ether. It is to the sun that we owe not merely night and day, springtime and harvest, but it is the energy of the sun, stored up in coal, in waterfalls, in food, that practically does all the work of the world. … On the electro-magnetic theory of light, now universally accepted, the energy streaming to the earth travels through the ether in electric waves; thus practically the whole of the energy at our disposal has at one time or another been electrical energy. The ether must, then, be the seat of electrical and magnetic forces. We know, thanks to the genius of Clerk Maxwell, the founder and inspirer of modern electrical theory, the equations which express the relation between these forces, and although for some purposes these are all we require, yet they do not tell us very much about the nature of the ether.
"Let us consider some of the facts known about the ether. When light falls on a body and is absorbed by it, the body is pushed forward in the direction in which the light is travelling, and if the body is free to move it is set in motion by the light. Now it is a fundamental principle of dynamics that when a body is set moving in a certain direction, or, to use the language of dynamics, acquires momentum in that direction, some other mass must lose the same amount of momentum; in other words, the amount of momentum in the universe is constant. Thus, when the body is pushed forward by the light, some other system must have lost the momentum the body acquires, and the only other system available is the wave of light falling on the body; hence we conclude that there must have been momentum in the wave in the direction in which it is travelling. Momentum, however, implies mass in motion. We conclude, then, that in the ether through which the wave is moving there is mass moving with the velocity of light. The experiments made on the pressure due to light enable us to calculate this mass. …
"The place where the density of the ether carried along by an electric field rises to its highest value is close to a corpuscle, for round the corpuscles are by far the strongest electric fields of which we have any knowledge. We know the mass of the corpuscle, we know from Kaufmann’s experiments that this arises entirely from the electric charge, and is therefore due to the ether carried along with the corpuscle by the lines of force attached to it. … Around the corpuscle ether must have an extravagant density; whether the density is as great as this in other places depends upon whether the ether is compressible or not. If it is compressible, then it may be condensed round the corpuscles, and there have an abnormally great density; if it is not compressible, then the density in free space cannot be less than the number I have just mentioned. With respect to this point we must remember that the forces acting on the ether close to the corpuscle are prodigious. … I do not know at present of any effect which would enable us to determine whether ether is compressible or not. And although at first sight the idea that we are immersed in a medium almost infinitely denser than lead might seem inconceivable, it is not so if we remember that in all probability matter is composed mainly of holes. We may, in fact, regard matter as possessing a bird-cage kind of structure in which the Volume of the ether disturbed by the wires when the structure is moved is infinitesimal in comparison with the Volume enclosed by them. If we do this, no difficulty arises from the great density of the ether; all we have to do is to increase the distance between the wires in proportion as we increase the density of the ether."
Some English journals, in discussing Sir Joseph Thomson’s address at Winnipeg, spoke doubtingly of its scientific soundness, regarding it as too speculative, representing conclusions in advance of what physical science had obtained a real warrant to draw. These newspaper critics were called sharply to account by Sir Oliver Lodge, and told that they were suspicious of Sir Joseph’s statements only because they knew nothing of the data on which he founded them.
In a magazine article of the previous year, Sir Oliver Lodge had already traversed part of the ground covered by the impressive review of Sir Joseph Thomson. In that article he said of the present conception of the ether of space, as accepted among the leaders of physical science:
"When a steel spring is bent or distorted, what is it that is really strained? Not the atoms—the atoms are only displaced; it is the connecting links that are strained—the connecting medium—the ether. Distortion of a spring is really distortion of the ether. All strain exists in the ether. Matter can only be moved. Contact does not exist between the atoms of matter as we know them; it is doubtful if a piece of matter ever touches another piece, any more than a comet touches the sun when it appears to rebound from it; but the atoms are connected, as the planets, the comets and the sun are connected, by a continuous _plenum_ without break or discontinuity of any kind. Matter acts on matter solely through the ether. But whether matter is a thing utterly distinct and separate from the ether, or whether it is a specifically modified portion of it—modified in such a way as to be susceptible of locomotion, and yet continuous with all the rest of the ether,—which can be said to extend everywhere, far beyond the bounds of the modified and tangible portion called matter—are questions demanding, and I may say in process of receiving, answers.
"Every such answer involves some view of the universal, and possibly infinite, uniform, omnipresent connecting medium, the ether of space."
_Oliver Lodge, The Ether of Space (North American Review, May, 1908)._
[Transcriber's Note: The Michelson-Morley experiment 21 years earlier had cast doubt on the ether concept. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/70888]
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: Radium and Radio-activity: The Discovery by Professor and Madame Curie. The Light it throws on many Scientific Problems. Faraday’s Prophetic Anticipation. The Dissolution of Atoms.
"In his first treatise on the X-rays, Röntgen [see in Volume VI.] drew attention to the fact that they proceeded from those parts of the Röntgen tubes where the glass, under the influence of the impinging cathode rays, showed the most fluorescence. It therefore seemed possible that the existence of these mysterious rays was in some way dependent on previously acquired fluorescence, and many physicists tried to ascertain with the well-known Balmain dyes, which become luminous after exposure to the light, if results could be obtained resembling those with a Röntgen tube.
{607}
"Similar attempts by the French physicist, Henri Becquerel, were crowned with success in an unexpected direction. He exposed a uranium salt to the light, and then placing it in a dark room on a photographic plate covered with opaque paper he demonstrated the action of these rays on the plate through the paper, thin sheets of metal, etc. But the supposed and sought-for relation of the rays to the previous fluorescence was not evident, for Becquerel obtained precisely the same results with preparations of uranium which had not only not been previously exposed directly to the light, but had purposely been kept some time in darkness and could therefore display no stored-up luminescence. He had, however, discovered the uranium or Becquerel rays. …
"At Becquerel’s suggestion Madame Curie undertook a systematic investigation of all the chemical elements and established the fact that with none of them, excepting uranium and thorium, could an appreciable effect indicating rays be obtained with her apparatus. On the other hand, she found that many of the minerals investigated showed noticeable action in this direction. The fact that a few of them, the uranium pitchblende, for example, from Joachimsthal, Bohemia, emitted rays three or four times stronger than those of pure uranium, and which could not therefore be announced as uranium rays, led her to suppose that in the pitchblende itself, apart from the uranium, there must exist a still more powerful radioactive substance. It is a matter of record how, in this research, which might serve as a model for such work, she and her husband, so soon afterwards to lose his life by a deplorable accident, succeeded in tracing this supposed substance more and more accurately, and finally in obtaining it pure. Madame Curie thus became the discoverer of radium, a new element possessed of wonderful, of fabulous qualities.
"Besides Madame Curie no other investigator but Professor Braunschweig, so far as I know, has yet succeeded in obtaining pure radium."
_Franz Himstedt, Radioactivity (Annual Report, Smithsonian Institution, 1905-1906, pages 117-118)._
"The phenomena of radio-activity revive interest in the prophetic views of Michael Faraday. In 1816, when he was but twenty-four years of age, he delivered a lecture at the Royal Institution in London on Radiant Matter. In the course of his remarks there occurs this passage:—‘If we now conceive a change as far beyond vaporization as that is above fluidity, and then take into account the proportional increased extent of alteration as the changes arise, we shall perhaps, if we can form any conception at all, not fall short of radiant matter; and as in the last conversion many qualities were lost, so here also many more would disappear. It was the opinion of Newton, and of many other distinguished philosophers, that this conversion was possible, and continually going on in the processes of nature, and they found that the idea would bear without injury the applications of mathematical reasoning—as regards heat, for instance. If assumed, we must also assume the simplicity of matter; for it would follow that all the variety of substances with which we are acquainted could be converted into one of three kinds of radiant matter; which again may differ from each other only in the size of their particles or their form. The properties of known bodies would then be supposed to arise from the varied arrangements of their ultimate atoms, and belong to substances only as long as their compound nature existed; and thus variety of matter and variety of properties would be found co-essential.’"
George Iles, Inventors at Work, pages 204-205 (Doubleday, Page & Co., New York).
"An ascertained commercial value of £4 per milligramme (equivalent to £114,000 per ounce) has been placed upon radium by a contract just entered into between the British Metalliferous Mines (Limited) and Lord Iveagh and Sir Ernest Cassel for the supply of 7½ grammes (rather more than a quarter of an ounce) of pure radium bromide. This very large order for radium will be supplied from the above named company’s mine near Grampound Road in Cornwall."
_London Times, June 21, 1909._
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: The Mono-Rail Gyroscopic System.
A mechanical invention not yet developed, but which seems more than likely to count among the most important of the next few years, is that known as the Brennan mono-rail system, which balances cars and trains of cars on a single rail by use of the principle of the gyroscope. It was first exhibited by its English inventor, Mr. Louis Brennan, in model form, before the Royal Society, in 1907, and won so much confidence in its possibilities that the British War Office and the India Office gave financial assistance to meet the cost of the long experiments that were necessary for adapting the system to service on a large practical scale. The result of these experiments was exhibited in public trials at New Brompton, England, and, subsequently, at New York, in the later part of 1909. The following account of the exhibition at New Brompton was given by _The Times_:
"The car with which the test runs were carried out is 40 ft. in length and 10 ft. in width; its weight is 22 tons, and it is designed for a load of 10 to 15 tons. The weight of the gyroscopes, of which there are two, is 1½ tons, each having a diameter of 3 ft. 6 in. The speed of rotation is 3,000 r. p. m., or considerably less than it was in the 6 ft. model exhibited before the Royal Society. It would be possible for the car to obtain the necessary power by collecting current from an overhead wire with a consequent saving of weight, but in the present example the motive power is provided by two Wolseley petrol engines, one of 80 h. p., and the other of 20 h. p., driving two direct-current shunt-wound motors of the Siemens type. It is not necessary that the car should be propelled electrically, and steam or other motive power could be employed; but in any case it would be necessary to spin the gyroscopes electrically, this method being ideal for the purpose. The air is exhausted from the gyroscope cases, the pressure in them being equivalent to from ½ in. to 5/8 in. of mercury. It is hoped in future installations to design the gyroscopes for higher speeds, and in that case it would be possible to reduce the size and weight of the equipment. In this first car the gyroscopes run in the vertical plane, but that is merely for convenience, the essential feature being that the trunnions should be at right angles to the track. …
{608}
"Several experimental trips were made on the factory circular track as well as on the straight, and the car travelled with remarkable steadiness throughout. It is not likely that the Brennan mono-rail will find any wide field of application in this country, but there would appear to be great advantages in the system for mountain railways in India and elsewhere, and, indeed, it seems suitable for adoption in any country where new railways are being planned. The inventor lays stress on the absolute safety of the system at speeds ranging up to about 150 miles per hour."
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: Sanitary.
See (in this Volume) PUBLIC HEALTH.
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: Submarine Signal Bells.
In May, 1909, it was announced from Washington that "the Government, recognizing the substantial service rendered to shipping by submarine bells, has decided to extend their installation from time to time to light vessels and stations on both coasts and upon the great lakes. At present forty-six of the light vessels are thus equipped, and the signals which they send out are of undoubted aid to deep-water navigation. Canada, England, Germany, Holland, France, Sweden, and Denmark are following suit. The bells operate during fogs and at night and the sound waves emitted by the bell under water have been known to travel as far as twenty-seven miles. These sound waves are picked up by the receiving microphones on board ships, and by the code signal of each station the vessel’s navigator is able to tell where he is."
See (in this Volume) above, ELECTRICAL: WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY: THE CRY THAT BROUGHT HELP.
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: The Turbine Steam Engine. Its Successful Development. First Use on Ocean Steamers. The "Lusitania" and "Mauretania."
"For a long time and well into the nineteenth century, water was lifted by pistons moving in cylindrical pumps. Meantime the turbine grew steadily in favor as a water motor, arriving at last at high efficiency. This gave designers a hint to reverse the turbine and use it as a water lifter or pump: this machine, duly built, with a continuous instead of an intermittent motion, showed much better results than the old-fashioned pump. The turbine-pump is accordingly adopted for many large waterworks, deep mines and similar installations. This advance from to-and-fro to rotary action extended irresistibly to steam as a motive power. It was clear that if steam could be employed in a turbine somewhat as water is, much of the complexity and loss inherent in reciprocating engines would be brushed aside. A pioneer inventor in this field was Gustave Patrich De Laval, of Stockholm, who constructed his first steam turbine along the familiar lines of the Barker mill. Steam is so light that for its utmost utilization as a jet a velocity of about 2,000 feet a second is required, a rate which no material is strong enough to allow. De Laval by using the most tenacious metal for his turbines is able to give their swiftest parts a speed of as much as 1400 feet a second. His apparatus is cheap, simple and efficient; it is limited to about 300 horse-power. Its chief feature is its divergent nozzle, which permits the outflowing steam to expand fully with all the effect realized in a steam cylinder provided with expansion valve gear. Another device of De Laval which makes his turbine a safe and desirable prime mover is the flexible shaft which has a little, self-righting play under the extreme pace of its rotation.
"Of direct action turbines the De Laval is the chief; of compound turbines, in which the steam is expanded in successive stages, the first and most widely adopted was invented by the Honourable Charles A. Parsons of Newcastle-on-Tyne. … In 1894 Mr. Parsons launched his Turbinia, the first steamer to be driven by a turbine. Her record was so gratifying that a succession of vessels, similarly equipped, were year by year built for excursion lines, for transit across the British Channel, for the British Royal Navy, and for mercantile marine service. The thirty-fifth of these ships, the _Victorian_ of the Allan Line, was the first to cross the Atlantic Ocean, arriving at Halifax, Nova Scotia, April 18, 1905. She was followed by the _Virginian_ of the same line which arrived at Quebec, May 8, 1905. Not long afterward the Cunard Company sent from Liverpool to New York the _Carmania_ equipped with steam turbines, and in every other respect like the Caronia of the same owners, which is driven by reciprocating engines of the best model. Thus far the comparison between these two ships is in favor of the Carmania. The new monster Cunarders, the _Lusitania_ and the _Mauretania_, each of 70,000 horse power, are to be propelled by steam turbines. The principal reasons for this preference are thus given by Professor Carl C. Thomas:—Decreased cost of operation as regards fuel, labor, oil, and repairs. Vibration due to machinery is avoided. Less weight of machinery and coal to be carried, resulting in greater speed. Greater simplicity of machinery in construction and operation, causing less liability to accident and breakdown. Smaller and more deeply immersed propellers, decreasing the tendency of the machinery to race in rough weather. Lower centre of gravity of the machinery as a whole, and increased headroom above the machinery. According to recent reports, decreased first cost of machinery."
_George Iles, Inventors at Work, pages 452-456 (Doubleday, Page & Co., New York)._
In August, 1908, the _Lusitania_ made the voyage from Queenstown to New York in 4 days and 15 hours; again in February, 1909, in 4 days, 17 hours and 6 minutes. In September, 1909, the _Mauretania_ crossed from New York to Queenstown in 4 days, 13 hours and 41 minutes.
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: The Washington Memorial Institution. Extension of the Usefulness of Scientific Work in Departments of the Government.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901.
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: The Nobel Prizes.
See (in this Volume) NOBEL PRIZES. See also EARTHQUAKES.
----------SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: End--------
----------SCOTLAND: Start--------
SCOTLAND: A. D. 1901 (March). Census.
According to the returns of the decennial enumeration made on the night of the 31st of March, 1901, the population of Scotland that day, "including those in the Royal Navy, and belonging to the Mercantile shipping in Scottish Ports or on Scottish waters, number 4,472,000 persons, of whom 2,173,151 are males, and 2,298,849 females.
"When compared with the corresponding population as enumerated at the Census of 1891, a total increase of 446,353 is found to have occurred; the male increase being 230,434, and the female 215,919. {609} The percentage rate of increase of both sexes during the decennial period is 11.09—that of the males being 11.86, and of the females 10.37. The corresponding total rate of increase during the preceding decennium, 1881-1891, was 7.77 per cent. … The rate at the present Census for Scotland is, with the exception of that at 1881, the highest since the decennial period 1821-1831. …
"In 19 Counties an increase in the population has taken place, in 14 a decrease. The highest rate of increase—both sexes combined—is in Linlithgow, 24.4 per cent.; followed by Lanark with an increase of 21.1 per cent.; Stirling with one of 20.6 per cent.; Renfrew with one of 16.5 per cent.; Dumbarton with one of 16.2 per cent.; Kincardine with one of 15.3 per cent.; Fife with one of 15.0 per cent. The greatest falling off occurs in Berwick, 4.6 per cent.; in Orkney, 5.7 per cent.; in Roxburgh, 8.8 per cent.; in Caithness 8.9 per cent.; in Wigtown, 9.4 per cent.; and in Selkirk 15.8 percent. Inverness stands almost as it was, having increased but 0.1 per cent., and the minimum rate of falling off as to population is in Banff, 0.3 per cent., and Argyll, 0.6 per cent. …
"Among the larger Burghs the increase of population varies not a little. Thus, in Motherwell, which heads the list, the increase during the decennial period 1891-1901, is at the rate of 62.5 per cent. Partick follows with a rate of increase of 48.6 per cent.; Wishaw with one of 36.8 percent.; Hamilton with one of 31.8 per cent.; Kirkcaldy with one of 25.5 percent.; Falkirk with one of 24.3 per cent.; Govan with one of 24.2 per cent.; Coatbridge with one of 21.3 per cent.; Aberdeen with one of 22.9 per cent.; Kilmarnock with one of 20.1 per cent.; Paisley with one of 19.5 per cent.; Airdrie with one of 16.5 per cent.; Glasgow with one of 15.5 per cent.; Ayr with one of 15.1 per cent.; Edinburgh with one of 14.8 per cent.; Dunfermline with one of 14.1 percent.; Leith with one of 12.6 per cent.; Inverness with one of 10.3 per cent.; Perth with one of 9.9 per cent.; Greenock with one of 7.4 per cent.; and Dundee with one of 4.5 percent.; while Arbroath indicates a decrease at the rate of 1.9 per cent."
_Preliminary Report to Parliament._
The division of population between town districts and rural districts is shown in the following table:
Groups of Districts. Males. Females. Total.
Town Districts 1,404,382 1,520,698 2,925,080 (Pop. 2,000 and upwards)
Mainland-Rural Districts 479,009 495,172 974,841
Insular-Rural Districts 58,666 67,060 125,726
Total 1,942,717 2,082,930 4,025,647
SCOTLAND: A. D. 1901. Mr. Carnegie’s great Gift to Universities and Students.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: SCOTLAND: A. D. 1901.
SCOTLAND: A. D. 1904-1905. Decision of the House of Lords against the Union, in 1900, of the Free Church with the United Presbyterian. All Property given to the Opposing Remnant.
"In 1900, the United Free Church was formed by the union of the majority of the Free Church with the entire body of the United Presbyterians, …
See, in Volume VI. of this work, SCOTLAND: A. D. 1900)
A new organisation placed in the field of Church politics in Scotland almost equals in respect of numbers and resources to the Established Church. The small minority opposed to this union inside the Free Church seceded, held some of the churches and manses by force, defying authority to the extent, in one instance, of a month’s imprisonment, and retained the denomination of ‘The Free Church of Scotland.’ As their fathers left a ‘vitiated’ Establishment on purpose to preserve the freedom and purity of the National Church, so they refused to enter the new union, in order, by standing out, to save the principles, doctrines, and purposes identified with the Disruption of 1843. This minority of not more than twenty-seven ministers and as many congregations, mostly located in fastnesses beyond the Grampians, is now the Free Church of Scotland, with Presbytery, Assembly, Moderator—in short, with the offices and institutions, on a condensed scale, which are essential in Presbyterian polity. These few determined people claim to be the faithful remnant of the Disruptionists. Like Milton’s Abdiel, ‘unshaken, unseduced, unterrified,’ nor moved to ‘swerve from truth’ or ‘change their constant mind,’ they claim to have kept their loyalty, their love, their zeal in the cause of the Disruption through all the temptations of an age in thought Pyrrhonist, in morality lax, and in religion Latitudinarian. On the assumption that they alone were the Free Church, they invoked the aid of the Civil Courts in their defence. The Court of Session—both the Ordinary and the Inner Courts—decided in favour of the United Free Church. Home-made law could not satisfy the minority, and, on appeal, the House of Lords reversed the judgment of the Court of Session, declaring the remnant to be the Free Church of Scotland, and finding that the United Free Church was a modern composite body which, on the evidence of its ambidextrous and Latitudinarian constitution, had abandoned the fundamental doctrines and principles held by the Disruptionists. In consequence of this decision, the property of the Free Church, as it existed prior to the union of 1900, now belongs to the remnant of the Disruptionists.
"From the side of the losing United Free Church a bitter cry has arisen against this finality in law. The decision is formally accepted, yet denounced as unjust and incompetent, as denying toleration and the right to change its creed to an autonomous body; and there are murmurs about of the necessity of an appeal to Parliament. … It seems the rankest injustice to transfer more than one million in invested funds, nearly a thousand church buildings, three superior colleges devoted to the training of Divinity students (one in Edinburgh, another in Glasgow, and a third in Aberdeen), the magnificent Assembly Hall in Edinburgh, with the offices attached, probably also much property in foreign missions, from the United Free Church to this remnant of Disruptionists, the custodians of the dying embers of Obscurantism in Scotland."
_J. M. Sloan, The Scottish Free Church (Fortnightly Review, September, 1904)._
{610}
To consider the situation created by the decision of the House of Lords, a Royal Commission was appointed, which investigated all the questions involved and reported its findings in April, 1905. In the judgment of the Commission, the Free Church (the "Wee Frees," as that body was now commonly dubbed) had neither the numbers nor the resources for putting to their proper use the enormous endowment which it claimed. At the same time there would be no justice in delivering those endowments unconditionally to the United Free Church. It was recommended, accordingly, that a Commission be constituted by Act of Parliament to take charge of the whole property and funds involved, and to arrange for the allocation of the same, to the end of securing "adequate provision for the due performance of the purposes for which the funds were raised and the trusts on which they are held." A Bill in accordance with this recommendation was passed during the next session of Parliament.
On the request of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the same Act enabled the Church to change the formula of subscription required from its ministers, under the Act of 1693, so that, on being ordained, a minister shall only make a "declaration of his faith in the sum and substance of the doctrine of the Reformed Churches therein contained, according to such formula as may from time to time be prescribed by the General Assembly."
SCOTLAND: A. D. 1904-1909. Peace followed by Threatened Conflict in the Coal Mining Industry.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: SCOTLAND.
SCOTLAND: A. D. 1909. Working of the Old Age Pensions Act.
See (in this Volume) POVERTY, PROBLEMS OF: PENSIONS.
----------SCOTLAND: End--------
SCOTT, James Brown: Technical Delegate to the Second Peace Conference.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1907.
SCOTT, Captain K. T.: Commander of Antarctic Expedition.
See (in this Volume) POLAR EXPLORATION.
SEAL FISHERY NEGOTIATIONS.
"Negotiations for an international conference to consider and reach an arrangement providing for the preservation and protection of the fur seals in the North Pacific are in progress with the governments of Great Britain, Japan, and Russia. The attitude of the governments interested leads me to hope for a satisfactory settlement of this question as the ultimate outcome of the negotiations."
_Message of the President of the United States to Congress, December 6, 1909._
SEATTLE: A. D. 1909. The Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition.
"The fair at Seattle," said _The World's Work_ of August, 1909, "is beautiful; that goes without saying, for the best of man’s art is fitted to the best of Nature’s workmanship to make a balanced and blended picture never excelled in the long list of great exhibitions. But better than that, the fair at Seattle is a definite commercial lesson—and lessons in commerce last forever. Primarily, the fair is teaching the people of the United States to know the Pacific coast; secondarily, it is teaching them a little of Alaska, a little of Japan, and a little of the Philippines. And the distinctive feature of this particular fair is the determined effort to make those lessons true." This seems to describe the impression which the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition made generally on the visitors who went to it with an intelligent purpose in going. It gave them what they went to see, with fidelity, with fulness, and in most attractive forms of display. Like its Northwestern predecessor, at Portland, four years before, it was an almost startling revelation of the possibilities of planting and ripening in cities, states, and their social institutions, that lie within trivial spaces of time in this wonderful present age.
The Exposition was on the grounds of Washington University, and seven of the principal buildings erected for it were of permanent construction and remain for the use of the University. Again, as at Portland, the most interesting of these buildings architecturally was that for the forestry exhibit, built of logs and other timber in a state as nearly natural as it could be kept.
The Exposition was open from June 1st until October 16, and registered about 3,740,000 visitors.
SEBAHEDDIN.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1909 (JANUARY-MAY).
SECTARIAN SCHOOL QUESTION.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1903; also CANADA: A. D. 1905.
SEDDON, Richard J.: Prime Minister of New Zealand. His Death.
See (in this Volume) NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1906-1909.
SEGNATURA, The.
See (in this Volume) PAPACY: A. D. 1908.
SEIYU-KAI.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1902 (August); 1903 (June), and 1909.
SELFRIDGE, Lieutenant T. E.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: AERONAUTICS.
SENATORS, United States: Proposed Election by Direct Popular Vote.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES SENATORS.
SENEGAMBIA: A. D. 1904. Cession of a portion of territory by England to France.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1904 (APRIL).
SENUSSIA, SENOUSSI: The Pan-Islamic Movement in Africa. Sidi Mahomed bin Ali es Senussia and his Sect. His Doctrine and its Aim.
"We have recently heard, principally apropos of the disturbances in Egypt, a considerable amount concerning Pan-Islamism. Taking into consideration how much has been written on this subject, it is surprising to find how little has been said concerning one of the principal organisations for the propagation of Pan-Islamism. I refer to the sect known as Senussia. … At this present moment there is throughout Africa very general discontent among the native population, not only in Mohammedan countries, but universally over the length and breadth of the entire continent. …
"It is a comparatively easy matter to so influence any warlike Moslem people to religious enthusiasm that they are instantly ready in arms to strike a blow for the faith. But the most significant and sinister symptom of this anti-Christian crusade is that the message carried by the Senussia agents is, ‘Wait, for the time is not yet ripe. Rest now, but when the hour arrives, rise, slay, and spare not.’ Taking into consideration the fact that the Senussia sect was founded in 1835, that its rise has been enormously rapid, and that its propaganda has been actively and diligently preached in British possessions for many years past, with scarcely one definite item of intelligence concerning it being known, it shows clearly that the motive power and organising intelligence must be something considerably above the average. …
{611}
"The sect was founded in 1835 by Sidi Mahomed bin Ali es Senussia, otherwise known as Sheikh Senussi, an Algerian Arab born near Mostaganem towards the end of the Turkish dominion. A lineal descendant of the prophet Mahomed, he first gained a reputation for sanctity at Fez. He then proceeded to Mecca, where he commenced preaching. However his success, which was remarkably rapid, caused great local jealousy and he had perforce to fly to Egypt. He started a zawia or monastery at Alexandria, but being excommunicated by the Sheikh el Islam at Cairo, he was again compelled to seek safety in flight. This time he fled across the Lybian desert to Jebel el Akhdar near Benghazi on the north coast, where he again established a zawia, and in a short time had obtained a considerable following. There he lived and preached, and died in 1859 or 1860, having firmly established the Senussia sect. He was succeeded by his son Mahomed.
"The doctrine preached by the Sheikh Senussi, and which still comprises the doctrines and aims of his disciples, was as follows: To free the Mahommedan religion from the many abuses which have crept into it. To restore, under one universal leader, the former purity of faith. Finally, and most especially, to free all Moslem countries, more particularly those in Africa, from the dominion of the infidel."
_H. A. Wilson, The Moslem Menace (Nineteenth Century, September, 1907)._
"The growth of the Senoussi has been one of the most striking developments of modern Islam. They have adopted an active missionary policy and have spread southwards through heathen Africa, while their organization has been framed with the idea of including and coordinating all existing brotherhoods. The Senoussi have established in all countries where the Moslem is governed by an alien race a system of occult government side by side, and coinciding in its boundaries, with the state administration. This occult government exists in Algeria, Egypt, and India, and its emissaries are at work in Nigeria. The Senoussi now include within their brotherhood practically all the Sunnis, that is the majority of Moslems in Arabia, Turkey, North Africa, Turkestan, Afghanistan and East Asia. The Shiites, who predominate in Persia, are alone prevented by their conception of orthodoxy from being Senoussi.
"The Senoussi had their headquarters at Djarboub, but some twenty years ago it was decided to send their official representative to Constantinople, and the venerable Mokkadem who occupies this position is even more powerful in councils than the Sheik ul Islam, who, nominated by the Sultan, occupies in the hierarchy the place of Expounder of the Law, second only to that of the Caliph, the ‘Shadow of God on Earth.’"
_A. R. Colquhoun, Pan-Islam (North American Review, June, 1906)._
See, also, in Volume VI., page 835.
SERGIUS, Grand Duke, Assassination of.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1904-1905.
SERVIA.
See (in this Volume) BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: SERVIA.
SEVASTOPOL: Riot and Naval Mutiny.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1905 (FEBRUARY-NOVEMBER).
SHACKLETON, LIEUTENANT ERNEST H.: Antarctic Explorations.
See (in this Volume) POLAR EXPLORATION.
SHA-HO, BATTLE OF THE.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905 (SEPTEMBER-MARCH).
SHANGHAI: A. D. 1902. Withdrawal of Foreign Troops.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1902.
SHANGHAI: A. D. 1905. Boycott of Americans and American Goods.
See (in this Volume) RACE PROBLEMS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1905-1908.
SHANGHAI: A. D. 1909. International Opium Commission.
See (in this Volume) OPIUM PROBLEM.
SHAW, LESLIE M.: Secretary of the Treasury.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1905, and 1905-1909.
SHEIKH-UL-ISLAM, The: His Authority and Function at Constantinople.
See (in this Volume) SENUSSIA.
SHEIKH-UL-ISLAM, The: His Part in the Turkish Constitutional Revolution.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY; A. D. 1908 (JULY-DECEMBER), and after.
SHEMSI PASHA, Assassination of.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1908 (JULY-DECEMBER).
SHERIAT, The.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1909 (JANUARY-MAY).
SHERMAN ANTI-TRUST ACT, of 1890.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1890-1902.
SHERMAN ANTI-TRUST ACT, of 1890.
## Action of National Civic Federation on its Amendment.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL, &c.: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1908-1909.
SHERMAN, James S.: Elected Vice-President of the United States.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1908 (APRIL-NOVEMBER).
SHEVKET PASHA, Mahmud: Commander of the Turkish Constitutional Forces.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1909 (JANUARY-MAY).
SHIPBUILDING AGREEMENT (BRITISH) OF 1908, THE.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: ENGLAND: A. D. 1908.
SHIPPING COMBINATION, North Atlantic.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL: INTERNATIONAL.
SHIRÉ HIGHLANDS: Their Suitability for European Colonization.
See (in this Volume) AFRICA.
SHIRTWAIST-MAKERS’ STRIKE, THE.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909-1910.
SHONTS, Theodore P.: Chairman of the Panama Canal Commission.
See (in this Volume) PANAMA CANAL: A. D. 1905-1909.
SHOOA-ES-SULTANEH.
See (in this Volume) PERSIA: A. D. 1905-1907.
SHORT BALLOT REFORM.
See (in this Volume) ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: UNITED STATES.
SIA-GU-SHAN HILL, CAPTURE OF.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905 (May-January).
SIAM: A. D. 1902. Treaty with France.
By a fresh treaty with Siam, secured in October, 1902, France won from that kingdom another piece of territory to add to her Indo-China domain. The new acquisition is between the Rolnos and Piek Kompong Tiam rivers, on the Great Lake. In return France restores the port of Chantabun, which she has held for a long time without right, and which she agreed to restore in 1899.
See (in Volume VI.) SIAM.
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SIAM: A. D. 1904. Declaration of England and France touching Influence in Siam.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1904 (APRIL).
SIAM: A. D. 1905. Suppression of Gambling and Edict for the Extinction of Slavery.
An official notification of the suppression of gambling and a royal edict decreeing the abolition of the last remnants of slavery in the Kingdom of Siam were communicated to the American Government, through its Minister at Bangkok, in March and April, 1905. In part, the former stated:
"His Majesty has long been impressed by the fact that although the revenue derived from gambling is an important factor in the finances of the Kingdom the evils resulting therefrom are much greater than the benefits. People expend in gambling not only their own wealth but the wealth of others. They devote to gambling time during which they should be attending to their work. Under present conditions large sums of money which come into the hands of the gambling farmers are sent out of the kingdom. Gambling is also responsible for much of the crime that is committed. The abolition of gambling would, therefore, not only result in an improvement in the morals of the people and in increased industry, but money now expended therein would remain in circulation within the country, thereby adding to the wealth of the community. In order, however, to replace the loss of the revenue derived from gambling, some taxes must be increased and new taxes devised. In the increase of certain of these taxes it will be necessary to enter upon negotiations with foreign powers. Gambling cannot, therefore, be suppressed at once, but must be gradually abolished. His Majesty, therefore, has been pleased to order the abolition of gambling within the period of three years."
The decree concerning slavery opens thus:
"Although slavery in our realm is very different from slavery as it has existed in many other countries—most slaves being persons who have become so voluntarily and not by force and the powers of the master over the slaves being strictly limited—yet we have always considered that the institution, even in this modified form, is an impediment to the progress of our country. We have, therefore, from the commencement of our reign, taken steps, by the enactment of laws and otherwise, for the abolition of slavery. … We now deem it time to take more sweeping measures which will gradually result in the entire disappearance of slavery from Siam." Accordingly, a law is decreed as follows: "All children born of parents who are slaves shall be free without the execution of the condition stated in the law of Pee Chau. No person now free can be made a slave. If any person now a slave shall hereafter become free he cannot thereafter again become a slave. Wherever any person is now held a debt slave, the master shall credit upon the principal of the debt for which he is held a slave the sum of four (4) tieals for each month after the 1st of April, 124, provided that no credit shall be allowed for any time during which the slave may desert his master. If a slave changes his master, no increase shall be made in the debt for which he is actually held."
SIAM: A. D. 1909. Treaty with Great Britain, Ceding three States in the Malay Peninsula.
By a treaty with Siam, signed on the 10th of March, 1909, Great Britain added 15,000 square miles to her dominion in the Malay Peninsula. Siam renounced, in favour of Great Britain, her suzerain rights over the native States of Kelantan, Trengganu, and Kedah, and perhaps other districts, in the Peninsula. In return the British Government consented to certain modifications in the extra-territorial rights enjoyed by British subjects in Siam. The Government of the Federated Malay States will advance to Siam the capital, about £4,000,000, required for the construction of railways in Southern Siam, by which it is hoped that direct railway communication will soon be established between Bangkok and Singapore. Kelantan lies 374 miles distant from Singapore and about 500 from Bangkok, on the shore of the China Sea. It is a purely Malay State under the rule of a Rajah, who has not, like his predecessors, adopted the higher title of Sultan, but who claims to be an independent Sovereign, though he has been compelled to acknowledge the King of Siam as his suzerain. This condition of affairs has led to the transfer of his allegiance, very much, it is said, against his wish.
SIENKIEWICZ, HENRY K.
See (in this Volume) NOBEL PRIZES.
SIFTON, CLIFFORD: CANADIAN MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR. How he started the "American Invasion" of the Canadian Northwest.
See (in this Volume) CANADA: A. D. 1896-1909.
SIGANANDA.
See (in this Volume) SOUTH AFRICA: NATAL: A. D. 1906-1907.
SILVER: Suspension of Free Coinage in Mexico.
See (in this Volume) MEXICO: A. D. 1904-1905.
SILVER EXCHANGE, WITH THE ORIENT.
See (in this Volume) FINANCE AND TRADE: ASIA: A. D. 1909.
SIMON, GENERAL ANTOINE: President of Haiti.
See (in this Volume) HAITI: A. D. 1908.
SIMPLON TUNNEL.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1903.
SINHA, Satyendra Prasanna: Appointment as a Member of the Executive Council of the Viceroy of India.
See (in this Volume) INDIA: A. D. 1908-1909.
SINN FEIN, THE.
See (in this Volume) IRELAND: A. D. 1905.
SIOUX INDIANS: Colony in Nicaragua.
See (in this Volume) CENTRAL AMERICA: NICARAGUA.
SIPAHDAR, The.
See (in this Volume) PERSIA: A. D. 1908-1909.
SIPIAGIN, M.: Assassination of.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1901-1904.
SLAVERY: In Portuguese Africa.
See (in this Volume) AFRICA: PORTUGUESE: A. D. 1905-1908.
SLAVERY: Abolition in Siam.
See (in this Volume) SIAM: A. D. 1909.
SLAVERY: Legal, but not Practical Ending in Zanzibar.
See (in this Volume) ZANZIBAR: A. D. 1905.
SLEEPING SICKNESS.
See (in this Volume) PUBLIC HEALTH.
SLOCUM, CONSUL-GENERAL C. R.: Report on Affairs in the Congo State.
See (in this Volume) CONGO STATE: A. D. 1906-1909.
"SLOCUM," BURNING OF THE.
See (in this Volume) "GENERAL SLOCUM."
SMALL HOLDINGS ACT.
See (in this Volume) ENGLAND: A. D. 1907-1908.
{613}
SMIRNOFF, GENERAL.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (FEBRUARY-AUGUST).
SMITH, CHARLES E.: Postmaster-General.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1905.
SMITH, GOLDWIN: On Discontent in India.
See (in this Volume) INDIA: A. D. 1907-1909.
SMITH, CONSUL-GENERAL JAMES A.: Report on Affairs in the Congo State.
See (in this Volume) CONGO STATE: A. D. 1906-1909.
SMITH, JAMES F.: Governor-General of the Philippine Islands.
See (in this Volume) PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1906-1907.
SYNDER, R. M.: Municipal "Boodler" of St. Louis.
See (in this Volume) MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: ST. LOUIS.
SOCIAL BETTERMENT: ENGLAND: A. D. 1909. The Housing and Town-Planning Act.
A Housing and Town Planning Bill, brought over from the previous session of Parliament, was introduced anew in April, 1909, by Mr. John Burns, President of the Local Government Board. It passed the Commons and went in November to the Lords, who gave it amendments which were thought to have brought it to wreck. The House of Commons would not accept them; but many in both Houses were keenly anxious for legislation on the subject, and private negotiation brought about a compromise of their differences, securing the enactment in a fairly satisfactory form.
The first part of the Act aims at improving the dwelling accommodation of the working classes, both by making it obligatory on all local authorities to provide new housing where required, and also by elaborate provisions for sanitary inspection. Every county council is required to appoint a public health and housing committee and also a medical officer of health, who shall devote his whole time to the supervision of the county area. Almost all working class dwellings in the country are covered by provisions ensuring that they shall be kept fit for human habitation throughout their tenancy. Enlarged powers of compulsory purchase, of closing and of demolition are also conferred upon local authorities or their authorized agents.
The provisions of the Act relating to town-planning are commended by _The Times_ as marking "a new departure in legislation in this country. Hitherto new centres of population have been allowed to grow up, and existing urban areas have been allowed to expand, without control or prevision. The result has too often been that the haphazard development of land in the vicinity of urban centres has produced slums, prevented the orderly growth of towns, and involved enormous expenditure in clearing sites, widening streets, and providing necessary open spaces. The Bill aims at securing in the future sanitary conditions, amenity, and convenience by enabling schemes to be made under which building land will be developed with due regard to future requirements. With this end in view the Local Government Board are empowered to authorize local authorities to prepare town planning schemes in connexion with land likely to be used for building purposes, or to adopt any such schemes proposed by owners of land. The schemes are to have effect, however, only if approved by the Local Government Board. The Bill provides for the payment of compensation to any person whose property is injuriously affected by the making of a town planning scheme, and, on the other hand, the local authority is empowered to recover from any person whose land is increased in value by the making of the scheme a proportion of the amount of that increase."
In anticipation of the passage of this important Act, a party of eighty representatives of municipalities and other bodies in Great Britain who would be concerned in its administration passed the Easter holidays of 1909 in some of the German cities which are most famous for the manner in which they have dealt with the problems of town-growth. The four cities selected were Cologne, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, and Wiesbaden, each of which has formulated its own way of dealing with the problem and offers a different point of view.
SOCIAL BETTERMENT: PRUSSIA: A. D. 1905. A Government Bureau of Charities.
In 1905 a law passed by the Prussian Diet created a national Charity Bureau, the duties of which are stated as follows:
(1) To follow the development of charity work and keep the government informed of this development;
(2) to advise the state of conditions which justify change in existing laws or the passing of new laws, or which suggest change in government methods;
(3) to draw up opinions and make proposals which will help in framing laws for the benefit of the people;
(4) to take general control of relief stations in case of great calamities.
It will also be the duty of the department
(1) to establish relations between different charity organizations, suggest improvements in the methods of these organizations, and economize the forces of the various bodies;
(2) to follow the progress of charitable work and make an index and collection of all literature relating to the subject;
(3) to give information and advice in reference to philanthropic endeavor when requested to do so;
(4) to make reports to the state at short intervals in reference to the development and progress of the work in the nation at large;
(5) to draw up opinions and make proposals for the improvement or better organization of the charity propaganda in part or as a whole;
(6) to take charge of the development of the work in any section;
(7) to assist in putting in operation any suggestions or plans which may be made or worked out for the improvement of social conditions.
SOCIAL BETTERMENT: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1900-1909. The National Civic Federation. Its Origin. Its Purposes. Its Organization. Its Work.
The Federation was organized in 1900, in Chicago, after a succession of national conferences had been held upon such subjects as Primary Election Reform, Foreign Policy and Trusts and Combinations. It consisted of an advisory council of five hundred members and an Executive Committee. On the Executive Committee were several of the members of the present National Executive Committee, including Franklin MacVeagh, Archbishop Ireland, Samuel Gompers, John Mitchell, D. J. Keefe, John W. Stahl, and Benjamin Ide Wheeler. The prospectus, published at the time, stated the purpose of the organization to be as follows:
{614}
"… To organize the best brains of the nation in an educational movement toward the solution of some of the great problems related to social and industrial progress; to provide for study and discussion of questions of national import; to aid thus in the crystallization of the most enlightened public opinion; and, when desirable, to promote legislation in accordance therewith."
"Fifteen national subjects were named, and it was expected that from time to time the formation of committees would result having as their special province the consideration of the subjects suggested.
"By vote, it was decided to take up for discussion, through national conferences, the three subjects of industrial arbitration, taxation and municipal ownership. The first conference, that on industrial arbitration, was held at Chicago, in December, 1900, and resulted in the organization of the Industrial Department, with A. C. Bartlett, of Chicago, chairman. In the following June a national conference on taxation was held in Buffalo, resulting in the formation of the Department on Taxation, with Edwin R. A. Seligman as chairman. It was the intention to hold the Conference on Municipal Ownership in New York the following December, but in the meantime a number of large strikes, especially the Steel Strike, the National Machinists’ strike and a threatened Anthracite Coal Strike absorbed so much of the energy and attention of the active members of the Federation at that time that the Public Ownership Conference was postponed for the time being.
"Through the work done by the committee in connection with the coal and steel strikes, Senator Hanna became interested in the organization, and in December of that year was made President of the organization. His selection for that office, together with the appointment of other men of national reputation on the committee, attracted the attention of the country to the organization. For two years following that department was the only one prominent before the public, and its work in the prevention of strikes and lockouts was naturally regarded as the only purpose of the organization. The conferences held during this period were naturally confined to the subject of conciliation and collateral phases of the work. As national labor disturbances then became less frequent after two years of this special work the organization was able to resume its original programme, holding itself, however, in readiness to concentrate its energies on the industrial work at any time the need might arise.
"It was at this time that the national conference on immigration was called, and the Department of Immigration organized. After that a national commission on Municipal Ownership was formed, and by that time the public began to take interest in the broader aspects of the organization. Later came the establishment of the Industrial Economics Department, which has taken up some of the most important problems of the day, including Socialism and Trusts and Combinations. The holding of a national conference on Political Reform resulted in the organization of a department especially devoted to these subjects.
"While the subjects to be taken up by the organization are determined by the Executive Committee, the fact is here emphasized that in devoting itself to other matters than questions relating to strikes and lockouts, the organization has not deviated from, but has returned to, its original lines."
_The National Civic Federation Review, March, 1909._
The following additional particulars of the organization and operations of the Federation are drawn from a pamphlet statement of 1909:
"The membership of the Federation is drawn from practical men of affairs, whose acknowledged leadership in thought and
## action makes them typical representatives of the various
elements that voluntarily work together for the general good. Its National Executive Committee is constituted of three factors: the general public, represented by the church, the bar, the press, statesmanship and finance; employers, represented by large manufacturers and the heads of great corporations, and employers’ organizations; and labor, represented by the principal officials of national and international organizations of wage-earners in every important industry.
"There are useful organizations of farmers, manufacturers, wage-earners, bankers, merchants, lawyers, economists and other distinct but interacting elements of society, which hold meetings for discussion of affairs peculiar to their own pursuits and callings. The Federation, in addition to its Departments for the accomplishment of specific purposes, provides a forum where representatives of all these elements of society may meet to discuss national problems in which they have a common interest.
"Twelve national conferences have thus been held upon such subjects as Primary Election and Ballot Reforms, Foreign Policy, Trusts, Conciliation and Arbitration, Taxation, and Immigration. These conferences have usually been attended by delegates appointed by Governors of States and by representatives selected by various commercial, industrial, and educational bodies.
"The present activities of the Federation are exercised through the following agencies:
"Trade Agreement Department, "Industrial Conciliation Department, "Industrial Economics Department, "Industrial Welfare Department, "Public Employés’ Welfare Department, "The Woman’s Department, "Public Ownership Commission, "Immigration Department, "Political Reform Department.
"The Trade Agreement Department [John Mitchell, Chairman] consists of employers and representatives of workingmen, who make agreements as to hours, wages and conditions of employment. The membership of the department is equally divided between employers and labor leaders, the employers being officers of steam and street railway companies, coal operators, the publishers of large daily papers, building contractors, brewers, stove manufacturers, shippers’ associations, while labor is represented by officials in corresponding crafts. …
"The Conciliation Department [Seth Low, Chairman] deals entirely with strikes, lock-outs and arbitration. The services of this department have been enlisted in about five hundred cases, involving every conceivable phase of a problem interwoven with or underlying an industrial controversy. Its membership extends to every industrial centre, and includes representatives of leading organizations of employers and of wage-earners. Through this membership information of any threatened trouble between capital and labor usually reaches the headquarters, from one side or the other, in advance of any public rupture. …
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"The Department of Industrial Economics [Nicholas Murray Butler, Chairman] was formed to promote discussion of practical economic problems. Its membership is composed of leading economists, including the heads of the departments of political economy in universities, lecturers and economic and legal authors; editors of the daily press, of politico-social magazines, of trade papers and of labor journals; representatives of the pulpit; large employers and representatives of labor. This department has arranged a programme for the discussion, by the ablest experts to be procured, of each of the vital and frequently irritating questions that arise in the Conciliation Department in connection with the prevention or settlement of controversies. …
"The Industrial Welfare Department [the work of which is conducted by a number of sub-committees, at the head of one of which is the President of the United States, William H. Taft, as Chairman of the committee which studies the welfare of the Public Employés of the country, and the general Chairman of which is William H. Willcox] is composed of employers of labor in stores, factories, mines and on railroads. It is devoted to interesting employers in improving the conditions under which employés in all industries work and live. In extending the practice of Welfare Work the department has found of especial value conferences of employers, held under its auspices in different parts of the country, for the interchange of experiences. Illustrated literature is widely distributed, and stereopticon lectures are given. A bureau of exchange is maintained at headquarters, where descriptive matter, plans and photographs relating to betterments in different industries may be obtained by employers.
"Some of the subjects involved are;
"Sanitary Work Places: Systems for providing pure drinking water; for ventilation, including the cooling of super heated places, and devices for exhausting dust and removing gases; for lighting work places; and for guarding machinery; wash rooms with hot and cold water, towels and soap; shower baths for molders and stationary firemen; emergency hospitals; locker rooms; seats for women; laundries for men’s overalls or women’s uniforms; the use of elevators for women, and luncheon rooms.
"Recreation: The social hall for dancing parties, concerts, theatricals, billiards, pool or bowling; the gymnasium, athletic field, roof garden, vacations and summer excursions for employés, and rest rooms or trainmen’s rest houses.
"Educational: Classes for apprentices; in cooking, dressmaking, millinery; first aid to the injured; night classes for technical training; kindergartens and libraries.
"Housing: Homes rented or sold to employés, and boarding houses.
"Provident Funds: For insurance, pensions, savings or lending money in times of stress.
"The Woman’s Department [of which Mrs. William H. Taft is Honorary Chairman, Mrs. Horace Brock, Chairman, and which has a strong corps of other officers] "is composed largely of women who are themselves stockholders or who are financially interested in industrial organizations (including railroads, mills, factories, mines, stores and other work places) through family relationships, and who therefore naturally should be interested in the welfare of workers in enterprises from which they draw their incomes; there are also, among other influential members, the wives of public officials.
"The object of this department is: ‘To use its influence in securing needed improvements in the working and living conditions of women and men wage-earners in the various industries and governmental institutions, and to co-operate, when practicable, in the general work of the Federation.’ …
"The Public Ownership Commission [Melville E. Ingalls, Chairman], appointed by the Executive Council of the Federation, is composed of one hundred prominent men representing practically every shade of opinion on the subject. …
"The Department of Immigration [Franklin MacVeagh, Chairman] is composed of men selected to represent every locality in the Union affected by the admission of aliens.
"This Department was organized at the request of the National Immigration Conference, held in New York City, December 6-8, 1905, this conference being attended by more than five hundred delegates appointed by Governors of States, leading commercial, agricultural, manufacturing, labor and economic organizations, and by prominent ecclesiastical and educational institutions. It undertook an investigation of all important phases of the immigration problem, the Department being organized into seven distinct committees. …
"Largely through the work of the Immigration Department, Congress was induced to appoint a Commission on Immigration, which commission has, with unlimited funds at its disposal, undertaken a large part of the work that had been planned by the Federation’s department. In fact, two members of that department are on the commission and have utilized all the material gathered by the Federation’s experts, relating to both white and Oriental immigration. …
"The organization of a Political Reform Department was the practical outcome of a National Conference on that subject held in New York City, March 6 and 7, 1906, under the auspices of The National Civic Federation. The Conference was attended by delegates from all parts of the country, appointed by congressmen, governors, mayors, municipal and political reform bodies, and representing all shades of political opinion.
"It is the purpose of the Political Reform Department to teach practical politics, and especially to organize the young men of the country and induce them to participate actively, through their respective party organizations, in governmental affairs--Federal, State and municipal."
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SOCIAL BETTERMENT: A. D. 1904-1909. The American Civic Association.
"Organized effort for the systematic making of a beautiful America did not manifest itself until within comparatively recent years. Prior to 1904 there had been various short-lived state associations, a few interstate societies and two national organizations, working with the same general objects in view. But at St. Louis, in 1904, the year of the great exposition, a merger of the two national organizations brought forth the American Civic Association which, since that time, has carried on with increasing success and popular support the greatly needed work for a 'More Beautiful America’; and since that time it has been recognized as the one great national agency for the furtherance of that work. With its purpose as stated in its constitution clearly before it, it has constantly widened the circle of its usefulness until recently they were grouped under fifteen general departments, each department headed by an expert in his or her particular specialty.
"In classifying its varied activities, the Association announces that it aims ‘to make American living conditions clean, healthful, attractive; to extend the making of public parks; to promote the opening of gardens and playgrounds for children and recreation centers for adults; to abate public nuisances—including objectionable signs, unnecessary poles and wires, unpleasant and wasteful smoking factory chimneys; to make the buildings and the surroundings of railway stations and factories attractive; to extend the practical influence of schools; to protect existing trees and to encourage intelligent tree planting; to preserve great scenic wonders (such as Niagara Falls and the White Mountains) from commercial spoliation.’
"So vigorously has it pursued these activities that it has seen some of them develop to such proportions that they were ready to swing off from the parent circle into spheres of their own. Such was the case with the playground movement, which for years was fostered most energetically by the American Civic Association until it grew into an independent organization known as the National Playground Association, and which is now an agency of splendid achievements in its one specialized function."
_Richard B. Watrous, The American Civic Association (The American City, October, 1909)._
SOCIAL BETTERMENT: A. D. 1907. The Sage Foundation for the Improvement of Social and Living Conditions.
One of the most notable of gifts from private wealth for the endowment of undertakings to promote the general welfare of mankind was made by Mrs. Russell Sage, in 1907, when she placed a fund of $10,000,000 in the hands of trustees, to be administered under the name of The Russell Sage Foundation. On the announcement of this endowment, Mrs. Sage, through her counsel, Mr. Henry W. de Forest, authorized the following statement, which explains clearly and fully the purposes contemplated:
"I have set aside $10,000,000 for the endowment of this foundation. Its object is ‘the improvement of social and living conditions in the United States.’ The means to that end will include research, publication, education, the establishment and maintenance of charitable and beneficial
## activities, agencies, and institutions, and the aid of any
such activities, agencies and institutions already established.
"It will be within the scope of such a foundation to investigate and study the causes of adverse social conditions, including ignorance, poverty and vice, to suggest how these conditions can be remedied or ameliorated, and to put in operation any appropriate means to that end. It will also be within the scope of such a foundation to establish any new agency necessary to carry out any of its conclusions, and equally to contribute to the resources of any existing agencies which are doing efficient and satisfactory work, just as the present General Education Board, organized to promote higher education, is aiding existing colleges and universities. While its scope is broad, it should preferably not undertake to do within that scope what is now being done or is likely to be effectively done by other individuals or by other agencies with less resources. It will be its aim to take up the larger and more difficult problems, and to take them up so far as possible in such a manner as to secure co-operation and aid in their solution. In some instances it may wisely initiate movements with the expectation of having them maintain themselves unaided after once being started. In other instances it may start movements with the expectation of carrying them on itself. Income only will be used for its charitable purposes, because the foundation is to be permanent and its action continuous. It may, however, make investments for social betterment, which themselves produce income.
"While having headquarters in New York city, where I and my husband have lived and where social problems are most pressing and complicated, partly by reason of its extent and partly because it is the port of entry for about a million immigrants a year, the foundation will be national in its scope and in its activities. I have sought to select as my trustees men and women who are familiar with social problems and who can bring to their solution not only zeal and interest, but experience and judgment.
"The bill for incorporation of the endowment further provides: The corporation hereby formed shall have power to take and hold, both by bequest, devise, gift, purchase, or lease, either absolutely or in trust, for any of its purposes, any property, real or personal, without limitation as to amount or value, except such limitation, if any, as the legislature shall hereinafter impose, to convey such property and to invest and reinvest any principal, and deal with, and expend the income of the corporation in such manner as in the judgment of the trustees will best promote its objects."
SOCIAL BETTERMENT: A. D. 1907-1908. The Pittsburg Survey. A remarkable Investigation of Living Conditions in a great Industrial Center.
"Under the name of the Pittsburgh Survey, Charities Publication Committee has carried on a group of social investigations in this great steel district. In a sense we have been blue-printing Pittsburgh. Our findings will be published in a series of special numbers … covering in order:
"I.—The People; "II.—The Place; "III.—The Work.
"Full reports are to be published later in a series of Volumes by the Russell Sage Foundation, and, throughout, the text will be reinforced with such photographs, pastel, maps, charts, diagrams and tables as will help give substance and reality to our presentations of fact. …
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"The Pittsburgh Survey has been a rapid, close range investigation of living conditions in the Pennsylvania steel district. It has been carried on by a special staff organized under the national publication committee which prints this magazine. It has been financed chiefly by three grants, of moderate amount, from the Russell Sage Foundation for the Improvement of Living Conditions. It has been made practicable by co-operation from two quarters,—from a remarkable group of leaders and organizations in social and sanitary movements in different parts of the United States, who entered upon the field work as a piece of national good citizenship; and from men, women and organizations in Pittsburgh who were large-minded enough to regard their local situation as not private and peculiar, but a part of the American problem of city building.
"The outcome has been a spirited piece of interstate co-operation in getting at the urban fact in a new way. …
"The main work was set under way in September, 1807, when a company of men and women of established reputation as students of social and industrial problems spent the month in Pittsburgh. On the basis of their diagnosis, a series of specialized investigations was projected along a few of the lines which promised significant results. The staff has included not only trained investigators but also representatives of the different races who make up so large a share of the working population dealt with. Limitations of time and money set definite bounds to the work, which will become clear as the findings are presented. The experimental nature of the undertaking, and the unfavorable trade conditions which during the past year have reacted upon economic life in all its phases, have set other limits. Our inquiries have dealt with the wage-earners of Pittsburgh (a) in their relations to the community as a whole, and (b) in their relation to industry. Under the former we have studied the genesis and racial make-up of the population; its physical setting and its social institutions; under the latter we have studied the general labor situation; hours, wages, and labor control in the steel industry; child labor, industrial education, women in industry, the cost of living, and industrial accidents.
"From the first, the work of the investigations has been directed to the service of local movements for improvement. For, as stated in a mid-year announcement of the Survey, we have been studying the community at a time when nascent social forces are asserting themselves. Witness the election of an independent mayor three years ago, and Mr. Guthrie’s present fight to clear councils of graft. Within the field of the Survey and within one year, the Pittsburgh Associated Charities has been organized; the force of tenement inspectors has been doubled and has carried out a first general housing census, and a scientific inquiry, under the name of the Pittsburgh Typhoid Commission, has been instituted into the disease which has been endemic in the district for over a quarter of a century. A civic improvement commission, representative in membership and perhaps broader in scope than any similar body in the country, is now in process of formation.
"A display of wall maps, enlarged photographs, housing plans, and other graphic material was the chief feature of a civic exhibit held in Carnegie Institute in November and December, following the joint conventions in Pittsburgh of the American Civic Association and the National Municipal League. The local civic bearings of the Survey were the subject of the opening session of these conventions. Its economic aspects were brought forward at a joint session of the American Economic Association and the American Sociological Society at Atlantic City in December."
_P. U. Kellogg, The Pittsburgh Survey (Charities and the Commons, January 2, 1909)._
See (in this Volume), CRIME AND CRIMINOLOGY; CHILDREN, UNDER THE LAW; LABOR PROTECTION, ETC.; MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT; PUBLIC HEALTH; POVERTY, PROBLEMS OF; ENGLAND: A. D. 1907-1908.
SOCIAL DEMOCRATS.
See (in this Volume) SOCIALISM: ENGLAND, AND FRANCE; also GERMANY: A. D. 1903; RUSSIA: A. D. 1905-1907; DENMARK: A. D. 1906.
SOCIAL REVOLUTIONISTS.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1905-1907, and 1906-1907.
SOCIALISM: AT LARGE: A. D. 1909. The Socialist Press in all Countries.
According to a list of the Socialist Press, in the world at large, published in November, 1909, by the International Bureau of Socialists, at Brussels, fifty-seven Socialist daily newspapers are published in Germany. English Socialists have three weekly publications, and one that appears monthly. There is a daily Socialist journal in the Argentine Republic, a weekly review in Australia, and in Austria two daily publications and a bi-weekly review. The Socialists in Belgium publish four daily organs; those of Bulgaria support two bi-weekly reviews; and those of Canada one weekly review. One daily Socialist newspaper circulates in Denmark, and four weekly publications in Spain. In the United States there are four daily and eight weekly publications and a monthly magazine. France has two daily Socialist newspapers and ten weekly Socialist periodicals. In Greece the Socialists support a weekly publication, in Holland a daily one, and in Hungary both a daily and a weekly one. In Italy there are four daily Socialist newspapers; and a single one in Norway, Poland, and Sweden respectively. Socialists living in Switzerland have three daily and three weekly organs; while those in Russia have 20 monthly or bi-monthly ones, most of which are published secretly. In Rumania and Sweden there are also Socialist publications.
SOCIALISM: AUSTRALIA: Government Ownership of Railways.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: AUSTRALIA.
SOCIALISM: AUSTRIA: A. D. 1903. Adoption of a Resolution against Alcoholic Drinking by the National Convention of the Social Democracy.
See (in this Volume) ALCOHOL PROBLEM: AUSTRIA.
SOCIALISM: BELGIUM: A. D. 1904. Socialist Losses in the Belgium Elections.
See (in this volume) BELGIUM: A.D. 1904.
SOCIALISM: DENMARK: A. D. 1905-1909. Socialists Contending for Disarmament.
See (in this Volume) DENMARK: A. D. 1905-1909.
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SOCIALISM: ENGLAND: A. D. 1909. The Principal Socialist Organizations of the Present Day. --
"There are four principal organizations actively engaged in gaining adherents to the cause of Collectivism as a practical policy, all over the kingdom. They are: (1) The Social Democratic Party, formerly Social Democratic Federation, and familiarly known as S. D. F.; (2) the Fabian Society; (3) the Independent Labour Party or I. L. P.; (4) the Clarion Fellowship and Scouts.
There are several others of minor importance, though not to be ignored, for they all represent the spread of the central idea of Socialism. Among them is the Church Socialist League, which is significant as being a society of convinced Socialists within the Church of England holding that the ‘community should own the land and capital collectively and use them co-operatively for the good of all.’"
The oldest organization "began as the Democratic Federation in 1881, became the Social Democratic Federation in 1883, and has recently changed its name to the Social Democratic Party. Its object, according to the programme as revised in 1906, is:
"‘The socialization of the means of production, distribution, and exchange, to be controlled by a democratic State in the interests of the entire community, and the complete emancipation of labour from the domination of capitalism and landlordism, with the establishment of social and economic equality between the sexes.’
"It demands a large number of ‘immediate reforms,’ including the following:
"Abolition of the Monarchy. Abolition of the House of Lords. Payment of members of Parliament and administrative bodies. Adult suffrage. Referendum. Legislative and administrative independence for all parts of the Empire. Repudiation of the National Debt. Abolition of indirect taxation and a cumulative tax on all incomes exceeding £300. Elementary education to be free, secular, industrial, and compulsory for all classes. Age for school attendance to be raised to 16. State maintenance of all school children. Abolition of school rates. Nationalization of land, of trusts, railways, docks, and canals. Public ownership of gas, electric light, water supply, tramways, omnibuses, &c., food and coal supply; State and municipal banks, pawnshops, restaurants, public ownership of hospitals, cemeteries, and the drink traffic. A legal eight-hours day; no employment under 16 years; public provision of work for unemployed at trade union rates; free State insurance against sickness, accident, old age, and disability; a _minimum_ wage of 30s. a week; equal rates of pay for both sexes. Compulsory construction of healthy dwellings by public bodies. Free administration of justice and legal advice. Judges to be ‘chosen by the people.’ Abolition of capital punishment. Disestablishment and disendowment of all State Churches. Abolition of standing armies and establishment of national citizen forces. …
"The Social Democratic Party is the most downright and straightforward of the larger Socialist organizations. It is more outspoken and consistent, less hazy and opportunist, than the Independent Labour Party or the Fabian Society. It derives its inspiration from the Social Democrats of Germany and boldly upholds the ideal of revolutionary Socialism."
The Fabian Society, which comes next "in point of age, is at the opposite end of the scale in regard to policy. It was founded in 1884, on American inspiration, as a sort of mutual elevation society, but adopted Socialistic principles from Germany. Its ‘basis’ is thus stated:
"‘The Fabian Society consists of Socialists. It therefore aims at the reorganization of society by the emancipation of land and industrial capital from individual and class ownership and the vesting of them in the community for the general benefit. In this way only can the natural and acquired advantages of the country be equitably shared by the whole people.
"‘The society accordingly works for the extinction of private property in land and of the consequent individual appropriation, in the form of rent, of the price paid for permission to use the earth, as well as for the advantages of superior soils and sites.
"‘The society further works for the transfer to the community of the administration of such industrial capital as can conveniently be managed socially.’
"It is not surprising that thorough-going Socialists denounce the Fabians as make believe, Socialism-and-water ‘comrades,’ and hardly worthy to be called ‘comrades’ at all, an honour which the Fabians, for their part, show no desire to claim. Nevertheless, the Fabians are a very influential element in the Socialist movement. … The Fabian Society is numerically small, but growing rapidly, and that largely by the formation of provincial branches. The headquarters are in London, where it had in March last [1908] 1085 members out of a total of 2015. … Eleven Fabians are members of Parliament, and the society supports the Labour party; but its real work lies outside of politics, and is carried on chiefly by the distribution of literature and by lectures. It contains several well-known writers, and may almost be called a literary society. The output of tracts and leaflets sold and distributed last year was over 250,000. … Among the best-known Fabians are Mr. Granville Barker, the Reverend R. J. Campbell, the Reverend Stewart D. Headlam, Mr. Chiozza-Money, M. P., Mr. Bernard Shaw, Mr. Sidney Webb, and Mr. H. G. Wells, who has, however, recently seceded. Many members belong also to other Socialist organizations. …
"The third large organization on the list is the Independent Labour Party. It is considerably younger than the Social Democratic Party and the Fabian Society, but much larger and politically far more powerful than either or both together. In character it comes between them, being more opportunist and supple than the former, less nebulous and elusive than the latter. It was formally inaugurated at Bradford in 1893, under the leadership of Mr. Keir Hardie. The following are the principal [demands] in the official prospectus, revised for 1908-1909:
"‘1. A _maximum_ of 48 hours working week, with the retention of all existing holidays and Labour Day, May 1, secured by law.
"‘2. The provision of work to all capable adult applicants at recognized trade union rates, with a statutory _minimum_, of sixpence per hour.
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"‘In order to remuneratively employ the applicants, parish, district, borough, and county councils to be invested with powers to
(_a_) Organize and undertake such industries as they may consider desirable.
(_b_) Compulsorily acquire land; purchase, erect, or manufacture buildings, stock, or other articles for carrying on such industries,
(_c_) Levy rates on the rental values of the district and borrow money on the security of such rates for any of the above purposes.
"‘3. State pensions for every person over 50 years of age, and adequate provision for all widows, orphans, sick, and disabled workers.
"‘4. Free secular, moral, primary, secondary, and University education, with free maintenance while at school or University.
"‘5. The raising of the age of child labour, with a view to its ultimate extinction.
"‘6. Municipalization and public control of the drink traffic.
"‘7. Municipalization and public control of all hospitals and infirmaries.
"‘8. Abolition of indirect taxation and gradual transference of all public burdens on to unearned incomes with a view to their ultimate extinction.
"‘The Independent Labour Party is in favour of adult suffrage, with full political rights and privileges for women, and the immediate extension of the franchise to women on the same terms as granted to men; also triennial Parliaments and second ballot.’ …
"The most prominent individuals in the Independent Labour Party are Mr. Keir Hardie, M. P., its father and guide; Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, M. P., who pulls the political strings; Mr. Philip Snowdon, M. P., who is an active pamphleteer; and Mr. Bruce Glasier, who edits the _Labour Leader_. This organization, by far the most important in Great Britain, takes much less part in international Socialism than the Social Democratic Federation, with which it has never agreed very well. …
"The ‘Clarion’ organizations, - which make the fourth of the more important Socialist organizations, need only a brief mention here. They are not regular societies, like the others, but merely propagandist agencies organized by the _Clarion_ newspaper and manned by Socialists who belong to other bodies or to none. … The agencies include the _Clarion_ vans, which travel round the country and proselytize; the _Clarion_ fellowship societies, which are social bodies, and the _Clarion_ scouts, who are young recruits, organized for special purposes."
_From a series of Articles on "The Socialist Movement in Great Britain," in the London Times, January, 1909._
SOCIALISM: Work of the Anti-Socialist Union.
An Anti-Socialist Union in Great Britain is conducting a training school for speakers and workers whom the union sends into the constituencies to controvert the arguments of Socialist orators. Of the 175 students who entered the training school soon after the inauguration of the union in 1908 about 50 were reported the next year as qualified to take an active part in the anti-Socialist campaign. In reply to an appeal for volunteers, nearly 2,000 applications were received from men and women who were anxious to enter the training school.
SOCIALISM: FRANCE: The Trade Union Version of Socialism.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION; FRANCE: A. D. 1884-1909.
SOCIALISM: A. D. 1909. The Classes to which the Socialist Principle appeals. Strength of Socialist Political Parties. Their Leadership.
"The agriculturist loves the land which he usually owns, and would scout the idea of becoming a farmer under the State, which would be his position under a Socialistic regime; he is frugal, hard-working, and thrifty to the point of avarice, but intolerably narrow, suspicious and bigoted. Among this class Socialism can hardly make proselytes, nor can it do so to any great extent among tradesmen and commercial men, who are either their own masters or who hope to set up for themselves when they have amassed a small capital. We therefore find ourselves reduced to two classes, the artisans and the professions, and it is among these that we must seek the Socialist voters of France. … In France, thanks to the fact that members of Parliament are paid, the professional classes are available for the recruiting of labour leaders; indeed the younger section is naturally attracted to the Socialist standard. As regards this particular class, we can find in Great Britain no parallel. … Young Britons appear to be too busy with their sports or social pleasures to study political questions, so that we can hardly compare them with the continental ‘Intellectuals.’ The ‘Intellectual’ is essentially a product of modern Europe and is principally to be found in France, Germany and Russia. He is almost invariably highly educated, in sympathy with foreign progress, a humanitarian and imbued with ideas either somewhat or very much ahead of his time. The French ‘Intellectual’ is at his best in the twenties; he may then be quixotic, but he generally knows his subject and is fired with generous enthusiasms. … This curious factor must never be lost sight of when the Socialist movement in any European country is examined. In Great Britain members of the educated classes almost invariably belong to one of the two great political parties; but in France they are willing to join hands with the masses, not only as leaders, but with a view to the true enthronement of the people. It is probably for this reason that the Socialist party has made so much headway in France. Such being the soldiers and officers who march under the Red Flag, it is not surprising that their political organisation should have grown so powerful. The Socialist party has hardly suffered from the ups and downs of political life; every election has sent it back to power with a greater number of seats to its credit; at the present time the party has 74 representatives in the Chamber of Deputies, to whom we must add, in certain cases, 135 Radical Socialists. … The ‘Unified Socialists’ of the uncompromising type hold 53 seats, and the Independent Socialists 21; if we add these two figures to the 135 Radical Socialists, we find that they form a considerable portion of the 591 members. Though they have not an absolute majority, the weight of these 209 advanced votes is such as to colour very strongly modern legislation, and there is no reason to doubt that their progress will continue up to a certain point."
_W. L. George, France in the Twentieth Century,
## chapter 8 (John Lane Co., New York, 1909)._
SOCIALISM: Germany: A. D. 1902. The Socialist Congress on Alcoholic Drinks.
See (in this Volume) ALCOHOL PROBLEM: GERMANY.
SOCIALISM: A. D. 1903. Gains of the Socialists in Elections to the Reichstag.
See (in this Volume) GERMANY: A. D. 1903, and 1906-1907.
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SOCIALISM: A. D. 1903. Opposition among Workmen.
A great Congress of 200 delegates from bodies of German workingmen opposed to Socialism, said to represent a total of 620,000, was held in October, 1903, at Frankfort-on-the Main. Its object was to promote effective organization of workmen, to which end it appealed to "all unorganized German workmen to join those industrial organizations which do not make enmity between the classes their principle."
SOCIALISM: A. D. 1908. Socialists win Seats in the Prussian Diet for the First Time.
See (in this Volume) PRUSSIA: A. D. 1908.
SOCIALISM: A. D. 1909. Statistics reported to the Socialist Congress.
The annual report to the Socialist Congress at Leipzig stated that the German Social Democratic party has a membership of 571,050 men and 62,259 women—total 633,309. The number of men had increased during the past year by 13,172, and the number of women by 32,801. There are said to be now only 20 Reichstag constituencies in which there is no Socialist organization.
See (in this Volume) GERMANY: A. D. 1909 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER).
SOCIALISM: Italy: A. D. 1904. Gains in the Election claimed by the Socialists.
See (in this Volume) ITALY: A. D. 1904 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER).
SOCIALISM: A. D. 1909. Gains in Italian Elections.
See (in this Volume) ITALY: A. D. 1909 (MARCH).
SOCIALISM: NEW ZEALAND. Government Ownership of Land. Graduated Taxation. Public Loans to Farmers.
See (in this Volume) NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1905.
SOCIALISM: SPAIN: A. D. 1909. Socialist-Republican Alliance.
See (in this Volume) SPAIN: A. D. 1907-1909.
SOCIALISM: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1902. Socialist Platform adopted by the Western Federation of Miners.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D). 1899-1907.
SOCIALISTIC POLITICAL PARTIES.
See (in this Volume)
## PARTIES, POLITICAL.
SOKOTO: British, Capture and Occupation.
See (in this Volume) AFRICA: A. D. 1903 (NIGERIA).
SOMALILAND.
See (in this Volume) AFRICA: SOMALILAND.
SONE, Viscount: Japanese Resident-General in Korea.
See (in this Volume) KOREA: A. D. 1905-1909.
SONNINO, BARON: PRIME MINISTER OF ITALY.
See (in this Volume) ITALY: A. D. 1906-1909.
SOUDAN.
See (in this Volume) SUDAN.
SOUFFRIÈRE, LA: VOLCANIC ERUPTION OF.
See (in this Volume) VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS: WEST INDIES.
----------SOUTH AFRICA: Start--------
SOUTH AFRICA: Suitable and Unsuitable Parts of South Africa for European Settlement.
See (in this Volume) AFRICA.
SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1901-1902. The Last Year of the Boer-British War. The Concentration Camps. Kitchener’s Block-house System and Protected Areas. The Opening of Negotiations for Peace. Text of the Treaty concluded.
When Volume VI. of this work went to press, in April, 1901, and its record of events was closed, the dreadful Boer-British War had still a little more than another year to be prolonged through; but it was to be, as it had been throughout the past year, a sheerly destructive prosecution of guerrilla warfare by separate bands of the indomitable Boers. The operations of such warfare,—its raids, its counter "drives," its little battles and skirmishes, its captures and recaptures, its breaking of railway lines, and the like,—cannot be detailed in a work like this. Nothing of any decisive effect was done at any time, on either side, to constitute an important event in the war. There was simply a wearing process in operation which went on, in an inexorable and horrible slow way, till the country on which it worked was a desert, and the endurance of its surviving people was worn out.
In November, 1900, Lord Kitchener had succeeded Lord Roberts in the British command. He decided to empty the contested regions of their non-combatant population, by gathering it into "concentration camps," thus resorting to a measure which the Spaniards had employed in Cuba, and which the Americans had copied from them in the Philippines. Accordingly, on the 21st of December, 1900, he had issued to general officers a "Memorandum" in which he said:
"Lord Kitchener desires that General Officers will, according to the means at their disposal, follow this system in the Districts which they occupy or may traverse. The women and children brought in should be camped near the railway for supply purposes, and should be divided in two categories, viz.: 1st. Refugees, and the families of Neutrals, non-combatants, and surrendered Burghers. 2nd. Those whose husbands, fathers, and sons are on Commands. The preference in accommodation, &c., should of course, be given to the first class. The Ordnance will supply the necessary tents and the District Commissioner will look after the food on the scale now in use.
"It should be clearly explained to Burghers in the field, that, if they voluntarily surrender, they will be allowed to live with their families in the camps until it is safe for them to return to their homes."
In "The Times History of the War in South Africa" it is remarked on this order: "The policy was inspired by two motives. In the first place, it was supposed that the removal of the families would induce fighting Boers to surrender, and would thus shorten the War. In the second place, it was a measure of humanity towards the unprotected occupants of lonely farms. The decision was taken somewhat lightly. In its primary object it failed absolutely. Far from providing an inducement to surrender, it lifted from the fighting burghers a load of embarrassment. To the British, military consequences were disastrous. To the Boers the gain was twofold. On the shoulders of their enemy lay the heavy tasks of removal and maintenance, involving enormous expense and a grave hindrance to military operations, while they themselves, relieved of all responsibility for their women and children, were free to devote their energies with a clear conscience to the single aim of fighting. {621} While one of the British aims was signally defeated, the other, that of humanity, was at first only partially attained. The scheme for the concentration camps was lacking in foresight. Adequate provision was not made for the hosts of refugees requiring shelter. The regular medical and sanitary staff were already fully occupied with the needs of the army, and men were lacking for the organisation and supervision of the camps. Sites chosen on purely military grounds often proved wholly unsuitable. Too much reliance was placed on the capacity for self-help to be shown by the Boers themselves, and the Boers proved to be helpless, utterly averse to cleanliness and ignorant of the simplest elements of medicine and sanitation. The result was that for a certain period there was a very high rate of mortality among these unfortunate people."
_The Times History of the War in South Africa, Volume v., chapter 3 (Low, Marston & Co., London)._
With better success Kitchener adopted and steadily perfected a block-house system, by which lines of barrier were drawn across the country in different directions, and protected areas were formed. The system and its working are thus described in the history quoted above:
"One of the first reforms undertaken by Kitchener when he assumed command in South Africa was the strengthening of the railways. At that time the defences of the lines were of the simplest description, consisting almost wholly of open trenches at stations, bridges and culverts, while the line itself was patrolled by small parties of mounted men. In laying out these trench defences, the principal object kept in view was to render them inconspicuous and thus immune from artillery fire. The system required enormous numbers of men both for patrol work and for manning the long lines of trenches. … It was clear that some form of permanent or semi-permanent defence must be adopted, if security was to be gained and the railway guards reduced. Early in January, accordingly, the first blockhouses were constructed. …
"Planted at first only at stations, bridges, culverts, important cuttings and curves—at the points, in fact, which experience had proved to be most vulnerable—blockhouses came to be established at regular intervals of about a mile and a half down the whole extent of a line. This interval was steadily lessened. Ultimately it became as small as 400 yards on the Delagoa line and was reduced even to 200 yards on some portions of the Cape railways. A continuous fencing of barbed wire ran along the line; elaborate entanglements surrounded each blockhouse, and the telephone linked up the whole system. A somewhat later development was a deep trench bordering the line of barbed wire and running to within 100 yards of each blockhouse. …
"Until July the system was confined to the railways; but in July the idea first took definite shape of throwing blockhouse lines across country, and thus creating fenced areas of manageable size within which the Boers could be dealt with piece-meal. It is important to note that these lines almost invariably followed roads, which thus became to all intents and purposes as safe as railways. In other words, a great number of additional lines of communication were opened up and secured, and the striking power of the army proportionately increased. …
"While a thousand yards, or thereabouts, was the usual interval between cross-country blockhouses, the rule was invariably followed that each must be in sight of its neighbour on either side. The wire fence spanning this interval always ran in the form of an obtuse angle, so that fire could be directed along it from both ends without risk to either blockhouse. In order to secure accurate fire in the dark, rests were provided for the correct alignment of rifles. Ordinary barbed wire was used at first, but the Boers became such adepts at cutting it that a quarter-inch unannealed steel wire, specially manufactured in England, had to be substituted. In Cape Colony, an eight-strand cable, manufactured in special 'rope walks' established at Naauwpoort, was largely used. Not to be daunted, the Boers took to uprooting the stays and levelling the fence bodily. The stays, accordingly, had to be anchored securely to heavy rocks sunk deep in the ground. As on the railways, alarms of all sorts were devised to give the garrisons notice of an attempt to tamper with the fence. A spring-gun would fire, dangling biscuit tins would rattle, a weight would drop in the blockhouse, and on any such signal the garrison would fire down the line of the fence. But, when all precautions were taken, it was impossible, on dark nights, to prevent determined bodies of Boers from passing the barrier. The passage could be made dangerous and difficult; that was all. … Exaggerated hopes were built on the efficacy of the lines as barriers to determined men. … The Boers, for a long time to come, viewed with disdain the eruption of tiny forts. It was only by degrees that they awoke to the realization that they were taken like flies in a spider’s web. … Communication between commanders became more and more difficult; concentrations on a large scale impossible.
"The ramifications of the blockhouse system and the slow formation of protected areas were not the only signs that the day of conquest was approaching. Within these areas, under the able and energetic administrations of Lord Milner, who returned to South Africa in August, and, in the Orange River Colony, of the Deputy Administrator, Sir H. Goold-Adams, marked progress was beginning to be made in the establishment of civil industry and in administrative reconstruction. …
"With regard to the Boer non-combatant population, an important modification of policy was initiated in December. Orders were issued to all columns that no more families, save those in actual danger of starvation and those belonging to a privileged class, … were to be brought into the concentration camps. Since most of the accessible farms had already been emptied, the order applied mainly to the women and children who had preferred, in defiance of hardship, to accompany the commandos and who lived in nomadic laagers. The Boers, however much they had railed in the past against the inhumanity of the camps, were soon to realise and admit the essential humanity of the concentration system. The embarrassment and anxiety caused by the helpless non-combatants in their midst was to grow day by day. {622} Finally, at the Vereeniging Conference, the truth received frank and undisguised expression. ‘To-day,’ said Botha, ‘we are only too glad to know that our women and children are under British protection.’ The wretchedness of those who remained on the veld became, indeed, a powerful argument for submission."
_The Times History of the War in South Africa, chapters 10, 11, 14 (London, Low, Marston & Co.)._
It was not until March, 1902, that the men of authority on both sides of the war began to give tokens of a mutual disposition to discuss terms of peace. In the previous January, the government of the Netherlands had offered to act as intermediary between Great Britain and the Boers, and the proffer had been declined, the British government repeating its determination to accept no foreign intervention. At the same time it was suggested that, inasmuch as Mr. Steyn and Mr. Schalk Burger, the chiefs of the Orange Free State and of the Transvaal burghers, respectively, were understood to be invested with full powers of government, including the power of negotiation, those gentlemen could open, if they wished, direct communication with Lord Kitchener, who had already been instructed to forward to his government any offers that he might receive. On the 7th of March this correspondence was sent by Lord Kitchener, without comment, to the Transvaal government, then established at Stroomwater. The suggestion in it was rightly taken as an invitation, and acting President Schalk Burger at once asked for a safe-conduct for himself and the other members of his government into the British lines, with intimations of a wish for opportunity to meet the members of the Free State government, in order that they might concert proposals for peace. His wishes were readily complied with. On the 22d he entered the British lines, and all possible aid was given him in getting together the men whom he wished to consult. Some were brought away from active fighting, which went on without them, no pause on the military side being permitted for a single day, while the parleying of a month went on.
The Transvaal and Free State governments met on the 9th of April, at Klerksdorp, under British safe-conduct, and, after debate among themselves on that day and the next, sent a telegram to Lord Kitchener, requesting him to meet them and receive from them a proposal of peace. He replied promptly, inviting them to his headquarters at Pretoria, and there they were received on April 12th. Their proposal was on the basis of political independence for the two Boer states, under "an enduring treaty of friendship and peace" with the British government, as well as a customs, postal and railway union with the adjoining British colonies, and with concessions of the franchise to Uitlanders in the Transvaal. Kitchener could give no consideration to a proposal of this nature; but consented, after much discussion to cable it to London. At, a second meeting on the 14th (when Lord Kitchener was joined by Lord Milner, the British High Commissioner in South Africa) he had the answer of the British government to produce. It declared with emphasis that the government could not "entertain any proposals based on the continued independence of the former republics, which have been formally annexed to the British Crown." To this the Boer officials replied that they had no power to negotiate on any other basis than that of independence, and they asked for an armistice, to enable them to consult their people. This was refused, but, after some parleying, it was arranged that they should have free use of the railway and telegraph, and that military operations should be so conducted as to allow opportunities for meetings in all parts of the country, at which thirty burghers from each re- public should be elected, with authority to act for the people. These representatives were to meet on the 15th of May, at Vereeniging, to determine the answer they would give. Between the 11th and the 15th of May immunity was promised to all commandos whose leaders should be chosen as representatives, and this practically operated as an armistice during those days.
"History records no precedent," says The Times History of the War, "for the state of affairs which existed in South Africa between April 18 and May 15, 1902. War went on, but, to borrow a metaphor from football, the ball of war was continually rolling into ‘touch.’ Kitchener loyally carried out his undertaking to the Boer leaders. Commandos were allowed to assemble and confer unmolested; officers and messengers scoured the country by road and railway with free passes, passing through British outpost lines, receiving the unstinted hospitality of their foes, and occasionally, to the chagrin of a junior British officer, undergoing accidental capture, followed by immediate release on the production of the magic pass. Steyn, indeed, was too ill to take part in all this
## activity and had retired to a farm near Wolmaransstad. But De
Wet, with amazing energy, travelled over the whole of the Free State, inspiring the burghers with his leader’s fiery spirit. At eight successive meetings he personally addressed practically the whole of the commandos and secured unanimous resolutions against any surrender of independence. The Transvaal leaders were scarcely less active, though the purport of their activity was by no means the same." These chiefs of the Transvaal, Louis Botha and others, were disposed to end the struggle for independence; those of the Free State, inspired by their unconquerable President, were not.
On the 15th of May the officials of the two Boer governments met the sixty delegates from the burghers at Vereeniging, and the question between surrender and a hopeless continuation of war was threshed out. The Free State delegates and a few of the Transvaalers had been bound by pledges to vote against any surrender of independence; but in the end they were persuaded by their own legal advisers that such a restriction on the free action of a delegate was contrary to the principles of law; and gradually the question of independence gave place to other matters of consideration in the discussion of terms. On the 19th a sub-committee was appointed to consider those details, and several days of bargaining with Kitchener and Milner, at Pretoria, ensued. There was much use of the cable meantime, to secure assent in London to what might be done. The result was a draft treaty which Lord Milner assured the Boer Commissioners was absolutely final, and must be accepted or rejected without any change, on or before the 31st of May. {623} They took it to the convention at Vereeniging on the 29th, and there, in two days of stormy debate, the no-surrender party, led by Steyn and De Wet, made their last stand. When the decisive vote was taken, their ranks were reduced to six, against fifty-four. The Boer commissioners returned at once to Pretoria, with the accepted draft-treaty, and it was signed on the night of the 31st, a little less than an hour before the expiration of the fixed term of grace. The following is the text of this treaty, which ended one of the worst of modern wars:
"General Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, Commander-in-Chief, and His Excellency Lord Milner, High Commissioner, on behalf of the British Government;
"Messrs. S. W. Burger, F. W. Reitz, Louis Botha, J. H. De la Rey, L. J. Meyer, and J. Krogh on behalf of the Government of the South African Republic and its burghers;
"Messrs. M. T. Steyn, W. J. C. Brebner, C. R. de Wet, J. B. M. Hertzog, and C. H. Olivier, on behalf of the Government of the Orange Free State and its burghers, being anxious to put an end to the existing hostilities, agree on the following points:
"Firstly, the burgher forces now in the Veldt shall at once lay down their arms, and surrender all the guns, small arms, and war stores in their actual possession, or of which they shall have cognizance, and shall abstain from any further opposition to the authority of his Majesty King Edward VII., whom they shall acknowledge as their lawful sovereign.
"The manner and details of this surrender shall be arranged by Lord Kitchener, Commandant-General Botha, Assistant Commandant-General J. H. De la Rey, and Commander-in-Chief de Wet.
"Secondly, burghers in the Veldt beyond the frontiers of the Transvaal and of the Orange River Colony, and all prisoners of war who are out of South Africa, who are burghers, shall, on their declaration that they accept the status of subjects of His Majesty King Edward VII., be brought back to their homes, as soon as transport and means of existence can be assured.
"Thirdly, the burghers who thus surrender, or who thus return, shall lose neither their personal freedom nor their property.
"Fourthly, no judicial proceedings, civil or criminal, shall be taken against any of the burghers who thus return for any
## action in connexion with the carrying on of the war. The
benefit of this clause shall, however, not extend to certain deeds antagonistic to the usages of warfare, which have been communicated by the Commander-in-Chief to the Boer generals, and which shall be heard before a court-martial immediately after the cessation of hostilities.
"Fifthly, the Dutch language shall be taught in the public schools of the Transvaal and of the Orange River Colony when the parents of the children demand it; and shall be admitted in the Courts of justice, whenever this is required for the better and more effective administration of justice.
"Sixthly, the possession of rifles shall, on taking out a licence in accordance with the law, be permitted in the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony to persons who require them for their protection.
"Seventhly, military administration in the Transvaal and in the Orange River Colony shall, as soon as it is possible, be followed by civil government; and, as soon as circumstances permit it, a representative system lending towards autonomy shall be introduced.
"Eighthly, the question of granting a franchise to the natives shall not be decided until a representative constitution has been granted.
"Ninthly, no special tax shall be laid on landed property in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony to meet the expenses of the war.
"Tenthly, as soon as circumstances permit there shall be appointed in each district in the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony a Commission, in which the inhabitants of that district shall be represented, under the chairmanship of a magistrate or other official, with a view to assist in the bringing back of the people to their farms, and in procuring for those who, on account of losses in the war, are unable to provide for themselves food, shelter, and such quantities of seed, cattle, implements, etc., as are necessary for the resuming of their previous callings.
"His Majesty’s Government shall place at the disposal of these Commissions the sum of £3,000,000 for the above-mentioned purposes, and shall allow that all notes issued in conformity with Law No. 1, 1900, of the Government of the South African Republic, and all receipts given by the officers in the Veldt of the late Republics, or by their order, may be presented to a judicial Commission by the Government, and in case such notes and receipts are found by this Commission to have been duly issued for consideration in value, then they shall be accepted by the said Commission as proof of war losses suffered by the persons to whom they had originally been given. In addition to the above-named free gift of £3,000,000, His Majesty’s Government will be prepared to grant advances, in the shape of loans, for the same ends, free of interest for two years, and afterwards repayable over a period of years with three per cent. interest. No foreigner or rebel shall be entitled to benefit by this clause."
The following military statistics of the War, as conducted on the British side, were published in a Parliamentary paper soon after its close:
The garrison in South Africa on August 1st, 1899, consisted of 318 officers and 9,622 men; reinforcements sent between then and the outbreak of hostilities, October 11th, 1899, totaled 12,546. Thereafter the troops sent up to May 31st, 1902, reached the great total of 386,081, besides 52,414 men raised in South Africa. The final casualty figures are: Killed, 5,774; wounded, 23,029; died of wounds or disease, 16,168.
A return made to Parliament in April, 1902, of the estimated amount of war charges in South Africa that had been and would be incurred up to the 31st of March, 1903, gave the following figures:
For the first year of the war (1899-1900), £23,217,000; for the second year, £65,120,000; for the third year, £71,037,000; for the year in which it ended, £63,600,000. Total, £222,974,000.
SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1902. Cape Colony and Natal at the Colonial Conference, London.
See (in this Volume) BRITISH EMPIRE.
{624}
SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1902-1903. Repatriation and Resettlement of the Boers in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony. Work of the first Eight Months of Restored Peace.
The following passages from a report dated March 14, 1903, made by Governor Viscount Milner to Mr. Chamberlain, British Secretary for the Colonies, will give some intimation of the task of reconstruction and restoration which the war had imposed on the victors, and the vigor with which it was performed:
"The Terms of Surrender were signed at Pretoria on the 31st May, 1902, but the Civil Government could not really begin to take over the administration of the new Colonies, and especially the country districts, for nearly a month after that date. At Lord Kitchener’s request no attempt was made to enter into possession of those districts until after the surrender of the Commandos, and though that surrender was accomplished with extraordinary celerity and smoothness, something like three weeks elapsed before any Civil officer could even set out for the house or tent, generally a tent, allotted to him in the wilderness which we were about to take over, devoid, as it was, of crops, of stock, of population, and, to a large extent, of habitable dwellings. The period over which this review extends is, therefore, one of about eight months—from the end of June, when the work of restoration commenced, till the end of February. …
"To begin with the Prisoners of War. The Vereeniging Terms entitled something over 33,000 people to be restored to liberty, and if they happened to be burghers imprisoned out side South Africa, to be brought back to their homes as soon as transports could be provided and their means of subsistence assured. Of this large number upwards of 24,000 were in prisoners’ camps in St. Helena, Bermuda, India and Ceylon; upwards of 1,000 were in a prisoners’ camp, at Simons Town, and about 1,200 were prisoners elsewhere in South Africa. Of the rest the great majority had been allowed to live in Concentration Camps, while the balance were on parole in different parts of South Africa and a few in Europe. The principal difficulty in connection with the prisoners was, of course, the bringing back and distribution of the 24,000 odd, who were at prisoners’ camps oversea. …
"The prisoners of war, on their return to South Africa, were, in the first place, with few exceptions, sent to the Concentration Camps of their respective districts, there to rejoin their families, if they had them, and to return together with them to their homes. They thus, in the majority of cases, helped to swell the enormous number of people for whom the Repatriation Departments of the two colonies had to provide the means of transport to their homes, and, as a general rule, the means of subsistence for months after such return, as well as the seeds, instruments and animals necessary to enable them to raise a crop. … In the eight and a half months that we have been at work, we have restored about 200,000 of the old Burgher population in the two Colonies to their homes, including all the inhabitants in the Concentration Camps in the Transvaal, the Orange River Colony, the Cape Colony and Natal, and the Prisoners of War. …
"By hook or by crook we had succeeded by the end of 1902, in enabling the people to sow a fairly large mealie crop, besides a considerable amount of forage, potatoes and other vegetables. The change in the attitude of the farming population, about that time, was very noticeable. The extreme depression which characterised them two or three months earlier had almost completely passed away, and they were looking forward to the future with much more hopefulness. I may say that almost the whole time, even when the outlook was blackest, their attitude towards the Government was not otherwise than a friendly one. They showed, with few exceptions, great patience under hardships, and much energy and resourcefulness in making the best of the small means at their disposal."
SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1902-1904. Death of Cecil Rhodes. Survival of his Influence and his Policy. Dr. Jameson, as his representative, made Premier of Cape Colony.
On the 26th of March, 1902, two months before the end of the British-Boer war, Cecil J. Rhodes died at Cape Town, and his death removed the most powerful of the personal influences that would have been reckoned on for determining the results of the war. He had been the master-spirit in South Africa for nearly thirty years. Indications of the part he had taken in the expansion of the British dominion in that part of the world, and in the conflict of British with Dutch ambitions which produced the war, will be found in Volume VI. of this work (see, especially, pages 460-466, 470-471, and 475-477, in that Volume).
Had he lived and been in health there can be no doubt that he would have been a leading actor in the political reconstruction of British South Africa since the war. He had been the Premier of Cape Colony from 1890 to the end of 1895; then his career was clouded by the "Jameson raid" into the Transvaal, and he was forced to resign. But the cloud would have cleared, as it has cleared from Jameson. Indeed, the new career of Dr. Jameson, since 1904, when a general election in Cape Colony brought the party of the Progressives into power, and put the former chief lieutenant of Cecil Rhodes in the place of Sir J. Gordon Sprigg as Prime Minister of the colonial Government, is indicative of the new career that would have opened to Rhodes. It is the Rhodes policy and the Rhodes influence that has prevailed, as was said by Mr. Edward Dicey in an article written at the time:
"When Rhodes’ life came to a sudden and melancholy end, Jameson felt the best way he could show his respect for his dead friend was to carry on the work of his lifetime. Amongst the Progressives there were several public men who, in normal circumstances, might have been selected as leaders of the party, but there was a well-grounded conviction that the man who could best carry on Rhodes’ policy, with the least breach of continuity, was Jameson. Even the few British colonists who had not altogether condoned the Raid, felt that there was no one so qualified to lead the Progressive Party as the author of the Raid. The result was that Jameson was appointed, by acclamation, the political successor of Rhodes. It was under the new leader that the battle of the general election in the Cape Colony has been fought and won. {625} The Progressive majority in the Cape Parliament is small; but, in spite of all disintegrating influences, it may be trusted to hold together till a Redistribution Bill has been passed. When the influence of the Bond was supreme in the Cape Parliament, the electoral divisions were manipulated in such a manner as to give thinly populated, rural constituencies equal representation with that enjoyed by the comparatively densely populated urban constituencies. This arose from the fact that in the country the Dutch settlers outnumbered the British, while in the town the British composed the vast majority of the electorate. The simplest way to rectify this abuse was to remodel the existing electoral system, by making population the basis of representation. This reform, however, was open to the objection that it practically disfranchised a large number of rural constituencies in which the Boers were in a majority. On Jameson being appointed Prime Minister, after Sir Gordon Sprigg’s compulsory retirement, his first step was to introduce a new Redistribution Bill based on a less invidious principle than its predecessor."
_Edward Dicey, The New Cape Premier (Fortnightly Review, April, 1904)._
SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1903-1904. The Labor Question. Investigation and opposing Reports by a Commission. Adoption of Ordinance to admit Unskilled Non-European Laborers. Beginning of Importation of Chinese Coolies. The Political Side of the Question. Debate in the British Parliament.
Early in 1903 Lord Milner appointed a Commission to investigate and report on the labor question in South Africa, which is a question between the mining people, who maintain that the needful supply of labor for profitable mine-working is not procurable, at rates which mine-owners can afford, from any other than an Asiatic source, and their opponents who deny the need of bringing either Chinese or East Indian coolies into the mining fields. In November the Labor Commission produced a majority and a minority report, the former agreeing substantially with the mine-owners, the latter in contention with them. The signatures to the majority report were ten in number, the latter were but two. In the discussion of the reports which took place in the Legislative Council of the Transvaal late in the year, one speaker made the statement that he was authorized by General Louis Botha to say that he and all the Dutch he represented were opposed to the introduction of Asiatics. A resolution favoring the introduction of Chinese was adopted in the Council by a vote of 22 to 4.
Ultimately, against the protests of a great majority of the Boer population, an ordinance to regulate the introduction into the Transvaal of unskilled non-European laborers was adopted by the Legislative Council. It applied to males of other races than those indigenous to Africa south of 12 degrees north of the Equator. The ordinance was to be administered by an official superintendent; the laborers were to be brought in by licensed persons only; they were to be employed only in the Witwatersrand district, and only in unskilled labor connected with the production of minerals, and they were to be sent back to the country of their origin, at the expense of their importer, at once on the termination of their contract, which should not be for a longer term than three years, renewable for two more. Provisions as to their treatment, their passport identification, their restricted residence, etc., were very precise and minute. The importation of Chinese coolies under the provisions of this ordinance began in June, 1904. At the end of the year over 20,000 had been brought in.
That the question has its political as well as its industrial side, and is one which concerns democracy no less than labor, is shown in the following: "The political and industrial position of the Rand, and, in some degree of the Transvaal as a whole, is almost unique. The only parallel that comes to mind is that of the town and district of Kimberly. A considerable European community is dependent—on the Rand entirely, throughout the Transvaal very largely—on a single industry for the maintenance of its prosperity. This dependence necessarily places great power in the hands of the small group of men who are the owners, or represent the owners, of the capital by which the industry has been created and is now worked. Their influence is supreme. No law which threatened their interests could be placed on the Statute Book. Men who offer any effective opposition to their wishes—like Mr. Wybergh, the Commissioner of Mines, Mr. Creswell, the manager of the Village Main Reef Mine, Mr. Moneypenny, the editor of the chief Johannesburg newspaper—find it impossible to retain their positions. Two dangers, and two only, threaten the permanency of this supremacy—the Trade Union and the ballot, the combination of the men employed and the possibility of an unsympathetic majority in the legislature when a system of self government is restored. Both these dangers would be increased in degree, and brought nearer in time, by a large and rapid growth of the white population.
"‘If 200,000 native workers were to be replaced by 100,000 whites,’ said Mr. Rudd, one of the directors of the Consolidated Goldfields Company, ‘they would simply hold the Government of the country in the hollow of their hand, and, without any disparagement to the British labourer, I prefer to see the more intellectual section of the community at the helm!’ ‘ With reference to your trial of white labour for surface work on the mines,’ wrote Mr. Tarbutt, another director of the same important company and the chairman of the Village Main Reef Company, in an often-quoted letter to Mr. Creswell, 'I have consulted the Consolidated Goldfields people, and one of the members of the board of the Village Main Reef has consulted Messrs. Wernher, Beit and Co., and the feeling seems to be one of fear that if a large number of white men are employed on the Rand in the position of labourers, the same troubles will arise as are now prevalent in the Australian Colonies, i. e., that the combination of the labouring classes will become so strong as to be able to more or less dictate, not only on questions of wages, but also on political questions, by the power of the votes when a Representative Government is established.’ {626} There have been other declarations of the same tenour; and, indeed, no one who is acquainted with the views that prevail among the circles of South African finance would seek to deny that this dread of a second Australian democracy influencing the political and economic future of the Rand is one of the chief motives that direct the policy of the more far-sighted men among those groups. …
"White labour, coupled with improved mechanical appliances, stands established as the feasible remedy for the admitted shortage in the number of Kaffir workers. To reject it in favour of the introduction of Chinese is a policy which has natural attractions for the owners of the mines. It is a policy which should not have won the support of the representatives of the British people."
_Herbert Samuel, The Chinese Labour Question (Contemporary Review, April, 1904)._
The bringing of Asiatic laborers into the mines was resisted as strenuously in Cape Colony as by the Boer burghers and the non-mining interests in general of the Transvaal. The leading colony addressed a petition on the subject personally to King Edward, saying: "Such an immigration, hampered and restricted as it is proposed to be by stringent regulations, would, even if it were possible to enforce such regulations, which is doubtful, introduce a servile element, alien to the country, destitute of rights, or interests, either in the present or future of South Africa, and worked for the benefit of masters, in many cases non-resident, thus constituting what would practically be a slave state, in close contact with the other free communities of South Africa. Your petitioners feel that the introduction of such a class of labour would place an obstacle in the way of the natural growth alike of European and native elements in the population. …
"Such an importation would decide whether South Africa is in future to constitute one of those great free communities under the British flag, the growth of which shed so much lustre on the reign of your august predecessor, or whether it is to be ranked as a mere plantation worked in the interest and for the benefit of foreign holders. Your petitioners therefore most earnestly pray that your Majesty may be pleased to withhold your sanction from any measure having for its object the importation of Asiatics into South Africa, and by so doing save them and those who may come after them from consequences that will be fatal to their peace and prosperity."
_Parliamentary Papers, 1904 (Cd. 1895), page 133._
Mr. Chamberlain, Secretary of State for the Colonies, returned to England in March, 1903, from a visit to South Africa, and made an extended statement in Parliament soon afterwards of his observations and his conclusions from what he had seen. On the labor question, then the subject of greatest agitation in South Africa, he stoutly supported the mine-owners in their contention that native labor, and supplies from beyond the Zambesi, to supplement the Kaffir supply, is a necessity of the mining industry; that white labor is impossibly expensive, and that the feeling against the introduction of Asiatic labor seemed invincibly strong. There was not, he maintained, the slightest foundation for the charge that the mine-owners wanted forced labor or slavery in any shape or form, but that they must have cheap labor if the mines were to be worked.
A few days later Lord Lansdowne, the Foreign Secretary, received a deputation from various missionary societies to protest against a proposed exportation of native labor from Central to South Africa. In reply to them he said that the Government had no more in view at present than an experiment with 1000 laborers, who would be taken from British Central Africa to the Rand District of the Transvaal and employed there under regulations very carefully framed. If objectionable results were found the experiment would be carried no farther. This was followed by warm debate on the subject in the House of Commons, where Sir William Harcourt and others denounced the greed of the mining companies, insisting that the mines could not pay fair wages simply because the rich mines were over-capitalized and the low-grade mines had been developed only for sale. Mr. Chamberlain again championed the mine-owners, and defended the policy of the Government, which sought, he said, to promote the general prosperity of the country by getting as many of the mines as possible into working order. The debate had no practical result.
SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1903-1908. Hostility to British Indian Immigration.
See (in this Volume) RACE PROBLEMS: A. D. 1903-1908.
SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1904. Census of all British South Africa. Whites and Natives.
A general census taken in 1904 showed a total white population in all British South Africa--south of Zambesi—of 1,135,655, and a colored population of 5,169,338. The distribution of this in the several colonies was as follows; Cape Colony, 580,380 white, 1,825,172 colored; the Transvaal and Swaziland, 300,225 white, 1,030,029 colored; Natal, 97,109 white, 1,011,645 colored; Rhodesia, 12,623, white, 593,141 colored; Orange River Colony, 143,419 white, 241,626 colored; Basutoland, 895 white, 347,953 colored; Bechuanaland, 1,004 white, 119,772 colored.
SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1905. Importation of Chinese Coolies Suspended by orders from London.
The Liberal Ministry in Great Britain, under Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, which succeeded the Conservative-Unionist Ministry of Mr. Balfour on the 10th of December, 1905, had been seated but twelve days when a despatch was cabled by Lord Elgin, Secretary for the Colonies, to Lord Selborne, the High Commissioner in South Africa, that "the experiment of the introduction of Chinese laborers should not be extended farther until they could learn the opinion of the colony through an elected and really representative Legislature, and they had accordingly decided that the recruiting, embarking and importation of Chinese coolies should be arrested pending a decision as to the grant of responsible government to the Colony"—that is, the Transvaal.
SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1905-1907. Fulfillment by the British Government of the Promises of the Treaty of the Vereeniging Treaty. Representative Government restored to the Boer States.
The seventh stipulation in the Vereeniging Treaty of May 81, 1902, which ended the Boer-British War (see above, A. D. 1901-1902), contained the promise, on the part of the British Government, that "military administration in the Transvaal and in the Orange River Colony shall, as soon as possible, be followed by civil government; and, as soon as circumstances permit it, a representative system tending towards autonomy shall be introduced." {627} On the 31st of March, 1905, the first step toward the fulfillment of this pledge was taken, by the issue of letters patent from the crown (without action of Parliament, inasmuch as the Boer States, in the eye of the law, had been under the suzerainty of the British sovereign, had been in revolt, had been subjugated, and were directly subject to the crown, as conquered territory), conferring a Constitution of Civil Government on the Transvaal. It gave popular representation in a legislature of a single chamber, styled the Legislative Assembly. Not exceeding thirty-five of the members of this body were to be elected, and from six to nine others were to be appointed by the High Commissioner of South Africa,—in which office Lord Milner had been succeeded of late by Lord Selborne. Every burgher of the former Transvaal Republic not disqualified by conviction for treason since May 31, 1902, was to be entitled to vote in the election of representatives; and so were all white males of British birth occupying premises at an annual rental of not less than $50, or possessed of capital to the value of $500. The debates in the Assembly were to be in English—not in English or Dutch, like the English or French of the Parliament of Canada; but there is a provision that the Speaker may permit a member to use the Dutch language. No bill passed by the Legislative Assembly which should subject the natives to disabilities or restrictions could become law until it had received the sanction of the Colonial Office in London.
This organization of a partially representative colonial government extended only to the Transvaal. The Orange River Colony remained still under the Crown Colony system, which had been the status hitherto of both the Boer states since the close of the war.
This limited realization of the promise of representative government to the Boers was undoubtedly all that could be expected from the Conservative Ministry in England, which went out of power soon after it had conferred the Transvaal Constitution. Its successors, of the British Liberal party, soon broadened the basis of self-government in the Transvaal, by a new constitutional instrument, which was outlined to Parliament on the 1st of August, and issued December 6th, 1906. This made the legislature a bicameral body, having, for the time being, an upper Council of 15 appointed members, which, however, it was said to be the intention of the Government to extinguish at no distant day. The elective Assembly was to be composed of sixty-nine members, elected by secret ballot for terms of five years. Every adult male of twenty-one years of age who had been a resident for six months, except members of the British garrison, was entitled to vote. The general lines of the old Boer magisterial districts were followed, and, on the basis of the census figures of 1904 the Rand would have 32 members, Pretoria 6, Krugersdorp 1, and the rest of the country 30. The constitution prohibited Chinese contract labor, and no more coolies could be imported into the country after November 15. Either the English or the Dutch language could be used for public business, and naturalization was made easy, but the Boers’ request for woman suffrage was denied.
A Constitution framed on similar lines was given to the Orange River Colony within the same year.
In the first elections for the Transvaal Assembly there were, besides Socialists and labor organizations, three parties engaged in a somewhat embittered contest. "The Progressives are the party of the great mining houses on the Rand; the Nationalist party is composed of British electors opposed to the enormous political influence which the mining houses have hitherto exercised; while the Boers at Johannesburg and Pretoria and in the rural constituencies are organized in Het Volk. There was a coalition between the Nationalists and Het Volk. These two parties united against the Progressives, and adopted as the chief plank in their platform a declaration that the one question on which the election must turn was, ‘Who shall control the Transvaal—the people or the mining houses?’ The Progressives on their part insisted that the question was, ‘Shall the Transvaal be governed by the people of the Transvaal, or from Downing Street?’ They were aggrieved by the action of the British Government in making legislation concerning non-European labor subject to review in London, and in the campaign they made no attempt to conceal their hostility to the Campbell-Bannerman Government. In this way the question of Chinese labor was forced to the front. The Nationalists and Het Volk coalition was successful," and General Lotus Botha, who has been the leading spirit and guiding mind among the Boers since the war ended, became the Prime Minister of the Transvaal Government then organized.
It has been fortunate for the Transvaal, and no less for South Africa at large, that so large-minded and strong a leader of the subjugated race was found for the trying period in which victors and vanquished were to have peace and friendship established between them.
SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1906-1907. Revolt of the Zulus in Natal. Their Grievances.
An extensive and determined revolt of the Zulus living within the Colony of Natal broke out late in January, 1906, as the consequence of an attempt to collect a poll-tax levied on them by the colonial Parliament. A police sergeant and two or three native policemen were killed in the first melée, and from that time until near the end of the following summer there was war. That it was prosecuted with fierceness, if not actual ferocity, by the whites of the Colony, is made manifest by the fact that about 3500 Zulus are said to have been slain and 2000 taken prisoners. The principal Zulu leader, a chief named Bambaata, was killed in a battle fought in June, and the revolt declined from that time. Sigananda, another chief, was condemned to death, and twelve prisoners, convicted by court-martial of complicity in the original murder of police officers, were executed; while thirty-eight others were sentenced to imprisonment for two years.
A serious question between the colony and the Imperial-Government arose in connection with these military trials. The sentences to death, confirmed by the governor and the Natal ministry, were about to be carried out, when Mr. Winston Churchill, with the approval of Lord Elgin, Colonial Secretary, cabled to the Natal premier ordering the suspension of the execution pending an investigation by the Liberal government, on the contention that the natives should have been tried in a civil court. {628} Premier Smyth refused to obey, but the governor postponed the executions, whereupon the Natal ministry resigned. Much indignation was evident in England, as well as in the colony, against what was regarded as an unwarrantable interference in colonial affairs by the Imperial government. The matter was concluded by Lord Elgin cabling to the governor of Natal that the home government had no intention of interfering in colonial matters, and that, upon the receipt of full information, it recognized the right and competency of the Natal ministry to decide the question at issue.
SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1907 (April-May). Imperial Conference at London.
See (in this Volume) BRITISH EMPIRE: A. D. 1907.
SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1908-1909. Formation of the Legislative Union of South Africa. The Framing of the Constitution. Compromise on the Race Question of Franchise. British Imperial Assent. The Royal Proclamation of Union.
Very quickly after the placing of the Boer colonies on a footing of political equality with their English neighbors a fresh desire for South African Union, in which they, who had fought to the death for its prevention only six years before, now shared, began to be earnestly voiced. Its genesis was explained clearly by a correspondent of the London _Times_ of May 24, 1909, who wrote "Economic causes of a special character assisted the process. A great wave of commercial depression, following hard upon the golden expectations of the peace, passed over the whole country, but made itself specially felt in the coast colonies. Here the situation was painful in the extreme. It was a tale of deficit, of retrenchment, of heroic Budgets. But far beyond the rolling hills of the Karoo and the flat tableland of the Orange River there was a wealthy State, a State with a surplus. The Transvaal, possessing in Johannesburg the principal centre of opulence and the chief market for produce, was in a position to exert economic pressure upon colonies whose principal source of revenue was derived from the profits upon their railways and from the sale of their goods to the great city on the high veld. The poorer colonies lived, so to speak, upon the custom of the Transvaal, and were unable to ignore, however much they might dislike, their position of dependence. A rate war or a tariff war between the Transvaal and the coast colonies could hardly end with a victory for Cape Town or Durban, and so by a process of reasoning which was not always pleasantly illustrated the coast colonies came to accommodate themselves to the view that some form of arrangement as to railways and Customs was desirable in their own interests. Other causes contributed to illumine and enlarge the horizon. A Zulu rebellion in Natal brought home the common danger to the white community from native unrest or from mistakes made by a weak colonial Government in its native policy; the grant of responsible government to the two conquered Colonies tended, not only to bring the English and Dutch leaders into habitual communion, but to give to the progressive section of the community a pressing interest in the construction of a Government which should be strong enough to resist the influences of the back veld."
The first action taken to transform the desire for Union into a movement to that end was early in May, 1908, by a convention of officials from the several colonies, assembled at Pretoria to negotiate a new customs agreement and to arrange intercolonial railway rates. The railway situation was nearly, if not quite, the most serious one that brought pressure to bear on some of the colonies, forcing them to seek a union in which conflicts of interest would be overcome. It was a situation which the High Commissioner, Lord Selborne, described briefly, in a review of the many reasons for Union which he addressed to the Governors and Lieutenant-Governors of the several colonies, on the 7th of January, 1907:
"Of all the questions fruitful in divergence of opinion or of interest to the Colonies of South Africa, there is none so pregnant with danger," he wrote, "as the railway question. It is not an exaggeration to say that a field more thickly sown with the seed of future quarrel and strife than the [State-owned] railway systems of South Africa does not exist. As long as the Governments of the five British Colonies in South Africa are wholly separated from, and independent of, each other, their railway interests are not only distinct but absolutely incompatible. There is a competitive struggle between the ports of Cape Colony and of Natal to snatch from each other every ton of goods which can be snatched. The Orange River Colony desires as many tons of goods as possible to be passed to the Transvaal through its territory, but it is to the interest of Cape Colony that no such tons of goods should pass into the Transvaal through the Orange River Colony. … In the same way it is to the interest of Natal to pass the goods consigned to the Transvaal from Durban into the Transvaal at Volksrust, and not at Vereeniging through the Orange River Colony. Thus the interests of Cape Colony, of Natal, and of the Orange River Colony conflict the one with the other. But when it comes to considering the railway interests of the Transvaal, then it will be found that the interest of the Transvaal is diametrically opposed to the interests of Cape Colony, of Natal, and of the Orange River Colony. The Transvaal loses revenue on every ton of goods which enters the Transvaal by any other route than that from Delagoa Bay [on the Portuguese coast]. … If the [Transvaal Government] were as indifferent to the welfare of the three sister Colonies as every State in Europe is to the welfare of every other State, the Transvaal would see that all the trade to the Transvaal came exclusively through Delagoa Bay. And what then would be the position of the railways and the finances of the three sister Colonies and of the ports of Cape Colony and of Natal? This divergence, this conflict of railway interests, this cloud of future strife, would vanish like a foul mist before the sun of South African Federation, but no other force can dissipate it."
That a railway and customs convention should start the action which united the colonies of South Africa happened as logically, therefore, as the happenings which derived the American Federal Constitutional Convention of 1787 from a River and Harbor Convention at Annapolis in 1786.
{629}
The South African Railway convention, before adjourning, adopted a resolution recommending the appointment of delegates from each colony to a convention for the framing of a Constitution of United Government. Cape Colony led off in approving the proposal, followed within a day or two by the Transvaal and Orange River Colony, and a week later by Natal, where the strongest opposition was developed. The apportionment of delegates to the Convention was, for Cape Colony 12, for the Transvaal 8, for Orange River and Natal 5 each. On the 12th of October these delegates assembled at Durban, in Natal, under the presidency of Sir Henry de Villiers and were in session there until the 5th of November, when they adjourned to meet again at Cape Town, November 23. Their labors were not concluded until the 3d of February, 1909, when all differences had been harmonized or compromised and a draft Constitution approved, which every delegate signed that day.
The Constitution was officially published on the 9th of February, with a recommendation that the several Parliaments should meet on March 30 to consider the draft, and that the Convention should meet again in May on a day to be fixed by the president of the Convention and the Premiers in consultation. The final draft to be submitted to the Parliaments in June. Then a committee of delegates appointed by the Governments to proceed to England to facilitate the passing of the Act.
This programme was successfully carried through. Cape Colony and Natal contended for certain amendments to the draft Constitution, but the Transvaal and Orange River colonies approved the instrument and instructed their delegates to support it as a whole. The General Convention was reassembled at Bloemfontein, capital of the Orange River Colony, on the 3d of May, when it discussed the proposed amendments and agreed to eight of them. As thus amended the draft was adopted in June by the parliaments of each of the four colonies, and sent with that endorsement to the Imperial Government for the seal of Sovereign Law. It was followed by an official mission, composed of nineteen members, who represented, as a London journal remarked, "almost the whole of the driving power in South African politics," including, of course, such former antagonists as General Botha and Dr. Jameson, now shoulder to shoulder in powerful leadership of the movement for South African Union.
One feature of the Constitution, as framed by the four colonies and presented for the imperial approval, was profoundly repugnant to English feeling. It was the product of a compromise in the colonial convention, which ran a curious parallel to that in the American constitutional convention of 1787, which gave the Southern States a representation in Congress for their slaves. The question of elective franchises and legislative representation for the colored natives had troubled the South African union-making, just as the slavery question had troubled the American. Cape Colony had conferred the suffrage on its qualified colored citizens, and refused to disfranchise them; the other colonies had disfranchised all races but the white, and refused to allow a possible election from the Cape Colony to the Union Parliament of any other than members of European descent. The necessary compromise which secured the Union left the Cape franchise undisturbed for the present, but exposed to a future chance of being overruled; and it barred all but European humanity from both houses of the general Parliament.
This compromise was opposed with unyielding resolution by a strong party in Cape Colony, led by two former premiers, Mr. W. P. Schreiner and Sir J. Gordon Sprigg. Mr. Schreiner went to England to appeal there to the Imperial Parliament against the sanctioning of these provisions of the proposed Constitution.
Mr. Schreiner found in Great Britain almost universal sympathy with the feeling that he represented. In Parliament and out, it was expressed by all parties; but there went with it a prevailing opinion that the matter in question and the attending circumstances were such that the Imperial Parliament ought not to refuse assent to the action of the colonies. The Prime Minister, Mr. Asquith, set forth the reasoning to this conclusion very clearly and concisely, when, on the 19th of August, he moved, in the House of Commons, the third reading of the South Africa Bill. "I wish," he said, "in submitting this motion to the House, to take the opportunity of putting on record the fact that this Bill, consisting of over 150 clauses and a very complicated schedule, has, after the most careful consideration by this House, been passed without amendment. It would, however, be a totally false impression were it suggested that as regards all provisions of this Bill there is unanimity of opinion in the House. In particular as regards some of the clauses which deal with the treatment of natives—the access of native members to the Legislature—as everybody who has followed the debate can see, there is not only no difference of opinion, but absolute unanimity in the way of regret that those particular provisions should have been inserted in the Bill. I wish before the Bill leaves the Imperial Parliament to make it perfectly clear that we here have exercised, and I think wisely and legitimately exercised, not only restraint of expression, but reserve of judgment in regard to matters of this kind, simply because we desire that this great experiment of establishing free self-government in South Africa should start on the lines and in accordance with the ideas of our fellow-citizens there which they have deliberately and after long consideration come to.
"It is perfectly true that the Imperial Government cannot divest itself of responsibility in this matter. We do not do so. I think that if we have yielded, as we have, on points of detail—on some points on which many of us feel very strongly—to the considered and deliberate judgment of South Africa, it has been because we thought it undesirable at this, the last, stage in the completion of an almost unprecedentedly difficult task to put forward anything that could be an obstacle to the successful working of the Bill. Speaking for myself and the Government, I venture to express not only the hope, but the expectation, that in some of these matters that have been discussed in this House, both on the second reading and in the Committee stage, the views which have been so strongly expressed, and practically without any dissent, will be sympathetically considered by our fellow-citizens in South Africa. {630} For my part I think, as I have said throughout, that it would be far better that any relaxations of what almost all of us regard as unnecessary restrictions upon the electoral rights and eligibility of our native fellow-subjects there should be carried out spontaneously and on the initiative of the South African Parliament rather than that it should appear to be forced on them by the Imperial Parliament here."
The Bill had already passed the House of Lords. It received the royal approval on the 20th of September; and, on the 2d of December, the Union of South Africa was proclaimed, to be of effect on and after the 31st of May, 1910.
Soon after the passage of the Bill, announcement was made that the Prince of Wales would visit South Africa to open the Union Parliament, as he had done on the opening of the Parliament of the Australian Commonwealth, in 1901.
In December it was made known that the Right Honourable Herbert Gladstone would be the first Governor-General of United South Africa.
For the text of the South African Constitution:
See (in this Volume) CONSTITUTION OF THE UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA.
SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1909. The Native Protectorates. Their Condition and Circumstances on the Eve of the Inauguration of the Union of South Africa.
"It should not be forgotten that the protectorates are in being to-day not because this particular arrangement of protection was economically necessary or inevitable, nor even because the general relationship of the native tribes of South Africa made it the best that could be devised. The fact is that they came into existence at different times and as definite and probably expedient results of various fortuitous crises in a chaotic native political history, which is at least characteristic of South Africa. …
"To-day the protectorates are to a considerable degree isolated native communities, so far at any rate as they are concerned with any possible united feeling among the other native tribes of South Africa. They are carefully guarded by their responsible officials from interference and possible harm from outside their own territories—that is from taking any considerable interest or partnership in the real or fancied troubles of neighbouring states. They are in a sense—and more than a political sense—inside a ring fence.
"As regards the relationship between the native inhabitants and the white settlers of the several protectorates, there are no striking points of difference. In Basutoland no land is held under white ownership. Such white residents as there are, apart from officials and missionaries, are there as traders and storekeepers. No land rights have been alienated to white men. In the Bechuanaland Protectorate certain areas are held by white men, but at the same time very large areas are reserved entirely for native uses. In Swaziland the relationship was, until a few months ago, upon a very different basis—a position surely unique in the history of the British colonial possessions. I have not space to describe even briefly the extraordinary intricacy of the concessions troubles or the heroic measures found necessary to effect a settlement at once just to the concessionaire and the native. It must be sufficient to say that today about half the area of the country is held in white ownership, while rather more than one-third is reserved for the exclusive use and benefit of the natives. In Zululand certain areas of land are held by whites, but the bulk of land is held in native possession. In each case, however, it is not probable that any more land will be alienated for purposes of sale or settlement by whites. It may be accepted without doubt, I think, that the natives will retain in perpetuity the land they hold at present. It will be seen that the material interests of the natives, at any rate as regards land, have been well guarded in the three protectorates."
_R. T. Coryndon, The Position of the Native Protectorates (The State, South Africa, September, 1909)._
SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1909. Introduction of Proportional Representation.
See (in this Volume) ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: SOUTH AFRICA.
SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1909. Native Labor Supplanting the Chinese.
See (in this Volume) RACE PROBLEMS: SOUTH AFRICA. A. D. 1909.
----------SOUTH AFRICA: End--------
SOUTH AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
See (in this Volume) American Republics.
SOUTH CAROLINA, and Interstate and West Indian Exposition.
See (in this Volume) CHARLESTON: A. D. 1901.
SPAIN: A. D. 1870-1905. Increase of Population compared with other European Countries.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1870-1905.
SPAIN: A. D. 1898-1906. Gains from the Loss of Cuba and the Philippines. Growth of Close Relations with the Spanish-American States.
"In many a war it has been the vanquished, not the victor, who has carried off the finest spoils. Cuba and the Philippines have been like a tumor in the side of Spain, dragging her down in the race of civilization. They have drained her life-blood and disturbed all her national activities. Only a serious surgical operation could remove this exhausting excrescence; and Spaniards themselves have been the first to recognize that the operation, though painful, was in the highest degree beneficial. Not even the most Quixotic of Spaniards dreams of regaining these lost possessions. The war has been beneficial in at least two different ways. It has had a healthy economic influence, because, besides directing the manhood of Spain into sober industrial channels, it has led to the removal of artificial restrictions in the path of commercial activity. It has been advantageous morally, because it has forced even the most narrow and ignorant Spaniard to face the actual facts of the modern world.
"The war has had a further result in leading to a movement, for a closer sympathy between Spain and the Spanish states of South America. The attitude of these states towards the mother country has hitherto been somewhat unsympathetic; they have regarded her as hopelessly opposed to all reform; the hostility of Spain to the aspirations of Cuba and their own earlier struggles for freedom amply accounted for such an attitude. Now there is nothing to stand in the way of a movement towards approximation which has already begun to manifest itself, and may ultimately possess a serious significance."
_Havelock Ellis, The Spirit of Present-Day Spain (Atlantic Monthly, December, 1900)._
{631}
"Thoughtful Spaniards will tell you that a change has come over their country with the close of last century, and that this change has been developing since the accession of their young King. The starting-point of this evolution in national life was the close of the short struggle with the United States and the loss of what remained of their colonial empire. That turning-point in the modern annals of Spain caused a deep impression in the minds, not only of the governing classes of the country, but of the hard-working middle classes and of the masses themselves. … Almost immediately after conclusion of the peace treaty, first a few and then more and more Spaniards dared to speak out what at heart they felt, however sore and resentful—namely, that foreign and colonial foes had rendered Spain a service by ridding her of the colonies that hampered her revival in Europe and in fields of action and enterprise nearer home. This feeling spread widely among the masses and middle classes when they perceived the first-fruits of the concentration of the resources and energies of the nation in Spain between 1899 and 1905. Much capital had flowed back from the former colonies, especially from Cuba and the Philippines, and promoted a rapid increase in enterprises of every kind—banks, financial establishments, mines, industries, syndicates, trusts, shipping-interests that, developing, perhaps, too rapidly, were led to overproduction, and thus gave rise to local crises at Bilbao, Barcelona, Santander, Cadiz, Malaga. The rebound of the last year of the nineteenth century and of the first few years of the twentieth was a consequence also of the recovery of Spanish credit, effected by a vigorous reorganization of Spanish finance and budgets by the late Señor Villaverde, and by the gallant resolution with which Governments and Parliaments, backed by the press and public opinion, undertook to honor both the domestic engagements of Spain herself, and the engagements that resulted from saddling her treasury and budget with the debts of Cuba and the Philippines, and with the cost of the last and previous civil wars in the lost colonies. The restoration of Spain’s credit abroad and at home, the successful levelling of her budgets with a surplus revenue annually of several millions of dollars since 1900, dispelled the fears of her native capitalists; and they too, large and small, came forward to invest in mines, banks, companies and railways."
_World-Politics (North American Review, November, 1905)._
SPAIN: A. D. 1901-1904. Four Years of Political Shuffling in the Government. End of the Queen Dowager Regency. Coronation of the Young King, Alfonso XIII. Death of Sagasta.
A New Ministry, of Liberals, was formed in March, 1901, with the veteran leader, Praxedes Mateo Sagasta, at its head; but the military party was represented in the Government by General Weyler, as Secretary for War. Measures undertaken by the Government against unauthorized religious orders, to bring them under surveillance, gave rise to anti-clerical disturbances in some parts of the Kingdom, and were defiantly opposed by the Church. Legislative elections held in June gave the Government 280 seats, leaving but 70 to the Opposition; but any party controlling the conduct of elections in Spain was said to be able to secure whatever majority it desired.
The general condition of confusion and disturbance was continued in 1902, and constant recourse was had, in one region or another, to declarations of a "state of siege," involving martial law. General Weyler fought a battle of a week’s duration in February at Barcelona, with rioting consequent on a general strike.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: SPAIN.
On the 17th of May, his sixteenth birthday, Alfonso XIII., whose father, Alfonso XII., died before he was born, and who, consequently, had been, nominally and constitutionally, King of Spain since his birth, entered on the actual exercise of royal functions. He was crowned that day, and the regency of his mother came to an end. The coronation ceremonies were splendid; the oath taken by the young King was very simple: "I swear by God upon the Holy Bible to maintain the constitution and laws. If so I do, may God regard me; if I do not, may he call me to account." There is reason to believe that he took this oath with a serious sense of the responsibilities he assumed; but influences at Court, military, clerical, and otherwise reactionary, were stronger than the influence of his constitutional advisers for a few years, and the political distractions of the time were increased. The attempted action of Government against unauthorized religious orders ended in a compromise which gave authorization to every order demanding it.
On the 3d of December, 1902, Sagasta and his Cabinet resigned, and a Conservative Ministry, under Señor Silvela, was formed. On the 5th of January following Sagasta died. The liberalism he represented had no substantial unity left, nor were the opposing groups in a condition to give more consistency or strength to the Government. A new Ministry under Senor Villaverde succeeded that of Silvela in May, and was succeeded in turn by another in December, with Señor Maura at its head. Premier Maura, formerly of Sagasta’s party, but latterly more Conservative, held the reins for a full year, escaping two attempted assassinations in 1904, and giving place to General Azcarraga on the 14th of December in that year. The General was less fortunate, for he enjoyed the honors of the prime ministry but six weeks.
SPAIN: A. D. 1903. Agreement for Settlement of Claims against Venezuela.
See (in this Volume) VENEZUELA: A. D. 1902-1904.
SPAIN: A. D. 1904 (April). Declarations of England and France touching Spanish interests in Morocco.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1904 (APRIL).
SPAIN: A. D. 1905-1906. Unsatisfactory State of the Kingdom. Rapid Succession of Changes in the Government. Disorders in Catalonia. The King’s Marriage. Attempted Assassination of the King. Proposed Anti-Clerical Law, which came to naught.
In the character of its political parties, in the condition of its finances and in the general circumstances of the country, Spain appeared to be in an increasingly unsatisfactory state. Four changes of Ministry occurred within the year 1905, and no Government was found able to project any policy that promised permanency and definiteness of line. {632} Don Ramon Villaverde succeeded General Azcarraga as Premier in January, and was succeeded in the following June by Don E. Montero Rios, who had Don Jose Echegaray, the eminent poet, dramatist, novelist, and banker, for his Minister of Finance. In turn, Señor Montero Rios, after a reconstruction of his Cabinet in October with the help of the King, gave way at the end of November to Señor Moret. The Azcarraga and Villaverde Ministries had been Conservative; those of Montero Rios and Moret were of the Liberal type. The Parliament, which should have been convened early in the year, but was not called together until the middle of June, contained no majority which any Ministry could trust, and all the leaders in Spanish politics were afraid of it. Fresh elections in September gave the Montero Rios Ministry a decided majority; but it had quarrels within itself, and threatening disorders had arisen in many parts of the country, especially in half-rebellious Catalonia, which it seems to have lacked courage to face. An arrogant, insubordinate temper had been developed among the officers of the army, who disputed the supremacy of civil over military authority; and in many ways the conditions in the kingdom gave cause for grave anxiety to thoughtful minds.
Not much, if any, quieting of the disturbed conditions in Spain came during the next year. The Government stooped to a compromise with the insolent military faction, so far as to allow press offenses against officers of the army to be dealt with by courts-martial. On the 31st of May, 1906, King Alfonso was married to the English Princess Ena of Battenberg, who previously entered the Roman Catholic Church, much to the disturbance of Protestant feeling in England. The wedding festivities at Madrid were nearly made tragical by an anarchist attempt to kill the royal pair. As they returned from the marriage ceremony to the palace a wretch named Matteo Morales threw a bomb into the midst of the procession of carriages, killing a number of attendant people, but missing those for whom it was intended. The coolness and readiness of mind shown by the young king, and by his bride, excited general admiration, and indicated a strength of character that augured well for Spain.
In July the Moret Ministry found it expedient to resign, and the administration of Government passed to a new Cabinet, under Captain-General Lopez Dominguez. Then a strange change of attitude toward the Church of Rome was given for a brief time to the Spanish Government, as though it had caught the temper of France. There had been signs of a disposition toward some independence of secular policy a few years before, when the strenuous opposition of the Church failed to prevent the passage of a Spanish law which authorized civil marriage between persons legally qualified, whatever their creed might be. The Church continued its hostility to this law until it succeeded, in 1900, in securing an amendment which restricted the right of civil marriage to parties one of whom should not be a Catholic. Public opinion does not seem to have approved that concession, and the original provisions of the law were now restored. This drew on the Government a fierce clerical attack; in the face of which it brought forward, in October, a project of law which seems to have been modelled very closely on that French Associations Law, of 1901, by which all religious orders, along with other associations, were brought under surveillance and regulation by the State.
See in Volume VI. of this work, FRANCE: A. D. 1901, and, in this Volume, FRANCE: A. D. 1903.
This Spanish measure proposed to allow no religious order to be established in the kingdom without parliamentary authorization. It would empower the Government to withdraw the authorization of any order or association that it found dangerous to public tranquility or morals; it would permit any member of an order to renounce his or her vows; it would dissolve any order whose members were foreigners or whose directors lived abroad; it would command monasteries and convents to open their doors to representatives of the proper civil authority at any time; it would limit the property held by religious orders to the need of the objects for which they were instituted and put a limit on the gifts and bequests they could receive.
This seemed an extraordinary measure to come even under discussion in Spain. Some of the Liberal leaders were prompt in declaring opposition to it, and its passage through the Cortes was probably impossible; but it came to no vote. Debate on it, opened on the 27th of November, was brought soon to an abrupt and not well-explained end. The Prime Minister resigned suddenly, in consequence of alleged intrigues; Señor Moret, recalled to office, was forced to retire again almost at once; a new Ministry was formed by the Marquis Vega de Armijo, and nothing more appears to have been heard of the proposed Associations Law.
SPAIN: A. D. 1906. At the Algeciras Conference on the Morocco question.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1905-1906.
SPAIN: A. D. 1907. Franco-Spanish Bombardment of Casablanca.
See (in this Volume) MOROCCO: A. D. 1907-1909.
SPAIN: A. D. 1907-1909. The Maura Conservative Ministry. Unpopularity of the War in Morocco. Insurgency in Barcelona. The Ferrer Case. The Moret Ministry. Municipal Reform. Present Parties.
The Ministry of Marquis Armijo de la Vega held the Government little more than a month, giving way to Señor Maura and his party, who returned to power in January, 1907. Five changes of administration had occurred within a year and a half. Elections in April yielded the Government a majority, and the birth of an heir to the throne on the 10th of May gave much satisfaction to the country. The Liberals, however, were so indignant at the manipulation of the elections to the lower chamber that, on the advice of their leader, Señor Moret, they took no part in the senatorial elections which followed, later in May; and this proved singularly embarrassing to the Government. Bomb explosions and other anarchist outrages, centering in Barcelona, but not confined to that turbulent city, were being dreadfully increased, and a ministerial Bill was brought before the Cortes in January, 1908, providing measures of suppression so drastic, especially in its dealing with the Press, that a most formidable opposition was stirred up. The Government stood stoutly by the Bill for months, until its control of the Cortes was shaken by the coalition that took form against it. {633} In the end it withdrew the Anarchist Bill, but raised another obstinate and threatening storm by the proposal of a Local Administration Bill, quite startlingly revolutionary in its plans for giving more independence to municipalities and provincial councils. Contest over this Bill went on till early in February, 1909, when Premier Maura came to an understanding with Señor Moret, leader of one of the Liberal groups, which enabled a part of the extensive measure, relating to municipalities, to be passed. Among other things, this new enactment made voting in the municipalities compulsory, and elections held since are reported to have shown a heavy increase of vote, proving effectiveness in the law. The other section of the Bill, dealing with provincial councils, was held over for subsequent action in the Cortes, and had not been disposed of when Premier Maura and his Cabinet were driven to resign, in October, 1909.
The causes of the overthrow of the Maura Ministry came primarily from the serious war with the tribesmen of the Riff, Morocco, into which Spain had been drawn in the midsummer of 1909.
See (in this Volume) MOROCCO: A. D. 1909).
The war was exceedingly unpopular from the beginning, and made more so by early reverses in its prosecution. Riotous outbreaks and labor strikes occurred in several parts of the Kingdom, but most fiercely at the turbulent city of Barcelona, where they were suppressed with a severity which embittered feeling against the Government. This feeling was excited to a climax in October by the military trial and execution, at Barcelona, of Professor Francisco Ferrer. Professor Ferrer was a teacher of high standing and wide acquaintance in Europe, extremely radical in his political opinions, and accused of disseminating seditious doctrines in the school which he conducted at Barcelona. The military authorities there put him under arrest on the charge of having been a principal instigator of the revolutionary rising in July. He was tried by court-martial, without just opportunity for defence, according to common belief, and summarily shot, the Government disregarding many appeals from all parts of Europe for its intervention in the case. An extraordinary excitement throughout the world was produced by this tragedy, and it was felt in Spain with reverberant effect. After violent speeches in the Chamber of Deputies, October 20, Señor Maura felt it necessary to resign, and the Liberal leader, Señor Moret y Prendergast, was called by the King to take the Government in hand.
The Moret Ministry made a speedy good beginning in domestic policy, by reviving, in some degree, the further undertaking of reform in local administration which Señor Maura had attempted two years before. This was now done by a decree, designed to clear away the mass of ordinances and special decrees by which the existing municipal law has been gradually choked since it was enacted in 1877, and to restore to municipal bodies the liberty and initiative that they were originally supposed to possess. Señor Moret and his party had supported Premier Maura’s Local Administration Bill in 1907; but it had been opposed and defeated by the class of politicians who are trained to a distaste for any sort of political reform. According to all accounts, the Moret Ministry, with a much mixed and uncertain support in the Cortes, has thus far done well.
Municipal elections were held throughout Spain December 12, and the introduction of compulsory voting brought out an unprecedented vote, from which the Republicans and Liberals drew most. Altogether, there are said to have been chosen 481 Republicans, Liberals, and Democrats, 253 Conservatives, and over a hundred Radicals of various shades. Madrid elected 12 Republican councillors, 2 Liberals, 1 Democrat, and 7 Conservatives, thus giving the Republicans an absolute majority. Valencia chose 15 Republicans, against 10 of all other parties. In Valladolid, 12 Liberals, 6 Republicans, and 3 Conservatives were elected; in La Coruña, 7 Republicans, 3 Liberals, and 3 others; in Córdoba, 10 Republicans, 6 Liberals, and 6 Conservatives.
In present politics the Republicans are said to have gone into alliance with the Socialist or Labor party; the alliance having its leader in a Señor Lerroux, of Barcelona, who returned lately from a long political exile, and who has had warm receptions in a number of the chief cities, where he made stirring speeches. "Señor Lerroux," says a correspondent, writing from Madrid in December, "preaches neither anarchism nor atheism nor anti-militarism. But he asks for the abolition of the Monarchy and of the religious orders. He would make the army the humble servant of the State, promote lay education and local autonomy, and do away with indirect taxation. And he looks for the realization of this programme to a well-timed revolution. Such are the ideas with which the bulk of the Republican-Socialist coalition will go to the polls at the next general election. Between these two extremes—the Conservatives, representing the Monarchy, the aristocracy, and the Church, and the Republican-Socialist alliance, representing revolution—we see the present Government balancing itself uneasily, with a foot in each camp, amenable to pressure from both, and without any independent means of support, save that which it enjoys in virtue of its temporary control of the political machine."
----------SPAIN: End--------
SPALDING, Bishop John L.: On the Anthracite Coal Strike Arbitration Commission.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1902-1903.
SPANISH AMERICA: A. D. 1906. Growth of Close Relations with Spain.
See (in this Volume) SPAIN: A. D. 1898-1906.
SPERRY, Rear-Admiral Charles S.: Commissioner Plenipotentiary to the Second Peace Conference.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1907.
SPERRY, Rear-Admiral Charles S.: Commanding the American Battleship Fleet.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR: NAVAL.
SPHAKIANAKIS, Dr.
See (in this Volume) CRETE: A. D. 1905-1906.
SPIERS, Bishop: Murder of.
See (in this Volume) AFRICA: A. D. 1905.
{634}
SPITZBERGEN CONFERENCE.
"The Norwegian government, by a note addressed on January 26, 1909, to the Department of State, conveyed an invitation to the government of the United States to take part in a conference which, it is understood, will be held in February or March, 1910, for the purpose of devising means to remedy existing conditions in the Spitzbergen Islands. This invitation was conveyed under the reservation that the question of altering the status of the islands as countries belonging to no particular State, and as equally open to the citizens and subjects of all States, should not be raised.
"The European Powers invited to this conference by the government of Norway were Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Russia, Sweden, and the Netherlands.
"The Department of State, in view of proofs filed with it in 1906, showing the American possession, occupation, and working of certain coal-bearing lands in Spitzbergen, accepted the invitation under the reservation above stated, and under the further reservation that all interests in those islands already vested should be protected, and that there should be equality of opportunity for the future. It was further pointed out that membership in the conference on the part of the United States was qualified by the consideration that this government would not become a signatory to any conventional arrangement concluded by the European members of the Conference which would imply contributory participation by the United States in any obligation or responsibility for the enforcement of any scheme of administration which might be devised by the conference for the islands."
_Message of the President of the United States to Congress, December 6, 1909._
SPOILS SYSTEM: Cause of Corruption in the United States Customs Service.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909 (OCTOBER-NOVEMBER).
See (in this Volume) CIVIL SERVICE REFORM.
SPRECKELS, Rudolph.
See (in this Volume) MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: SAN FRANCISCO.
SPRIGGS, SIR J. GORDON.
See (in this Volume) SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1902-1904.
SPRIGGS, SIR J. GORDON. Opposition to the Disfranchisement of Blacks in South Africa.
See (in this Volume) SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1908-1909.
SPRING-RICE, SIR C.: British Minister to Persia.
See (in this Volume) PERSIA: A. D. 1907 (JANUARY-SEPTEMBER).
STACKELBERG, General.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (FEBRUARY-JULY), and after.
STANDARD OIL COMPANY: Suit by the Government for its Dissolution. Decree of the U. S. Circuit Court. Appeal to the Supreme Court.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL, &c.: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1906-1909.
STATE LEGISLATION, Need of Unity in.
See (in this Volume) LAW AND ITS COURTS: UNITED STATES.
"STATE RIGHTS": The question in Australia.
See (in this Volume) AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1902.
STEUNENBERG, EX-GOVERNOR FRANK, OF IDAHO: His assassination.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1899-1907.
STEVENS, DURHAM WHITE: Adviser to the Korean Foreign Office, by Japanese Selection. His assassination.
See (in this Volume) KOREA; A. D. 1905-1909.
STEVENS, JOHN L.: Chief Engineer of the Panama Canal.
See (in this Volume) PANAMA CANAL: A. D. 1905 and 1905-1909.
STEYN, PRESIDENT M. T.
See (in this Volume) SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1901-1902.
STOCK EXCHANGE, NEW YORK: Report on its Operations.
See (in this Volume) FINANCE AND TRADE: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909.
STOCKHOLM: A. D. 1909. Lockout and attempted General Strike.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: SWEDEN.
STOLYPIN, P. A.: Premier of the Russian Government.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1906, 1907, and after.
STONE, ELLEN M.: Capture by Brigands in Turkey and Ransom paid for Release.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1901-1902.
STÖSSEL, GENERAL.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (FEBRUARY-JULY); (FEBRUARY-AUGUST), and A. D. 1904-1905 (MAY-JANUARY).
STRAUS, OSCAR S.: Secretary of Commerce and Labor.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1905-1909.
STRAUS, OSCAR S.: On the Chinese Exclusion Laws and their Administration.
See (in this Volume) RACE PROBLEMS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1905-1908.
STRIKE, A GENERAL: THE IDEA OF IT.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: FRANCE: A. D. 1884-1909.
STRIKES.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION.
STUNDISTS, POLITICAL IDEAS OF THE.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1902.
SUBMARINE SIGNAL BELLS.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE AND INVENTION: SUBMARINE SIGNAL BELLS.
SUBWAYS, NEW YORK.
See (in this Volume) NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1900-1909.
SUCCESSION DUTIES: Treaty concerning, between England and France.
See (in this Volume) DEATH DUTIES.
SUGAR TRUST, THE FRAUDS OF THE.
See (in this Volume) Combinations, Industrial, &c.: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1907-1909, and 1909.
SUDAN, THE WESTERN: A. D. 1903. English Ascendancy established in Nigeria.
See (in this Volume) AFRICA: A. D. 1903 (NIGERIA).
SUDAN, THE WESTERN: A. D. 1907. Great Changes wrought in Ten Years. The new Khartoum.
"After Khartoum had fallen the palace was looted and demolished, but on its ruins another stately pile has arisen wherein Gordon’s memory is kept green by a tablet marking the fatal spot where on the 26th of January, 1885, he was done to death. And even as a new palace sprang up on the ashes of the old, so likewise after a thorough clearing away of the ruins of Gordon’s city, a new Khartoum has been planned and built on the ancient site. This new city lies at an altitude of 1263 feet above sea level, has a moderate yearly rainfall of but some forty inches, and a mean annual temperature of 84° Fahrenheit; by water it is 1560 miles from the source of the Nile at Ripon Falls, and 1920 miles from the Rosetta mouth of that fertilising river. Slowly but surely vaccination is reducing the small-pox mortality among the Soudanese; the old mosquito-breeding pools have been filled up, and the mosquito brigade is still doing good work. Thus the new Khartoum may be said to enjoy a fairly salubrious climate, which, moreover, should yearly become more and more healthy. …
{635}
"South of Khartoum proper, across the desert race-course and golf-links, and hard by what remains of Gordon’s fortifications, dwell, each in their own settlement with its distinctive huts, the divers native tribes who make up the city’s indigenous population. Probably the new Khartoum of to-day, with Omdurman and the near villages, totals nearly one hundred thousand souls, and, considering that its geographical situation so admirably adapts itself to fostering the expansion of trade, I venture to predict that in another fifty years Khartoum will contain half a million inhabitants. …
"The material condition of the people is improving; indeed, it is already prosperous. For the first time in their history the Soudanese are an absolutely free people, living under a Government anxious to protect them from injustice and to promote their welfare; it is hard for stay-at-home Britishers to realise adequately how far-reaching is this change in a land ‘where slavery in one form or another has been for thousands of years a permanent and universal institution.’ …
"To Lord Cromer’s wise counsel and untiring efforts the new Soudan owes much, and in 1901 the Shillook and Dinka representatives fully recognised this, when, using for the simple ceremony a sort of dark green fez, they crowned him their king. In the name of his own great Sovereign, whose ensign holds sway on every continent and on all known seas, his Lordship promised that the sacred law of Islam shall be respected; and the very remarkable agreement of the 19th of January, 1899, gave to this hitherto down trodden people their Magna Charta, for Article II. stipulates that ‘the British and Egyptian flags shall be used together, both on land and water, throughout the Soudan.’"
_W. F. Miéville, The New Khartoum (Nineteenth Century, January, 1908)._
SUEZ CANAL: Renewed Agreements between England and France.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1904 (APRIL).
SUFFRAGE, Political.
See (in this Volume) ELECTIVE FRANCHISE.
SUFFRAGETTES.
See (in this Volume) ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
SUGAR-BOUNTY CONFERENCE, AND CONVENTION.
As the result of a Conference, at Brussels, in which Germany, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, France, Spain, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway were represented, a Convention was framed and signed March 5, 1902, the occasion for which is set forth in these words:
"Desiring, on one hand, to equalize the conditions of competition between beet and cane sugars from different sources, and, on the other hand, to promote the development of the consumption of sugar; considering that this double result can only be attained by the suppression of bounties as well as by limiting the surtax"—the high contracting parties concluded a convention, the first article of which binds them as follows:
"to suppress the direct and indirect bounties by which the production or export of sugar may benefit, and they agree not to establish bounties of this kind during the whole duration of the said convention. In view of the execution of this provision, sweetmeats, chocolates, biscuits, condensed milk, and all other analogous products which contain in a notable proportion sugar artificially incorporated, are to be classed as sugar. The above paragraph applies to all advantages resulting directly or indirectly, for the different categories of producers, from the fiscal legislation of the States, notably:
(_a_) The direct bounties granted to exports.
(_b_) The direct bounties granted to production,
(_c_) The total or partial exemptions from taxation granted for a part of the manufactured output.
(_d_) The profits derived from surplusages of output,
(_e_) The profits derived from the exaggeration of the drawback.
(_f_) The advantages derived from any surtax in excess of the rate fixed" in a subsequent article.
Further articles elaborate the programme of measures for carrying out this agreement. It was to come into force from September 1, 1903; to remain in force during five years from that date, and if none of the high contracting parties should have notified the Belgium Government, twelve months after the expiration of the said period of five years, of its intention to have its effects cease, it should continue for one year, and so on from year to year.
_Papers relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, page 80._
Under this Convention, a Permanent Commission was established at Brussels. In July, 1907, this Commission gave attention to a suggestion from the Government of Great Britain, "to the effect that if Great Britain could be relieved from the obligation to enforce the penal provisions of the Convention they would be prepared not to give notice on the first of September next of their intention to withdraw on the 1st of September, 1908, a notice which they would otherwise feel bound to give at the appointed time." The ensuing discussion and correspondence resulted in the signing, on the 28th of August, 1907, of "An Additional Act to the Sugar Convention of March 5, 1902," renewing it for a fresh period of five years from September 1, 1908, with the privilege to any one of the contracting parties to withdraw after September 1, 1911, on one year’s notice, "if the Permanent Commission, at the last meeting held before the 1st September, 1910, have decided by a majority of votes that circumstances warrant such power being granted to the contracting States. The request of Great Britain was granted in the following article of the Additional Act:
"Notwithstanding Article I, Great Britain will be relieved, after the 1st September, 1908. from the obligation contained in Article IV of the Convention. After the same date the Contracting States may demand that, in order to enjoy the benefit of the Convention, sugar refined in the United Kingdom and thence exported to their territories shall be accompanied by a certificate stating that none of this sugar comes from a country recognized by the Permanent Commission as granting bounties for the production or exportation of sugar."
_Parliamentary Papers, 1907, Commercial, Number 10 (Cd. 3780)._
SULLY-PRUDHOMME, RENÉ FRANÇOIS ARMAND.
See (in this Volume) NOBEL PRIZES.
SULTAN AHMED MIRZA, The young Shah of Persia.
See (in this Volume) PERSIA: A. D. 1908-1909.
SUMATRA: A. D. 1909 (June). Earthquake in Upper Padang.
See (in this Volume) EARTHQUAKES: SUMATRA.
{636}
SUNDAY OBSERVANCE: Legal institution of a weekly Rest Day. Recent Legislation in Europe. The Canadian Lord’s Day.
A British Parliamentary Paper, published in the spring of 1909, gave information, gathered by the diplomatic representatives of the Government, relative to legislation in many foreign countries bearing on the observance of Sunday, or otherwise prescribing a weekly Day of Rest. The facts presented in these reports were discussed editorially by the London _Times_ in an article from which the following is quoted.
"Within quite recent years the principle of the weekly rest-day has been enforced, with various practical modifications, in most of the chief Continental countries. It forms, indeed, a striking vindication of the claim for the observance of one day’s rest in seven—which was recognized among Eastern races long before the days of Moses—that while Sunday work has shown a regrettable, if in some ways scarcely avoidable, tendency to increase in this country, steps to restrict it have been widely taken elsewhere. While the English Sunday has been becoming in some respects more ‘Continental,’ the actual Continental Sunday has shown a distinct tendency to approximate to our own. … The review provided by the present report of the legislation already in force in France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Holland, and other leading industrial States gives plenty of examples of the way in which the general principle of making Sunday a day of rest has been accommodated to the necessities of a modern community. The case of France is particularly interesting, since the French method of observing Sunday has traditionally provided the English public with the most familiar contrast with its own. In France the law establishing a statutory weekly day of rest, and making that day Sunday, was passed so recently as in 1906. In common with the similar legislation passed in other countries, it allows partial and carefully regulated exceptions, to provide for the necessary sale of food, and for such uninterrupted attention as is required, for example, by foundries. But the application of the law is both thorough and extensive, while supplementary legislation is to be introduced, with the support of the Government, to extend its benefits to all servants of the State and to all other workers on railways, tramlines, and steamboat services who do not already enjoy it. On the other hand, while the report bears decided witness to the efficiency and success with which the law has been enforced, it notes certain points on which concession is being made by the Government in deference to the strong demands of certain interests which claimed that they were being unjustly sacrificed. …
"The law seems at first to have aroused opposition among many shopkeepers, especially those who were handicapped by competition with rivals whose business was carried on by members of the family, and therefore was not affected by it. … The difficulty is now said to be settling itself, as the public is gradually learning to restrict its shopping to week-days, when there is a wider field of choice. The encouraging evidence provided by the operation of the law of 1906 in France is supported more or less explicitly by the reports forwarded by His Majesty’s representatives in other parts of Europe. The aim and method of the various enactments show a prevailing similarity, and where they have already been sufficiently long in operation for a fair estimate to be made, their success seems to be recognized with but few exceptions. Material is not available in every case for forming a full opinion of the completeness with which the law of rest has been enforced. In Vienna, however, it is expressly reported that its administration is effective; and although no such statement is expressly made in the case of Germany, it appears improbable that the regulations, though less stringent than those of some other States, are lightly disregarded."
The Canadian "Lord’s Day Act" of 1906 is a measure of much stringency. Making numerous well-defined and carefully guarded exceptions for "works of necessity and mercy," and for such railway service as is subject to provincial regulation, the prohibitions of the Act include the following:
"To sell or offer for sale or purchase any goods, chattels, or other personal property, or any real estate, or to carry on or transact any business of his ordinary calling, or in connection with such calling, or for gain to do, or employ any other person to do, on that day, any work, business, or labour." "To require any employee engaged in any work of receiving, transmitting, or delivering telegraph or telephone messages, or in the work of any industrial process, or in connection with transportation, to do on the Lord’s Day the usual work of his ordinary calling, unless such employee is allowed during the next six days of such week twenty-four consecutive hours without labour." "To engage in any public game or contest for gain, or for any prize or reward, or to be present thereat, or to provide, engage in, or be present at any performance or public meeting, elsewhere than in a church, at which any fee is charged, directly or indirectly." "To run, conduct, or convey by any mode of conveyance any excursion on which passengers are conveyed for hire, and having for its principal or only object the carriage on that day of such passengers for amusement or pleasure." "To shoot with or use any gun, rifle or other similar engine, either for gain, or in such a manner or in such places as to disturb other persons in attendance at public worship or in the observance of that day." "To bring into Canada for sale or distribution, or to sell or distribute within Canada, on the Lord’s Day, any foreign newspaper or publication classified as a newspaper."
----------SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES: Start--------
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES: Summary of Decisions (1901-1906) touching the Governmental Regulation of Corporations.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1906.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES: Decision in the Case of the Trans-Missouri Freight Association.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1890-1902.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES: On Constitutionality of Utah Law restricting Hours of Adult Labor in Mines.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1902.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES: In the Northern Securities Case.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D). 1901-1905.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES: In the "Beef Trust" Cases, so-called.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1903-1906.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES: On Interstate Commerce Act of 1887.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1870-1908.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES: Limiting Police Power to regulate Hours of Labor.
See (in this Volume) LABOR PROTECTION: HOURS OF LABOR.
{637}
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES: In the Tobacco Trust Case of Hale vs. Henkel.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1905-1906.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES: Concerning the Isle of Pines.
See (in this Volume) CUBA: A. D. 1907 (APRIL).
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES: In Case of Virginia Railroads vs. the State Corporation Commission of Virginia.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1908 (NOVEMBER).
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES: On the Constitutionality of the "Commodities Clause" of the Hepburn Act.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1906-1909.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES: On the Right of a State to Specially Limit the Hours of Labor for Women.
See (in this Volume) LABOR PROTECTION: HOURS OF LABOR.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES: Limiting State Authority in matters touching Interstate Commerce.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1907-1908.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES: On Law against Rebating in Armour Packing Company Case.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1908.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES: Invalidating Debts to an Illegal Combination.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES: Affirming Fines on the New York Central Railroad Company.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909.
----------SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES: End--------
SUTTNER, BARONESS BERTHA VON.
See (in this Volume) NOBEL PRIZES.
SWADESHI MOVEMENT.
See (in this Volume) INDIA: A. D. 1905-1909.
SWALLOW, SILAS E.: Nomination for President of the United States.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1904 (MARCH-NOVEMBER).
SWARAJ. The Hindu term for self government.
SWAZILAND.
See (in this Volume) SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1909.
"SWEATING," ENGLISH ACT TO SUPPRESS. The Trade Boards Bill.
See (in this Volume) LABOR REMUNERATION: WAGES REGULATION.
----------SWEDEN: Start--------
SWEDEN: A. D. 1901. Unveiling of Monument to John Ericsson. The Nobel Prizes. The First Awarding of them.
A monument to the memory of John Ericsson, the Swedish-American inventor, was unveiled at Stockholm with impressive ceremonies on the 14th of September, 1901, that being the date of the reception of his remains at Stockholm eleven years before.
The first award of the munificent prizes for beneficial services to mankind, instituted by the will of Alfred Bernard Nobel, the eminent Swedish engineer and inventor, was made on the 10th of December, 1901.
See (in this Volume) NOBEL PRIZES.
SWEDEN: A. D. 1903. Agreement for Settlement of Claims against Venezuela.
See (in this Volume) VENEZUELA: A. D. 1902-1904.
SWEDEN: A. D. 1905. Secession of Norway from the Union of Crowns. Acceptance by King Oscar of his Practical Deposition.
See (in this Volume) NORWAY: A. D. 1902-1905.
SWEDEN: A. D. 1906. At the Algeciras Conference on the Morocco Question.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1905-1906.
SWEDEN: A. D. 1908. Municipal Office opened to Women.
See (in this Volume) ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
SWEDEN: A. D. 1908 (April). Treaty with Denmark, England, France, Germany, and the Netherlands, for maintenance of the Status Quo on the North Sea.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1907-1908.
SWEDEN: A. D. 1909. Franchise Reform Legislation.
During many successive years, earnest attempts by the Swedish Government, strongly backed by liberal majorities in the Second or popular Chamber of the Riksdag, to answer the public demand for a broadening of the suffrage, were defeated in the First Chamber, whose members are elected by the provincial Landstings and by municipal corporations. Success was not attained until 1909, when a Franchise Reform Bill, establishing universal suffrage and proportional representation, was passed by the Riksdag on the 10th of February, by larger majorities. According to a Press report from Stockholm, "the leader of the Liberals declared in the Lower House that, though his party had originally opposed it, they would now vote for the Bill, as the country demanded a solution of this long pending question. The Social Democrats and a few extremists of the Liberal party voted against it, considering it unacceptable in principle and inadequate because it excluded female suffrage. In the Upper House the Bill was opposed by a few uncompromising Conservatives, to whom it seemed too democratic."
SWEDEN: A. D. 1909. Lockout and Attempted General Strike.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: SWEDEN.
SWEDEN: A. D. 1909 (October). Arbitration of Frontier Dispute with Norway.
See (in this Volume) NORWAY: A. D. 1909 (OCTOBER).
----------SWEDEN: End--------
SWIFT & COMPANY et al., THE CASE OF THE UNITED STATES AGAINST.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1903-1906.
SWITZERLAND: Backwardness of Woman Suffrage.
See (in this Volume) ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1870-1905. Increase of Population compared with other European Countries.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1870-1905.
SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1902. General Election.
The general election, in October, of representatives in the Federal Assembly, returned 97 Radicals, 35 Catholic Conservatives, 25 Moderate Liberals, 9 Socialists, and 1 Independent, being a total of 167. The previous Chamber had contained but 147, the increase of population having raised the number of representatives.
SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1902. Use of the Referendum and Initiative down to that time.
See (in this Volume) REFERENDUM.
SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1905. Rupture between Radicals and Socialists. Completion of the Simplon Tunnel.
The coalition hitherto maintained between Radical and Socialist parties was broken entirely in the elections of October, 1905, because of the anti-military attitude of the latter, who sought to have all national feeling and policy sunk in international sentiments and principles. The Socialists elected but two representatives in the National Council. In April the completion of the Simplon Railway Tunnel, furnishing a second passage through the Alps, was celebrated with much rejoicing. The work of boring this twelve-mile length of tunnel had been begun in 1898.
See, also, (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: SWITZERLAND.
SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1909. Acquisition of the St. Gothard Tunnel and Railway by the Government.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: SWITZERLAND.
{638}
SYDOW, REINHOLD.
See (in this Volume) GERMANY: A. D. 1908-1909.
SYNDICATES, German.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL (in Germany).
SYNDICATS AND SYNDICALISM, French.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: FRANCE: A. D. 1884-1909.
SZELL MINISTRY.
See (in this Volume) AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1902-1903.
T.
TABAH INCIDENT, THE.
See (in this Volume) EGYPT: A. D. 1905-1906.
TABRIZ, SIEGE OF.
See (in this Volume) PERSIA: A. D. 1908-1909.
TACNA AND ARICA QUESTIONS.
See (in this Volume) CHILE: A. D. 1907.
TAFF-VALE DECISION.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: ENGLAND: A. D. 1900-1906.
----------TAFT, WILLIAM H.: Start--------
TAFT, WILLIAM H. President of the Second Philippine Commission. Civil Governor of the Philippines.
See (in this Volume) PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1901.
TAFT, WILLIAM H. Secretary of War.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1905, and 1905-1909.
TAFT, WILLIAM H. Report on the Purchase of the Friars’ Lands.
See (in this Volume) PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1902-1903.
TAFT, WILLIAM H. Organization of Provisional Government in Cuba.
See (in this Volume) CUBA: A. D. 1906 (AUGUST-OCTOBER).
TAFT, WILLIAM H. Special Report on the Philippine Islands.
See (in this Volume) PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1907.
TAFT, WILLIAM H. Elected President of the United States.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1908 (APRIL-NOVEMBER).
TAFT, WILLIAM H. Inauguration and Inaugural Address. Cabinet Appointments.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909 (MARCH).
TAFT, WILLIAM H. On the Tariff.
See (in this Volume) TARIFFS: UNITED STATES.
TAFT, WILLIAM H. Statement, as President, relative to the Tariff Maximum and Minimum Clause.
See (in this Volume) TARIFFS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1908-1909.
TAFT, WILLIAM H. Tour of the United States. Meeting with President Diaz, of Mexico.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER).
TAFT, WILLIAM H. Legislation Recommended for the Conservation of Natural Resources.
See (in this Volume) CONSERVATION, &c.: UNITED STATES.
TAFT, WILLIAM H. On Injunctions in Labor Disputes and on the Expediting of Civil and Criminal Procedure.
See (in this Volume) LAW AND ITS COURTS: UNITED STATES.
TAFT, WILLIAM H. Special Message on "Trusts" and on Interstate Commerce.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL, &c.: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1910, and RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1910.
----------TAFT, WILLIAM H.: End--------
TAI HUNG CHI.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1906.
TAI HUNG-TZE: GRAND COUNCILLOR OF CHINA.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1909 (October).
TAIREN.
See (in this Volume) DALNY.
TAI-TZE-HO, BATTLES AT THE.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).
TAKAHIRA KOGORO: Japanese Minister at Washington and Plenipotentiary for negotiating Treaty of Peace with Russia.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1905 (JUNE-OCTOBER).
TAKUSHAN HILL, CAPTURE OF.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905 (MAY-JANUARY).
TALIENWAN, Re-named Dalny. Later named Tairen, by the Japanese.
TAMMANY HALL: Struggles with it.
See (in this Volume) NEW YORK CITY.
TANG SHAO YI.
See (in this Volume) OPIUM PROBLEM: CHINA.
TANGIER: A. D. 1905. The German Emperor’s Speech.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1905-1906.
----------TARIFFS: Start--------
TARIFFS: Australia: The question in the First Parliament.
See (in this Volume) AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1901-1902.
TARIFFS: Tariff Excise Act.
See (in this Volume) LABOR REMUNERATION: THE NEW PROTECTION.
TARIFFS: Austria-Hungary: A. D. 1907. Settlement of the Austro-Hungarian Tariff Question.
See (in this Volume) AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1907.
TARIFFS: Balkan States: A. D. 1905. Serbo-Bulgarian Customs Union.
See (in this Volume) BALKAN STATES: BULGARIA AND SERVIA.
TARIFFS: British Empire: A. D. 1909. Resolutions of Empire Congress of Chambers of Commerce.
See (in this Volume) BRITISH EMPIRE: A. D. 1909 (SEPTEMBER).
TARIFFS: Canada: Attitude of Canadian Manufacturers’ Association toward Great Britain and the United States on Tariff Questions.
See (in this Volume) CANADA: A. D. 1903-1905.
TARIFFS: Canada and Germany: German retaliation for Discriminating Duties in Favor of British Goods.
Consequent on the discrimination in favor of British goods which was granted in the Canadian tariff of 1897, Germany took
## action which is explained in the following, from the Canadian
side of the official correspondence that ensued:
"Prior to July 31, 1898, Canada, as a portion of the British Empire, received the most favourable tariff treatment in Germany, under the terms of the treaty which had long existed between that country and Great Britain. On the date named, that treaty, having been denounced by the British Government, ceased to have effect. Provisional agreements have since been entered into from time to time between Great Britain and Germany. Canada, however, has been excluded from the benefit of such agreements. The products of Canada are no longer admitted into Germany on the favoured terms known in the German tariff as 'conventional duties,' but are specially excluded therefrom and made subject to the higher duties of the general tariff. The reason assigned by the German Government for this discrimination against Canada is the enactment by the Dominion of legislation granting preferential tariff rates to the products of Great Britain. {639} The undersigned desires to point out that the policy of the Canadian Government was not designed to give to any foreign nation more favoured treatment than was to be allowed to Germany. The Canadian policy has been confined to a readjustment of the commercial relations of the Dominion with the British Empire of which it is a part, a domestic affair which could hardly be open to reasonable objection by any foreign government. It would therefore seem that the action of Canada afforded no just ground for complaint by Germany. The undersigned is of opinion that there has been some misconception of the Canadian policy in this respect, and hopes that upon further consideration the German Government will see that Canada, in taking the step referred to, did not forfeit her claim to the advantages accorded by Germany to the most-favoured nations."
The German Government, however, maintained with firmness the ground it had taken; but eleven years later, in 1909, a German Canadian Economic Association at Berlin sent delegates to Canada to confer with chambers of commerce and solicit efforts for bettering commercial relations between them. The Montreal Board of Trade declined to take any action, saying, substantially: "the reprisals against Canada were commenced by Germany on account of the granting of preference by the Dominion to Great Britain. If Germany now finds that she has made a mistake the Montreal Board holds that she should restore Canadian products to the conventional tariff, when the Canadian surtax on German goods will be automatically removed."
Finally, an agreement was reached which ended this tariff war between Germany and Canada. Announcement of it was made in the Canadian Parliament on the 15th of February, 1910, and it went into effect on the 1st of March.
TARIFFS: FRANCE: A. D. 1910.
A revision of the tariff, on which the French Parliament had long been engaged, was completed and became law on March 29, 1910, going into effect April 1.
TARIFFS: France-Canada: Commercial Convention with Great Britain concerning Canada.
See (in this Volume) CANADA: A. D. 1907-1909.
TARIFFS: Germany: A. D. 1902-1906. The New Tariff Law and seven Special Tariff Treaties with European Countries. A changed Commercial Policy.
In the Diet of the Empire the committee which had been laboring long and arduously on a tariff bill reported the measure in October, and its increase of duties, which the government did not favour, was stoutly opposed by Socialists, Radicals, and Liberals; but the Conservatives, representing the protected interests, constrained the government to withdraw its opposition and the bill was carried through as a whole, without change.
"How deliberately the Germans go about their tariff policy; how thoroughly they study all the strong and weak points in their adversaries’ positions; with what scientific care they measure their own manifold interests; how carefully they guard, in their work of tariff legislation, against disturbing the stability of existing business conditions may best be seen from the way in which the new tariff has been adopted. As early as 1898—_i. e._, more than five years before the expiration of the old tariff treaties—a Commission of government experts and leading representatives of the industrial and commercial interests was organized to make a detailed study of the needs of every industry whose products were in any way affected by the tariff. After five years of incessant work of that character, in which more than 2,000 experts took part, the new general or so-called ‘autonomous’ tariff was enacted into law (but not put into effect) by the German Reichstag.
"The new tariff law adopted on December 25, 1902, with rates considerably raised, formed the basis of diplomatic bargaining, of which it took more than two years to conclude commercial treaties with the following seven countries: Austria-Hungary, Russia, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Roumania and Servia. These treaties, which considerably reduce some of the rates provided for in the tariff of 1902, were enacted into law on February 22d of this year, [1905], and together form the new so-called ‘conventional’ tariff, which will be applied to all countries enjoying ‘most favored nation’ privileges. Deliberate and cautious as these steps have been, the new tariff is not to be thrust upon the business community of the Empire on short notice, but the country is given one full year in which to adjust itself to the new rates. Hence the date for giving effect to the new tariff law has been set for March 1, 1906."
_N. I. Stone, The New German Customs Tariff (North American Review, September, 1905)._
The chief point of interest for the United States in this law is to be found, not so much in the high rates adopted, as in the statement made in the Reichstag foreshadowing a changed policy on the part of Germany in making new commercial treaties. On the final day of the tariff debate Dr. Paasche, one of the leaders of the majority, asserted that the government had promised that it would no longer extend treaty advantages to other countries than those that reciprocate with corresponding concessions. ‘We expect,’ said Dr. Paasche, ‘that the government will undertake a thorough revision of all the treaties containing the most favored-nation clause. Promises of this kind were made to us in committee. We have absolutely no occasion to concede anything to such nations as are glad to take what we give by treaty to other countries without making us any concessions in return. The United States has introduced a limitation of the most-favored-nation clause; we have every reason to act in precisely the same manner."
_W. C. Dreher, A Letter from Germany (Atlantic Monthly, March, 1903)_.
In March, 1905, a few weeks after the conclusion of the last of the seven special tariff treaties referred to above, which modify the general German tariff of 1902-1906, in favor of the nations which became parties to them, the Consul-General of the United States at Berlin sent to the State Department at Washington the following table, showing, with reference to forty-six of the principal articles of German import from America (1) the then maximum or autonomous duty as paid under the tariff of 1879; (2) the same duties as modified and reduced by then existing treaty concessions; (3) the new autonomous duties that were to go into effect in 1906, and (4) the amounts to which each of these rates of duty would be reduced on merchandise coming from certain of the seven European countries which had just concluded treaties of commerce with Germany.
{640}
The figures show in all cases, unless otherwise specified, the amount in American currency of duty per double centner (100 kilograms or 220.4 pounds):
Merchandise. Tariff New tariff law of Difference. 1902 (to go into (adopted in 1879). effect in 1906).
Maximum. Reduced Autonomous. Reduced by treaty. by treaty.
Wheat $1.19 $0.83 $1.78 $1.30 $0.58
Rye 1.19 .83 1.66 1.19 .47
Oats .95 .67 1.66 1.19 .47
Barley .53 .47 1.66 .95 .71
Corn .47 .38 1.19 .71 .48
Wheat Flour 2.50 1.74 4.36 2.42 1.94
Malt .95 .85 2.44 1.37 1.07
Potatoes Free. Free. .59 1.24 (a)
Hops 4.76 3.38 16.66 4.76 11.90
Dried apples, pears, apricots, peaches .96 .95 2.38 .95 1.43
Dried Prunes 2.38 1.19 1.19
Fresh apples in barrels Free. Free. 2.38 1.19 1.19
Sausages 4.76 4.04 16.66 9.52 7.14
Lard 2.38 2.38 2.97 2.38 .59
Salted Meats 4.76 4.04 10.71 8.33-9.25 2.38-1.46
Butter 4.76 3.80 7.14 4.76 2.38
Cheese 4.76 4.76 7.14 3.57-4.76 3.57-2.38
Eggs .71 .47 1.42 .71 .71
Margarine 4.76 3.80 7.14 4.76 2.38
Wood Alcohol Free Free 4.76 Free. 4.76
Cows and oxen, per head 2.14 2.14 4.28 1.90 2.38
Horses, per head 4.76 4.76 21.42-85.68 7.14-28.56 14.28-57.12
Hogs, per head 1.42 1.19 4.28 2.14 2.14
Shoes, coarse 11.90 11.90 20.23 20.23 …
Shoes, medium 16.66 15.47 28.86 23.80 5.06
Shoes, fine 16.66 15.47 42.84 30.70 7.14
Lumber, rough … … 1.42 .47 .95
Lumber, dressed 2.38 2.38 2.38 2.38 …
Sewing machines 5.71 5.71 8.33 2.85 5.48
Sewing machines, power 5.71 5.71 4.76 1.90 2.86
Electrical machinery
a. Under 500 kilograms ( 1,102 pounds) per 100 kilograms 2.14 2.14 …
b. 500 to 3,000 kilograms (1,102 to 6,614 pounds) 1.66 1.42 .24
c. More than 3,000 kilograms 1.42 .95 .47
Machine tools:
a. 250 kilograms (551 pounds or less), per 100 kilograms. 4.76 2.85 1.91
b. 250 to 1,000 kilograms (551 to 2,205 pounds) 2.85 1.90 .95
c. 1,000 to 3,000 kilograms (2,205 to 6,614 pounds) 1.90 1.42 .48
d. 3,000 to 10,000 kilograms (6,614 to 22,046 pounds) 1.42 1.19 .23
Over 10,000 kilograms .97 .97 …
Telegraph instruments, telephones, electric lighting and power apparatus. 14.28 (b).95-9.52 (b)
Railway and street cars 2.38 .71 1.67
Motor cars and motor bicycles, each:
a. 50 kilograms (110 pounds) or less, each 35.70 … …
b. 50 to 100 kilograms (110 to 220 pounds), each 28.56 … …
c. 100 to 250 kilograms (220 to 550 pounds), each 21.42 … …
d. 250 to 500 kilograms (550 to 1,110 pounds) 14.28 9.52 4.76
e. 500 to 1,000 kilograms (1,110 to 2,220 pounds) 9.52 5.95 3.57
f. 1,000 kilograms and over 4.76 3.57 1.19
(a) Free from August 1 to February 14.
(b) According to weight.
"It needs but a glance at this list," said Consul-General Mason, "to show how important will be the concessions granted to one or more of the seven treaty nations, and how formidable will be their competition in the German market against similar goods coming from countries which, for want of a reciprocal treaty or other convention, will be subject to the autonomous or unmodified tariff in exporting goods into Germany."
On the 1st day of March, 1906, this tariff came into effect, and the tariff arrangements of Germany with the United States, under which the latter had enjoyed important concessions, secured by the "most favored nation" agreement in its commercial treaty with Germany, came to an end.
TARIFFS: A. D. 1909. Economic Results of the Protective System.
See (in this Volume) GERMANY: A. D. 1009 (APRIL).
TARIFFS: Great Britain: A. D. 1909. List of articles on which Import Duties are collected.
The following is a complete list of the articles enumerated in the British tariff as subject to import duties:
Beer; Cards, Playing; Chicory; Cocoa; Coffee; Fruit, dried or otherwise preserved without sugar; Spirits and Strong Waters (including all alcoholic liquors, cordials and other alcoholic preparations); Sugar (including all confectionery, sugar-preserved fruits, and other sugared preparations); Tea; Tobacco, in all forms; Wine.
TARIFFS: A. D. 1909. Question of Preferential Trade raised by Mr. Chamberlain.
See (in this Volume) ENGLAND: A. D. 1903 (MAY-SEPTEMBER).
TARIFFS: The United States: A. D. 1908-1909. The Demand for Tariff Revision. Its Expression in the Presidential Election. The Action of Congress and the President. The Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act.
For more than a decade prior to the presidential election of 1908 the popular demand for a revision of the exorbitantly protective duties imposed by the so-called Dingley Tariff of 1897 had been steadily rising in the United States, and making itself heard by men in public life. It had penetrated the mind of the great captain-general of the protectionist forces. {641} President McKinley, as early as 1901, and his last public utterance, addressed to a multitude at the Pan American Exposition, in Buffalo, on the 5th of September, the day before he was struck down by a murderous anarchist, contained this wise admonition on the subject:
"We have a vast and intricate business, built up through years of toil and struggle, in which every part of the country has its stake, which will not permit of either neglect or of undue selfishness. No narrow, sordid policy will subserve it. The greatest skill and wisdom on the part of manufacturers and producers will be required to hold and increase it. … Our capacity to produce has developed so enormously, and our products have so multiplied, that the problem of more markets requires our urgent and immediate attention. Only a broad and enlightened policy will keep what we have. No other policy will get more. … We must not repose in fancied security that we can forever sell everything and buy little or nothing. If such a thing were possible, it would not be best for us or for those with whom we deal. We should take from our customers such of their products as we can use without harm to our industries and labor. Reciprocity is the natural outgrowth of our wonderful industrial development under the domestic policy now firmly established. What we produce beyond our domestic consumption must have a vent abroad. … If perchance some of our tariffs are no longer needed for revenue or to encourage and protect our industries at home, why should they not be employed to extend and promote our markets abroad?"
TARIFFS: The Party-Platform Promises of 1908.
But President McKinley’s words fell on deaf ears, among those to whom he had been leader and guide in this department of economic policy hitherto. They gave no heed to his new counsels of moderation for seven years. Even treaties of commercial reciprocity, which he had learned to appreciate since his own tariff-making was done, were negotiated in vain by the executive department of Government, to be scorned and rejected by the Senate. By 1908, however, the claim of the many-millioned consumers of the nation, for some relief from the intolerable cost to which almost every necessary of living had been worked up by the protective tariff lever, had risen to a pitch which compelled some attention from the managers of political parties and drew from them promises in the "platforms" prepared for the presidential and congressional canvassing of that year.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1908, APRIL-NOVEMBER)
The National Republican Convention at Chicago, which nominated Mr. Taft for the presidency, made this distinct and emphatic pledge:
"The Republican party declares unequivocally for a revision of the tariff by a special session of Congress, immediately following the inauguration of the next President, and commends the steps already taken to this end, in the work assigned to the appropriate committees of Congress, which are now investigating the operation and effect of existing schedules. In all tariff legislation the true principle of protection is best maintained by the imposition of such duties as will equal the difference between the cost of production at home and abroad, together with a reasonable profit to American industries. We favor the establishment of maximum and minimum rates to be administered by the President under limitations to be fixed in the law, the maximum to be available to meet discriminations by foreign countries against American goods entering their markets, and the minimum to represent the normal measure of protection at home."
The National Convention, at Denver, of the Democratic party, supposedly confirmed in opposition to the whole theory of tariff protection by all its doctrinal history, made this declaration:
"We favor immediate revision of the tariff by the reduction of import duties. Articles entering into competition with trust-controlled products should be placed upon the free list, and material reductions should be made in the tariff upon the necessaries of life, especially upon articles competing with such American manufactures as are sold abroad more cheaply than at home, and graduated reductions should be made in such other schedules as may be necessary to restore the tariff to a revenue basis."
The Republican Party elected its candidate for the presidency, with a majority in Congress, and was given the greater opportunity to redeem its pledge, while the Democratic Party obtained sufficient representation in both branches of Congress to aid and influence the promised revision with important effect. President Taft, in his inaugural address, spoke impressively of the urgent duty thus laid on Congress, saying:
"A matter of most pressing importance is the revision of the tariff. In accordance with the promises of the platform upon which I was elected, I shall call Congress into extra session, to meet on the fifteenth day of March, in order that consideration may be at once given to a bill revising the Dingley act."
TARIFFS: The Making of the Payne-Aldrich Tariff.
The new Congress, as called by the President, was convened on the 15th of March, 1909, and a provisional tariff bill was introduced in the House of Representatives on the 18th by Chairman Payne of its Ways and Means Committee. This Bill was a product of the work of the House Committee of the preceding Congress, which had been giving hearings on successive tariff schedules since November. Naturally the protected interests swarmed to Washington, with attorneys and technical experts, and their side of every argument for and against existing duties was heard in its most persuasive form. Naturally, too, the unprotected consumers, less able to combine, were represented at the hearings in no such potent way, and their side of most arguments, according to all accounts, was but feebly pressed. Mr. Charles Francis Adams, who has the habit of plain speech, wrote a letter to Congressman McCall, of Massachusetts, while these hearings were in progress, in which he characterized a conspicuously greedy part of the clamorers for high duties in terms that were savagely rough, but not entirely undeserved. "Speaking after the fashion of men," he said, "they are either thieves or hogs. I myself belong to the former class. I am a tariff thief, and I have a license to steal. It bears the broad seal of the United States and is what is known as the ‘Dingley Tariff.’ I stole under it yesterday; I am stealing under it today; I propose to steal under it to-morrow. {642} The Government has forced me into this position, and I both do and shall take full advantage of it. I am therefore a tariff thief with a license to steal. And—what are you going to do about it? The other class come under the hog category; that is, they rush, squealing and struggling, to the great Washington protection trough, and with all four feet in it they proceed to gobble the swill. … To this class I do not belong. I am simply a tariff thief. … But, on the other hand, I am also a tariff reformer. I would like to see every protective schedule swept out of existence, my own included. Meanwhile, what inducement have I to go to Washington on a public mission of this sort? A mere citizen, I represent no one. … Meanwhile, have it well understood that my position is exactly the position of tens of thousands of others scattered throughout the country; to ask us to put aside our business affairs and at our own expense to go to Washington on a desperate mission is asking a little too much."
The Bill introduced by Mr. Payne was under debate in the House for three weeks, and passed on the 10th of April. In the Senate it was then nominally taken into consideration by the Finance Committee of that body, but that Committee, in fact, under the dominating lead of its chairman, Senator Aldrich, framed a new and protectively stiffened Bill, changed in 847
## particulars from that of the House. A little more than twelve
weeks were required for this more arduous labor of Mr. Aldrich, which the Senate approved by the passage of the Bill on the 8th of July. On the 9th it went to a conference committee of the two Houses; and there the President’s influence, not much exerted, apparently, until now, wrung a few important concessions to the great public of consumers, which the special interests guarded by a majority in Congress had been determined not to yield. The American people owe it to President Taft’s insistence that their shoes may be cheapened by a free importation of hides, and that lumber for their houses and coal for warming them may come from Canada at a slightly lower rate of duty than before; but he failed to loosen the grip of the woolen and cotton interests on the protected prices at which they are clothed.
After twenty days of battle the conferees reached agreement, July 29; the House adopted their report on the 31st, the Senate on the 5th of August. It was signed at once by the President, and went into effect the next day.
In the House the Bill was adopted by a vote of 195 to 183, twenty Republicans voting against it and two Democrats in its favor. In the Senate the vote stood 47 to 31, the negative including seven Republicans, and one Democratic senator recording himself on the side of the Bill. The opposing Republicans in both Houses were stigmatized as "insurgents," and the autocratic Speaker of the House, Cannon, of Illinois, presumed, so far as the powers of his office would stretch, to "read them out" of their party. In their struggle to secure a more honest fulfilment of the election promises of both
## parties, and more loyalty to the welfare of the people at
large, the Republican "insurgents" had no such compact and earnest support from the Democrats of Congress as even party considerations gave reason to expect.
After signing the Bill, the President gave out a statement for publication, in part as follows:
"I have signed the Payne tariff bill because I believe it to be the result of a sincere effort on the part of the Republican party to make a downward revision, and to comply with the promises of the platform as they have been generally understood, and as I interpreted them in the campaign before election.
"The bill is not a perfect tariff bill or a complete compliance with the promises made, strictly interpreted, but a fulfilment free from criticism in respect to a subject matter involving many schedules and thousands of articles could not be expected. It suffices to say that, except with regard to whiskey, liquors, and wines, and in regard to silks and as to some high classes of cottons—all of which may be treated as luxuries and proper subjects of a revenue tariff—there have been very few increases in rates.
"There have been a great number of real decreases in rates, and they constitute a sufficient amount to justify the statement that this bill is a substantial downward revision, and a reduction of excessive rates.
"This is not a free trade bill. It was not intended to be. The Republican party did not promise to make a free trade bill.
"It promised to make the rates protective, but to reduce them when they exceeded the difference between the cost of production abroad and here, making allowance for the greater normal profit on active investments here. I believe that while this excess has not been reduced in a number of cases, in a great majority, the rates are such as are necessary to protect American industries, but are low enough, in case of abnormal increase of demand, and raising of prices, to permit the possibility of the importation of the foreign article, and thus to prevent excessive prices."
"The administrative clauses of the bill and the customs court are admirably adapted to secure a more uniform and a more speedy final construction of the meaning of the law. The authority to the President to use agents to assist him in the application of the maximum and minimum section of the statute, and to enable officials to administer the law, gives a wide latitude for the acquisition, under circumstances favorable to its truth, of information in respect to the price and cost of production of goods at home and abroad, which will throw much light on the operation of the present tariff and be of primary importance as officially collected data upon which future executive action and executive recommendations may be based.
"The corporation tax is a just and equitable excise measure, which it is hoped will produce a sufficient amount to prevent a deficit, and which, incidentally, will secure valuable statistics and information concerning the many corporations of the country, and will constitute an important step toward that degree of publicity and regulation which the tendency in corporate enterprises in the last twenty years has shown to be necessary."
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TARIFFS: New Apparatus of Tariff Administration.
The President’s remarks in the next to the last paragraph of the above statement have reference to an important section of the Tariff Act, which authorized the creation of a Board of General Appraisers, a Customs Court of Appeals, and an agency for the collection of information. The Board is to consist of nine general appraisers of merchandise, the salary of each to be $9,000 per annum, who shall possess all the powers of a Circuit Court of the United States. To these general appraisers all cases of dissatisfaction with the amount and rates of duties levied by the appraisers and assistant appraisers at the various ports would be referred; the board to exercise both judicial and inquisitorial functions. The Customs Court was to be composed of a presiding Judge and four associate Judges appointed by the President, each to receive a salary of $10,000 per annum; to be a Court of Record, with jurisdiction limited to Customs cases, and to have several judicial circuits, including Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore, New Orleans and Galveston, Chicago, Seattle, Portland and San Francisco, and such other places as may be found necessary.
More important, however, than either of these creations was the third one, embodied in a brief clause of the Act, which reads:
"To secure information to assist the President in the discharge of the duties imposed upon him by this section, and the officers of the Government in the administration of the customs laws, the President is hereby authorized to employ such persons as may be required."
The President availed himself promptly of this permission to have assistance from a commission or bureau of tariff information, and on the 11th of September it was announced that he had chosen for the service three well-qualified gentlemen, namely: Professor Henry C. Emery, of Yale, chairman; James B. Reynolds, of Massachusetts, assistant secretary of the treasury, and Alvin H. Sanders, of Chicago, editor and proprietor of the Breeders’ Gazette. In announcing the selection of the board, the following statement was made at the Executive Offices: "The President and the secretary of the treasury have agreed upon the plan that these three gentlemen are to constitute the board and are to be given authority to employ such special experts as may be needed in the investigation of the foreign and domestic tariff."
The important direction that was given at once by President Taft to this Tariff Board, as he has named it, was explained in his Message to Congress, December 6, 1909, as follows:
"An examination of the law and an understanding of the nature of the facts which should be considered in discharging the functions imposed upon the Executive show that I have the power to direct the tariff board to make a comprehensive glossary and encylopædia of the terms used and articles embraced in the tariff law, and to secure information as to the cost of production of such goods in this country and the cost of their production in foreign countries. I have therefore appointed a tariff board consisting of three members, and have directed them to perform all the duties above described. This work will perhaps take two or three years, and I ask from Congress a continuing annual appropriation equal to that already made for its prosecution. I believe that the work of this board will be of prime utility and importance whenever Congress shall deem it wise again to readjust the customs duties. If the facts secured by the tariff board are of such a character as to show generally that the rates of duties imposed by the present tariff law are excessive under the principles of protection as described in the platform of the successful party at the late election, I shall not hesitate to invite the attention of Congress to this fact, and to the necessity for action predicated thereon. Nothing, however, halts business and interferes with the course of prosperity so much as the threatened revision of the tariff, and until the facts are at hand, after careful and deliberate investigation, upon which such revision can properly be undertaken, it seems to me unwise to attempt it. The amount of misinformation that creeps into arguments pro and con in respect to tariff rates is such as to require the kind of investigation that I have directed the tariff board to make, an investigation undertaken by it wholly without respect to the effect which the facts may have in calling for a readjustment of the rates of duty."
TARIFFS: The Corporation Tax.
The Corporation Tax mentioned in the final paragraph of the President’s statement is one imposed by an incongruous section of the Tariff Act, designed for revenue additional to the expected yield of import duties. It exacts one per cent. of the net earnings in excess of $5000 of all corporations, joint stock companies, and associations organized for profit and having a capital stock represented by shares, and all insurance companies. Foreign corporations are liable for the tax to the extent of their business in the United States. The net income upon which the tax is paid is to be ascertained by deducting from the gross income of the corporation all ordinary and necessary expenses of operation and maintenance; all uncompensated losses actually paid within the year on its bonded or other indebtedness not exceeding the paid-up capital stock; all Federal and State taxes already paid and all amounts received by it as dividends upon stock of other corporations subject to the tax hereby imposed.
Holding corporations were exempted in the original Bill. That exemption was struck out, but the Conference Committee adopted the original clause. Corporations exempted from the tax are:—Labour organizations, fraternal beneficiary societies, orders or associations operating under the lodge system, and providing for the payment of life, sick, accident, and other benefits to their members and dependents; domestic building and loan associations organized and operated exclusively for the mutual benefit of their members, and any corporation or association organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, or educational purposes, no part of the profits of which inures to the benefit of any private stockholder, or individual, but all the profit of which is in good faith devoted to these purposes.
TARIFFS: Two Opposite Views of the new Tariff.
The Payne-Aldrich Tariff has been and will long be a subject of bitterly contentious discussion, from opposite standpoints of disgusted disappointment and happy satisfaction, before a large indifferent audience, which takes such legislation as belonging to an established order of conditions in the United States. For a fair presentation of the conflicting judgments, two carefully chosen reviews of the Act, from the two points of view, by unquestionably representative writers, are quoted below. The first is from President Woodrow Wilson, of Princeton University, as follows:
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"The methods by which tariff bills are constructed have now become all too familiar and throw a significant light on the character of the legislation involved. Debate in the Houses has little or nothing to do with it. The process by which such a bill is made is private, not public; because the reasons which underlie many of the rates imposed are private. The stronger faction of the Ways and Means Committee of the House makes up the preliminary bill, with the assistance of ‘experts’ whom it permits the industries most concerned to supply for its guidance. The controlling members of the Committee also determine what amendments, if any, shall be accepted, either from the minority faction of the Committee or from the House itself. It permits itself to be dictated to, if at all, only by the imperative action of a party caucus. The stronger faction of the Finance Committee of the Senate, in like fashion, frames the bill which it intends to substitute for the one sent up from the House. It is often to be found at work on it before any bill reaches it from the popular chamber. The compromise between the two measures is arranged in private conference by conferees drawn from the two committees. What takes place in the committees and in the conference is confidential. It is considered impertinent for reporters to inquire. It is admitted to be the business of the manufacturers concerned, but not the business of the public, who are to pay the rates. The debates which the country is invited to hear in the open sessions of the Houses are merely formal. They determine nothing and disclose very little. …
"One extraordinary circumstance of the debates in the Senate should receive more than a passing allusion. The Republican party platform had promised that the tariff rates should be revised and that the standard of revision should be the differences between the cost of producing the various articles affected in this country and in the countries with which our manufacturers compete. One of our chief industrial competitors is now Germany, with its extraordinary skill in manufacture and the handicrafts and its formidable sagacity in foreign trade; and the Department of State, in order to enable Congress the more intelligently to fulfil the promises of the party, had, at the suggestion of the President, requested the German Government to furnish it with as full information as possible about the rates of wages paid in the leading industries of that country,—wages being known, of course, to be one of the largest items in the cost of production. The German Government of course complied, with its usual courtesy and thoroughness, transmitting an interesting report, each portion of which was properly authenticated and vouched for. The Department of State placed it at the disposal of the Finance Committee of the Senate. But Senators tried in vain to ascertain what it contained. Mr. Aldrich spoke of it contemptuously as ‘anonymous,’ which of course it was not, as ‘unofficial,’ and even as an impertinent attempt, on the part of the German Government, to influence our tariff legislation. It was only too plain that the contents of the report made the members of the controlling faction of the Finance Committee very uncomfortable indeed. … It would have proved that the leaders of the party were deliberately breaking its promise to the country. It was, therefore, thrown into a pigeonhole and disregarded. It was a private document.
"In pursuance of the same policy of secrecy and private management, the bill was filled with what those who discovered them were good-natured or cynical enough to call ‘jokers,’ —clauses whose meaning did not lie upon the surface, whose language was meant not to disclose its meaning to the members of the Houses who were to be asked to enact them into law, but only to those by whom the law was to be administered after its enactment. This was one of the uses to which the ‘experts’ were put whom the committees encouraged to advise them. They knew the technical words under which meanings could be hidden, or the apparently harmless words which had a chance to go unnoted or unchallenged. Electric carbons had been taxed at ninety cents per hundred; the new bill taxed them at seventy cents per hundred _feet_;—an apparent reduction if the word feet went unchallenged. It came very near escaping the attention of the Senate, and did quite escape the attention of the general public, who paid no attention at all to the debates, that the addition of the word feet almost doubled the existing duty.
"The hugest practical joke of the whole bill lay in the so-called maximum and minimum clause. The schedules as they were detailed in the bill and presented to the country, through the committees and the newspapers,—the schedules by which it was made believe that the promise to the country of a ‘downward’ revision was being kept by those responsible for the bill, were only the minimum schedules. There lay at the back of the measure a maximum provision about which very little was said, but the weight of which the country may come to feel as a very serious and vexatious burden in the months to come. In the case of articles imported from countries whose tariff arrangements discriminate against the United States, the duties are to be put at a maximum which is virtually prohibitive. The clause is a huge threat. Self-respecting countries do not yield to threats or to ‘ impertinent efforts on the part of other Governments, to affect their tariff legislation.’ Where the threat is not heeded we shall pay heavier duties than ever, heavier duties than any previous Congress ever dared impose.
"When it is added that not the least attempt was made to alter the duties on sugar by which every table in the country is taxed for the benefit of the Sugar Trust, but just now convicted of criminal practices in defrauding the Government in this very matter; that increased rates were laid on certain classes of cotton goods for the benefit, chiefly, of the manufacturers of New England, from which the dominant party always counts upon getting votes, and that the demand of the South, from which it does not expect to get them, for free cotton bagging was ignored; that the rates on wool and woollen goods, a tax which falls directly upon the clothing of the whole population of the country, were maintained unaltered; and that relief was granted at only one or two points,—by conceding free hides and almost free iron ore, for example,—upon which public opinion had been long and anxiously concentrated; and granted only at the last moment upon the earnest solicitation of the President,—nothing more need be said to demonstrate the insincerity, the uncandid, designing, unpatriotic character of the whole process. It was not intended for the public good. It was intended for the benefit of the interests most directly and selfishly concerned."
_Woodrow Wilson, The Tariff Make-Believe (North American Review, October, 1909)._
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The second quotation is from an article in _The Atlantic Monthly_, by Honorable Samuel W. McCall, Congressman from Massachusetts, setting forth reasons for a moderate satisfaction with the Act:
"The certain method of determining just what the Payne Act does, is, as I have said, to take its paragraphs in detail and scrutinize the new duties in comparison with those which they have supplanted. Such a course will show the exact character and number of the increases and decreases. Those who have no other means of comparison at hand may safely take the table prepared by the Honorable Champ Clark of Missouri, Democratic leader in the House of Representatives, and produced by him July 31 last, in his speech in the House of Representatives against the Conference Report on the bill. It is true that in commenting upon it he showed that he was a trifle rusty on his Cobden, and made the amount of actual revenue the test,—a method only less weird than that based upon the average ad valorem, for it is demonstrable that a purely free-trade tariff after the British model would provide us a greater revenue than does the Payne Act. While the table given by Mr. Clark exaggerates in some cases the extent of the increases, it will clearly appear from it that on the whole the decreases so vastly outnumber the increases as to make the new law seem almost revolutionary in character. If one takes the schedules in their order, he will find in the first schedule, which relates to chemicals, that the increases are a bare half-dozen in number, and include fancy soaps and alkaloids of opium and cocaine, while the decreases are more than fifty, and include many of the articles which are in general consumption, such as sulphur, various forms of soda, potash, lead, and sulphate of ammonia, the last of which is put on the free list.
"The second schedule shows a slight increase upon the smaller sizes of plate glass, and this increase is many times offset by decreases upon fire and other brick, gypsum, various kinds of window-glass, nearly all the grades of marble, and other important articles.
"In the metal schedule there is an increase in fabricated structural steel, zinc ore, and a very few other items, some of which relate to articles not manufactured when the Dingley law was passed; but, on the other hand, the basic article of iron ore is reduced from forty to fifteen cents per ton, the lowest ad valorem that it has had in the history of the country; pig iron is reduced from four dollars to two dollars and a half per ton, scrap iron and steel from four dollars to one dollar per ton, bar iron from six-tenths to three-tenths of a cent a pound, cotton ties from five-tenths to three-tenths of a cent per pound, steel rails from seven dollars and eighty-four cents to three dollars and ninety-two cents per ton. There are nearly a hundred other reductions in the metal schedule: in fact, the reductions in this schedule are so general, and in some cases so drastic, that it may be said, practically, that these duties have been cut in two.
"The lumber schedule shows but two unimportant increases, while the schedule generally is cut nearly forty per cent. One grade of sawed boards is reduced from one dollar to fifty cents per thousand feet, and all other sawed lumber from two dollars to a dollar and a quarter per thousand. Fence posts are put on the free list. Dressed lumber, telephone poles, railroad ties, and other important products of wood, are very much reduced.
"Notwithstanding the attempt that is being made to create a sectional feeling in the West, the only schedule covering necessary articles in which increases predominate is the agricultural schedule. The duties are also increased upon champagnes and other wines, brandy, ale, beer, tobacco, silks, high-priced laces, and various other articles, which for want of a better term, are called luxuries.
"Bituminous coal is reduced from sixty-seven cents to forty-seven cents per ton, which with the exception of a very brief period, is in value the lowest duty we have ever imposed upon it.
"Agricultural implements are reduced, and a provision added admitting them free of duty from any country which admits our agricultural machinery free.
"Works of art more than twenty years old are put on the free list.
"Hides of cattle are put on the free list, and an enormous reduction made, not merely on all the products of these hides, but on nearly all articles of leather. Sole leather is cut from twenty to five per cent ad valorem, upper leather from twenty to seven and a half per cent, and boots and shoes from twenty-five to fifteen per cent, and, on important kinds, to ten per cent. … The two great textile schedules are practically unchanged. The wool duty is politically the most powerful of any in the tariff. The farmers of the country have been pretty thoroughly educated to the belief, whether rightly or wrongly, that the free-wool agitation, culminating in the tariff of 1894, was responsible for the slaughter of their flocks. Their representatives formed the strongest single element behind the passage of the Dingley law; and, in the session just ended, their strength was so great as to discourage any assault upon the wool duties. These duties range from forty to more than one hundred per cent of the value, and so long as they are maintained at such a high point it is idle to talk of any very material reduction on woolens or worsteds. The centre of the entire schedule is the duty upon wool. … Every duty in this schedule from top to bottom might have been cut ten per cent without trenching upon the necessary amount of protection.
"The Dingley duties upon cottons were greatly less than those in the woolen schedule. This was doubtless due to the fact that we are the great cotton-producing nation, and our manufacturers are at no disadvantage in raw material with any of their foreign competitors. … These duties are so complicated that it is difficult for one who is not an expert to understand them; but according to the best experts, they are, at least, no higher in the Payne Act than the Dingley duties were intended to be, and were interpreted to be for four years after the passage of the act."
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The following is from an article in the _American Review of Reviews, September, 1909:_
"Summing up the changes made in the tariff as shown in the various Senate documents, the new act has increased the Dingley rates in 300 instances, while reducing them in 584 cases. The increases affect commodities imported in 1907 to the value of at least $105,844,201, while the reductions affect not more than $132,141,074 worth of imports. Four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of imports (on the basis of 1907) remain subject to the same duties as under the Dingley tariff. That is to say, 65 per cent of the total imports remain subject to the old rates, more than fifteen per cent of the total will be subject to higher duties, the average increase amounting to 31 per cent. over the Dingley rates; and less than 20 per cent. of the imports are to be subject to lower duties, the reduction being estimated about 23 per cent. below the Dingley rates. All of these figures greatly underestimate the increases of duty for the following reasons: First they do not take into account the numerous changes (nearly all increases of duty) due to classification, similar to the instances cited in the case of sawn wood, structural iron, and cotton cloth; second a large part of the imports subject to ad valorem duties will now be assessed on the basis of domestic prices instead of the prices in foreign markets (with due allowance for freight and duty), as has hitherto been the case; and, finally, the possibility, even if remote, of the application of maximum rates to imports from some of the foreign countries, which will amount on the average to an increase of more than 50 per cent. over the new rates. The real increase of duty will not be accurately known for a year, until we have full returns of the imports and duties actually levied under the new law under the decisions of the Board of General Appraisers and the new Customs Court."
TARIFFS: Certain Outside Effects.
As between the United States and France, the situation produced by the new Tariff Act, which caused existing commercial agreements between the two countries to be abrogated on the 31st of October, 1909, was explained as follows in a Press despatch of September 22 from Washington:
"The State Department has received from Consul-General Mason at Paris the text of the announcement by the French government of the abrogation of the several commercial agreements with the United States by the action of President Taft in conformity with the provisions of our new tariff act.
"‘Under and in consequence of these conditions,’ the French announcement says, ‘there is reason to decide that the decrees dated July 7, 1893, May 28, 1898, and February 21, 1903, which constitute the measure of the application of the Franco-American agreement for merchandise produced in the United States and the Island of Porto Rico shall cease to be enforced on October 31, 1909.’
"On that date the articles produced in the United States and exported to France will pay what is known in France as its general tariff, but which in effect is its maximum rates of duty. The principal articles of export from the United States under this agreement are mineral oils and coffee from Porto Rico. At the same time articles imported from France into the United States under these agreements will pay our regular or highest rate. These include canned meats, fresh and dried fruits, manufactured and prepared pork meats, lard, and a few other articles of less importance."
The effect of the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act on trade between the United States and Canada was left an open question, dependent on a decision which President Taft must make on or before April 1, 1910. Section 2 of the Law expressly provides the President with power to treat "any dependency, colony, or other political subdivision having authority to adopt and enforce tariff legislation" as a separate fiscal entity. The question for the President to decide is whether Canada, by reason of her preferential treatment of the Mother Country or by reason of the commercial treaty which she is about to conclude with France, will be judged guilty of "undue discrimination" and unworthy of the _minimum_ rates.
Looked at from the English standpoint, it is thought that he "can hardly declare so natural a relationship as the existing British preference to be ‘unduly’ discriminatory when a similar relationship exists between Cuba and the United States, and when Porto Rico, Hawaii, and the Philippines actually enjoy reciprocal free trade with America and with America alone."
A more practical consideration in the matter, however, is that suggested in the following, from a Boston newspaper, which remarks:
"According to the Department of Commerce and Labor, there are now 147 branch factories in Canada, representing a capital of $125,000,000, established by United States concerns which formerly supplied their Canadian trade with the product of industry on this side the national border. This is the result of retaliatory legislation in Canada invited by our own tariff against Canadian imports. If further tariff war is invited by the imposition of the maximum schedules against Canada, still more United States capital will go over the line to provide employment and wages for Canadian workmen."
The _Monetary Times_, of Toronto, made an exhaustive inquiry on this subject late in 1909, and found 168 American manufacturing concerns in Canada, representing an estimated investment of $226,000,000.
The spirit in which President Taft will interpret the maximum and minimum clause of the Act, and exercise his discretion in applying it, was indicated by him in his Message to Congress, December 6, 1909, when he said: "By virtue of the clause known as the ‘Maximum and Minimum’ clause, it is the duty of the Executive to consider the laws and practices of other countries with reference to the importation into those countries of the products and merchandise of the United States, and if the Executive finds such laws and practices not to be _unduly discriminatory_ against the United States, the minimum duties provided in the bill are to go into force. Unless the President makes such a finding, then the maximum duties provided in the bill, that is, an increase of 25 per cent. ad valorem over the minimum duties, are to be in force. Fear has been expressed that this power conferred and duty imposed on the Executive is likely to lead to a tariff war. I beg to express the hope and belief that no such result need be anticipated.
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"The discretion granted to the Executive by the terms ‘unduly discriminatory’ is wide. In order that the maximum duty shall be charged against the imports from a country, it is necessary that he shall find on the part of that country not only discrimination in its laws or the practice under them against the trade of the United States, but that the discriminations found shall be undue; that is, without good and fair reason. I conceive that this power was reposed in the President with the hope that the maximum duties might never be applied in any case, but that the power to apply them would enable the President and the State Department through friendly negotiation to secure the elimination from the laws and the practice under them of any foreign country of that which is unduly discriminatory. No one is seeking a tariff war or a condition in which the spirit of retaliation shall be aroused."
On the 19th of January, 1910, the President issued the first of his proclamations relative to the operation of the maximum and minimum rates of duty. Six countries, namely Great Britain, Russia, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and Turkey, were designated as entitled to the minimum rates. Negotiations with Germany and France were understood to be still in progress, which might, it was hoped, clear away the differences that obstructed a similar concession to those countries. In the case of Germany, the difficulty related to the exclusion of American meats.
A second proclamation, February 7, announced the conclusion of an agreement with Germany which gave to each country the minimum rates of the other. This agreement had been ratified by the Reichstag on the 5th.
Negotiations with France and with Canada occupied more time, being protracted in the latter case almost to the limit of the period prescribed in the Act. Terms of agreement were arrived at in both instances, and, in the end, the President was not called on to apply the maximum rates to any country.
----------TARIFFS: End--------
TARSUS: Moslem attack on Armenians.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1909 (JANUARY-MAY).
TARTARS: Holy War against Armenians in the Caucasus.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1905 (FEBRUARY-NOVEMBER).
TASHINCHIAO, Battle of.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN; A. D. 1904 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).
TAVERA, DR. T. H. PARDO DE.
See (in this Volume) PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1901.
TAXATION: Graduated Taxation of Land.
See (in this Volume) NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1905.
TAXATION: Progressive Taxation of Fortunes.
See (in this Volume) WEALTH, THE PROBLEMS OF.
TAYLOR, EDWARD R.
See (in this Volume) MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: SAN FRANCISCO.
TEACHERS: English and American Interchange of Visits.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: INTERNATIONAL INTERCHANGES.
TEAMSTERS’ UNION: Strike at Chicago.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1905 (APRIL-JULY).
TECHNICAL EDUCATION.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION.
TEHERAN: TEHRAN: Revolutionary events in.
See (in this Volume) PERSIA.
TELEGRAPHERS’ STRIKE: In France.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: FRANCE: A. D. 1909 (MARCH-MAY).
TELEGRAPHERS’ STRIKE: In Russia.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1904-1905.
TELEGRAPHERS’ STRIKE: In the United States.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1907.
TELEGRAPHY.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE AND INVENTION: ELECTRICAL.
TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH MERGER, United States.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL, &c.: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909.
TELISSU, Battle of.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (FEBRUARY-JULY).
TELLES, Sebastião.
See (in this Volume) PORTUGAL: A. D. 1906-1909.
TEMPERANCE.
See (in this Volume) ALCOHOL PROBLEM.
TENEMENT HOUSE REFORM.
See (in this Volume) NEW YORK: A. D. 1900-1903.
TERRITORIAL FORCE, THE BRITISH.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR: MILITARY.
TEWFIK PASHA.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1908 (JULY-DECEMBER), and after.
TEXAS: A. D. 1906-1909. Successful Prosecution of the Waters-Pierce Oil Company.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL, &C.: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1904-1909.
THEOTOKIS MINISTRY.
See (in this Volume) GREECE: A. D. 1906, and 1909.
THIBET.
See TIBET.
THOMSON, Sir Joseph: Presidential Address to British Association for the Advancement of Science, at Winnipeg.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE AND INVENTION: RECENT: PHYSICAL.
THOMSON, J. J.
See (in this Volume) NOBEL PRIZES.
TIBET: A. D. 1902. Russo-Chinese Treaty for Control of the Country.
"A Russo-Chinese treaty concerning Tibet was negotiated [in the later months of 1902] … by Yung-lu. And as it had to be notified to the Chief-Lamas of the different Buddhist countries, it became possible to obtain the confidential communication of its text immediately on its conclusion. This text, which I published a month ago in the _Frankfurter Zeitung_, and which has since been admitted as correct by Russian semi-official papers, runs as follows:
"Article 1st. Tibet being a territory situated between Central China and Western Siberia, Russia and China are mutually obliged to care for the maintenance of peace in that country. In case troubles should arise in Tibet, China, in order to preserve this district, and Russia, in order to protect her frontiers, shall despatch thither military forces on mutual notification.
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"Article 2nd. In case of apprehension of a third Power’s contriving, directly or indirectly, troubles in Tibet, Russia and China oblige themselves to concur in taking such measures as may seem advisable for repressing such troubles.
"Article 3d. Entire liberty in what concerns Russian orthodox as well as Lamaist worship will be introduced in Tibet; but all other religious doctrines will be absolutely prohibited. For this purpose, the Grand-Lama and the Superintendent of the Orthodox Peking Mission are bound to proceed amicably and by mutual assent, so as to guarantee the free propagation of both religions and take all necessary measures for avoiding religious disputes.
"Article 4th. Tibet shall be made, gradually, a country with an independent inner administration. In order to accomplish this task, Russia and China are to share the work. Russia takes upon herself the reorganisation of the Tibetan military forces on the European model, and obliges herself to carry into effect this reform in a good spirit and without incurring blame from the native population. China, for her part, is to take care of the development of the economic situation of Tibet, and especially of her progress abroad."
_Alexander Ular, England, Russia, and Tibet (Contemporary Review, December, 1902)._
TIBET: A. D. 1902-1904. British Enforcement of Unfulfilled Promises. The Peaceful Mission of Colonel Younghusband which forced its way to Lhasa.
For a dozen years prior to 1902 there had been unfulfilled promises from China to India of a settlement of trade relations between Tibet and the latter, so far as the nominal suzerain at Peking had power to settle them. In that year the Chinese Government proposed to send a Commissioner to the Tibetan frontier to discuss matters there, and the Viceroy of India, assenting promptly to the proposal, commissioned Colonel Younghusband, in June, 1903, to proceed, with the British Political Officer in Sikkim, to Khamba Jong, for a meeting with Chinese and Tibetan representatives. The mission was escorted by 200 native troops, and reached the meeting place in July, but found no Chinese or Tibetan envoys on the spot. It remained encamped at the appointed place for six months or more, Colonel Younghusband returning personally meantime to Simla to report the situation and receive instructions. A reserve force was stationed in Sikkim to protect the mission in case of need.
Early in 1904 the mission moved forward, over the Tang Pass, to Tuna, where it halted again until the end of March, no envoys appearing, but many marks of hostility shown. Then, after being reinforced,—as the intention of Tibetans to oppose its further advance had become plain,—its march was resumed. Thrice attacked within the next few days and forced to severe fighting, it reached Gyangtse on the 11th of April, where it was halted again until near the end of June, in a camp established on the plain. There Colonel Younghusband received a communication from the Chinese Resident or Amban at Lhasa, promising to meet him in three weeks. This was followed immediately however by a fierce attack of the Tibetans on the British camp. The assault was repelled, but bombardment of the camp was opened from a neighboring fort. The Mission now abandoned attempts to maintain its peaceful character, and with approval of the governments behind it, both in India and Great Britain, prepared to force its way to Lhasa and extort fulfilment of the promises on the strength of which it had been sent. General Macdonald, who held the military command, brought up further reinforcements, and the expedition, now numbering about 1000 British and 2000 native troops, after capturing the fort at Gyangtse which had harassed it, set forth on its march to Lhasa July 14th. It met with slight resistance in the Karola Pass, across which a wall had been built; but otherwise it found little but the natural obstacles of the mountain country to overcome. Lhasa was reached, but not entered in force, on August 3d. The Dalai Lama had left the city, but had appointed an intelligent monk to act as regent in his place. With him and with the Chinese Amban Colonel Younghusband succeeded in negotiating the treaty desired, which was signed September 7th. As soon as possible thereafter the expedition started on its return, but suffered severely from the cold and snows of the mountains before India was reached. Its total death roll was 411, of which only 37 officers and men had died from battle-wounds.
By the treaty secured, the Tibetan Government was pledged to carry out former agreements concerning the marking of boundaries and the opening of trade at three marts; to arrange a fixed tariff; to maintain certain roads from the frontier; and to make no territorial, political, or commercial concession to any foreign Power without granting similar or equivalent concessions to Great Britain. It also undertook to pay an indemnity for the cost of the British expedition, pending the payment of which the Chumbi Valley should be held by a British force.
TIBET: A. D. 1907. Convention between Great Britain and Russia relative to Tibet.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1907 (AUGUST).
TIBET: A. D. 1910. Chinese Authority strengthened in Tibet. Flight of the Dalai Lama. His formal Deposition.
The Dalai Lama, who had fled from Lhasa in 1904, on the approach of the British expeditionary force under Colonel Younghusband, did not return to Tibet until more than five years later. Meantime he had visited Peking, where he was coldly received, and seems to have wandered widely through the Empire. During his absence the Chinese authority in Tibet had been strengthened, and his return was followed by a considerable reinforcement of troops to support the Ambans who represent the Chinese Government at Lhasa. Exactly what friction arose then has not yet been made clear; but, in February, 1910, the Lama fled again from his capital, into India, and on the 25th he was solemnly deposed from his sacred office by an imperial decree.
TIEN-TSIN: Delivered to the Chinese Viceroy.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1902.
TIGER HILL.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (FEBRUARY-JULY).
TILAK, BAL GANGADHAR: His Trial and Imprisonment.
See (in this Volume) INDIA: A. D. 1907-1908.
TIRPITZ, Admiral: On German Navy-building.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR: NAVAL.
TISZA MINISTRY.
See (in this Volume) AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1902-1903; 1905-1906.
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TITTONI MINISTRY.
See (in this Volume) ITALY: A. D. 1905-1906.
TOBACCO FARMERS’ UNION, IN KENTUCKY: Its Night-Riders.
See (in this Volume) KENTUCKY: A. D. 1905-1909.
TOBACCO TRUST: Suit of the Government against it. Report of Commissioner of Corporations.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL, &c.: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1906; 1905-1906; 1907-1909; and 1909.
TOGO, Admiral: In the Russo-Japanese War.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (FEBRUARY-JULY), and after.
TOLSTOI, COUNT LYOFF: His Challenge to the Russian Government.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1909.
TOMUCHENG.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).
TORONTO: A. D. 1909. Meeting of International Council of Women.
See (in this Volume) WOMEN, INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF.
TOWN-PLANNING LEGISLATION.
See (in this Volume) SOCIAL BETTERMENT: ENGLAND; A. D. 1909.
TRADE BOARDS BILL, THE ENGLISH.
See (in this Volume) LABOR REMUNERATION: WAGES REGULATION.
TRADE UNIONS. Disputes. Agreements:
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION.
TRANSANDINE RAILWAY TUNNEL.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: ARGENTINE-CHILE.
_en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transandine_Railway_
TRANS-MISSOURI FREIGHT ASSOCIATION, The Case of the.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1890-1902.
TRANSVAAL, THE.
See (in this Volume) SOUTH AFRICA.
TREPOFF.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1904-1905.
TRIPLE ALLIANCE, THE: A. D. 1902. Renewal.
The Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy, originally negotiated in 1879, was renewed in June, 1902, for twelve years from May, 1903.
TRIPLE ALLIANCE, THE: A. D. 1905. Effect of the Defeat of Russia in the War with Japan.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1904-1909.
TROUBETZKOI, PRINCE S. N.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1905-1907.
TRUSTS.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL, &c.
TSAI-TSE, PRINCE: HIS MISSION ABROAD.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1905-1908.
TSONTSHEFF, GENERAL: Operations in Macedonia.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1902-1903.
TSUSHIMA, NAVAL BATTLE OF.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905 (OCTOBER-MAY).
TUBERCULOSIS, THE CRUSADE AGAINST.
See (in this Volume) PUBLIC HEALTH.
TUNG FANG.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1906.
TURBINE ENGINE.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT.
----------TURKEY: Start--------
TURKEY: A. D. 1901. The Bulgarian Committee which directs Revolutionary Operations in Macedonia. Its Instructions to the Bands and Control of their Murders.
"The Committee which was originally formed at Sofia for the purpose of conducting the nationalist campaign among the Macedonians has been the dominant factor in the later developments of the Macedonian problem, and is directly responsible for all the periodical outbreaks which students of Eastern politics have been accustomed to look for at the approach of spring during the last few years. The nature of this Society will be clearly appreciated from the following document, which sets forth in unequivocal terms both the Committee’s mission and the means resorted to for its fulfilment. This document was seized on the Bulgarian conspirators who in the spring of 1901 were arrested at Salonica, tried, sentenced to fifteen years’ incarceration at Rhodes, and permitted to escape a few months after. I obtained a literal translation of it from an official source at the time …:
"‘Each armed band to consist of Bulgarians belonging to each
## particular district. Their duty is to carry out secretly the
orders given by the president of the committee. The bands are armed with weapons furnished by the Committee. These bands are formed by the revolutionary committees of each district or village, and receive the military training necessary for their purpose. These bands depend on the committees, and in their turn distribute arms among those whom they enrol or gain over to the cause. … The armed bands are placed under the command of the local committees in accordance with the following rules:
"‘To obey received instructions. By means of persuasion or intimidation to place new recruits at the committees’ disposal. To put to death the persons indicated by the committees. … Each band, under the command of the revolutionary committee established in the district, to be ready to raise the standard of revolt on being so ordered by the local committee, which cannot act except by the order of the president of the Sofia committee. … The bands shall also commit political crimes: that is to say, they shall kill and put out of the way any person who will attempt to hinder them from attaining their ends, and shall immediately inform the Sofia committee of the crimes committed. The instructions of the bands must be kept quite secret, as the least indiscretion may lead to great disaster. … "Acts of personal vengeance, attacks on villages, and generally all kinds of unauthorised attempts to raise a revolution are strictly forbidden, and those who are guilty of such acts will be sentenced to death. No murder shall be committed by the bands without a previous decision taken by the committee, except those which are inevitable in an accidental encounter.’
"The reports of the action of the Committee in Macedonia during the last twelve months alone form a _dossier_ which leaves little doubt to the reader of average candour that the regulations printed above are not allowed to remain a dead letter, but that practice goes hand in hand with, or rather outstrips, precept. The exploits of the Committee and its brigands in the country may be classed under three heads: extortion, intimidation, provocation. …
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"Cases of wanton massacre, though not so numerous as the atrocities committed with a material object in view, are not uncommon. The victims in these cases are generally Mohammedans. … The motive of these outrages is purely to provoke reprisals—that is, a general massacre—and then pose as the victims of Turkish cruelty and fanaticism, a cry which never fails to move the nations of Europe to sympathy and their Governments to intervention."
_G. F. Abbott, The Macedonian Question (Nineteenth Century, March, 1903)._
TURKEY: A. D. 1901-1902. Abduction of Miss Ellen M. Stone, by Brigands. The Ransom paid for her Release.
In a communication to the President of the United States, March 24, 1908, the Secretary of State, Mr. Root, recited the circumstances which attended the abduction by brigands, in 1901, of Miss Ellen M. Stone, an American missionary to Turkey, as she travelled the highway from Raslog to Djumabala in the Turkish Empire, and the necessary payment of a ransom to her captors, to secure her release. In the judgment of Mr. Root the Government should refund the ransom money to the citizens from whom it was obtained by subscription at the time, and his communication, as follows, was to that end:
"Our diplomatic and consular representatives in Turkey, in correspondence with the Department of State, shortly after the capture, indicated their belief that the motive therefor was to obtain a ransom, and stated that they had requested the Turkish officials to abstain from too close pursuit of the brigands, lest the death of the captured might result. From later correspondence with our representatives it appeared that the brigands had retired to the mountains with the captive, probably over the border into Bulgaria. The exact location of the party during the captivity, however, is not established by any evidence in the possession of the Department of State, nor does it appear clearly of what government the bandits were subjects.
"About October 1, 1901, the bandits opened negotiations for a ransom, demanding £25,000, and transmitting a letter from Miss Stone, asking that the sum demanded be paid and that pursuit of the brigands by the Turkish troops be stopped. Our diplomatic representatives were of the opinion that Miss Stone’s release could only be obtained by the payment of the ransom, and the State Department shared this view. Miss Stone’s friends, of course, entered into correspondence with the Department regarding the payment of the ransom, and were told that it must be raised by private means.
"On October 3, 1901, the State Department wrote to the Reverend Judson Smith, of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Boston, Massachusetts, as follows: ‘It seems imperative that the amount (of the ransom) should be raised or pledged, so as to be available by your treasurer at Constantinople in season to save Miss Stone. Statutory prohibitions make it impossible for this Government to advance the money or guarantee its payment. If paid by Miss Stone’s friends, every effort will be made to obtain reimbursement from whichever government may be found responsible under international law and precedent. In the event of its proving impossible to hold any foreign government responsible for the capture and to secure the repayment of the money, this Government is willing in the last resort to urge upon Congress as strongly as possible to appropriate money to repay the missionaries.’
"It is claimed that this assurance given by the Department in its letter to Mr. Smith, to the effect that, as a last resort, a recommendation would be made to Congress looking toward the appropriation of a sum sufficient to pay the donors, was largely instrumental in enabling Miss Stone’s friends to secure the sum of $66,000, which was raised through public subscription in this country by October 23, 1901, for the purpose of effecting Miss Stone’s release. After negotiations of considerable length, the brigands finally consented to accept the amount raised and arrangements were made by United States Minister Leishman for the payment of the money at a point near Bansko, Macedonia, the Turkish authorities consenting to withhold their troops from the vicinity of the place in order that the negotiations might have a successful issue. The release of the captive was not obtained so soon as expected, but was finally reported by Minister Leishman on February 23, 1902.
"After careful consideration of all the facts my predecessor, Mr. Hay, decided on January 19, 1905, that it was not advisable to attempt to hold the Turkish Government responsible for the capture and to secure the repayment of the money. Upon the subsequent application for reconsideration of this decision Mr. Hay again, on April 11, 1905, reaffirmed the judgment which he had originally expressed. Upon a further review of the same subject I have come to the conclusion that it is not advisable to reverse or change the conclusion which Mr. Hay reached.
"It would seem, therefore, that the Executive Department is bound to make good its promise to recommend to Congress that money be appropriated to repay the ransom money, a promise which was probably relied upon by many of those who contributed of their private means to save the life of an American citizen believed to be in the gravest peril. Accordingly I have the honor to advise that Congress be recommended to appropriate an amount sufficient to repay the contributors."
_60th Congress 1st Session, Senate Document No. 408._
TURKEY: A. D. 1902-1903. Conventions for Building the Bagdad Railway.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: TURKEY: A. D. 1899-1909.
TURKEY: A. D. 1902-1903. Insurgent operations in Macedonia. Horrible Retaliatory Atrocities. Misery of the Macedonian Peasants. Contradictory Reports and Views of the Situation.
Insurgent operations in Macedonia were opened in the fall of 1902 and continued the following year, and into 1904. Besides an activity of insurgent bands and collisions with Turkish soldiery, there were many dynamite explosions, wrecking a bank at Salonica, blowing up a railway train, a passenger steamer, and other outrages of that kind. Then came confused and revolting accounts of a terrible retaliation by the Turks. According to Dr. Dillon, the monthly reviewer of "Foreign Politics" for _The Contemporary Review_, the substantial facts of what occurred were these:
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"The insurrection in Macedonia planned by outsiders and fixed for last autumn [1902] proved abortive. The first shot should have been fired in August, but the members of the revolutionary agencies which organised the scheme quarrelled among themselves at the Congress held during that month in Sofia, and then split up into hostile factions. In the committee of one of these sections, General Tsontsheff occupied the foremost position, and he resolved on his own initiative to stir up the Macedonians to rebellion. Now it should be borne in mind that all these committees are composed of so-called outsiders—that is to say, mainly Macedonian refugees in Bulgaria, and that whether their aim be to get the provinces annexed to Bulgaria or Servia, or to demand simple autonomy, they meet with but little sympathy and less active support in Macedonia itself, where there is a very intelligent native organisation in favour of self-government. Tsontsheff was therefore left largely to his own resources. On the 23rd of September his adjutant, Nikoloff, crossed the frontier, but owing to the Shipka festivities, it was not until the 15th of October that Tsontsheff himself, who had meanwhile escaped from prison, took the field. The scene of action was the valley of the Struma, which a week later was wholly occupied by the Turks, and the insurrection, which had hardly even flashed, suddenly fizzled and went out. The natives warned by their own committee had generally held aloof. But there were people among them who, not content with holding back, resolved to act in the spirit of the admonitions vouchsafed to them by the Great Powers, and ordered the revolutionary bands to quit the country, and when the latter refused, actually drove them off with arms in their hands. …
"When the people had gone home the Turks came to search for arms. The peasants denied that they possessed any, and then the work of torture began. All who could, ran away, and, owing to the height of the mountain passes and the enormous snowdrifts, had to leave their wives and children behind. Before this calamity overtook the place, the district of Razlog had twelve hamlets and 3,665 Bulgarian houses containing about 25,000 inmates. Of these Madame Bakhmetieff, the American wife of the Russian minister in Sofia, counted 961 fugitives, besides some hundreds who found a refuge in the Peshtshersky district. The entire number of able-bodied men driven away from Razlog alone is about 1,500!
"In that loyal and well-conducted district there were fourteen churches with twenty-two priests; of the latter eight escaped to Bulgaria, one was killed, one arrested, and the fate of the remainder is unknown. According to the statement of the priest who, having made good his escape, found an asylum in the Principality, their churches were defiled and destroyed by the Turks. A considerable number of the remaining peasants are said to have perished on the way over the mountains. Over one-third, therefore, of the male population of the best behaved district of Macedonia has been thus forced to flee the country. …
"We have the authority of Madame Bakhmetieff—who travelled about in the deep snow with the thermometer at 22 Celsius below freezing point, to bring succour to the fugitives—for saying that two priests of the villages of Oranoff and Padesh were tortured in a manner which suggests the story of St. Lawrence’s death. They were not exactly laid on gridirons, but they were hung over a fire and burned with red hot irons. In the Djumaisk District six churches were destroyed, and the Church of St. Elias was turned into a stable, while the shrine dedicated to the same saint in Shelesnitza was converted into a water closet. The churches of Padesh, Troskoff and Serbinoff were razed to the ground; the school buildings in the Djumaisk District were used as barracks, and the teachers put in prison or obliged to flee. The horror of the situation is intensified, Madame Bakhmetieff says, by the fact that large numbers of fugitives have been driven back by the Turks into the interior southwards towards Seres, where their horrible sufferings and their miserable end will be hidden from all who might give them help or pity."
_E. J. Dillon, The Reign of Terror in Macedonia (Contemporary Review, March, 1903)._
Another view of the Macedonian situation is presented in the following, from another of the English reviews:
"The Macedonian problem is desperate mainly because it has been overlaid with abstractions. We talk of trouble in the Balkans, of insurgent excesses, and Turkish atrocities, without realising that these occasional and startling phenomena are the product of a misery that is as constant as it is uninteresting—and unbearable. We think of Turkish misrule as an isolated and irrational fact, without comprehending that it is a highly organised and quite intelligent system, designed to promote the profit of a small minority of officials, tax farmers, and landlords. It rests on a substantial basis of corrupt and anti-social interest. The political mismanagement is the least of all the evils it produces. The reality behind the whole muddle of racial conflicts, beyond the Chauvinism of the Balkan peoples and the calculations of the greater Powers, is the unregarded figure of the Macedonian peasant, harried, exploited, enslaved, careless of national programmes, and anxious only for a day when he may keep his warm sheepskin coat upon his back, marry his daughter without dishonour, and eat in peace the bread of his own unceasing labour. All our efforts might fail to bestow upon him an ideal government—there are not the makings of a harmonious nation in Macedonia. But politics are, after all, a mere fraction of life. While Servia earns the contempt of the civilised world, the Servian peasant sows in hope and reaps in peace, keeping for winter evenings the tale of murdered forbears and ravished ancestors. The Macedonian villager is ignorant. But his leaders have heard of a far-off England which twenty-five years ago flung them back under the heels of the Turk, after Russia had won their freedom at San Stefano. The tale runs that this same England then guaranteed them, at Berlin, the amplest of reforms. And thereupon these simple men will talk about their rights. It is for these they are fighting."
_H. N. Brailsford, The Macedonian Revolt (Fortnightly Review, September, 1903)._
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And still a third view in this which follows:
"The Turks are honestly doing their best to administer justice indifferently. Again and again during my travels in Macedonia I have admired the energy of Valis and Kaimakams, who hold thankless posts with courage and determination. If the Albanians could be kept in order and Bulgarian anarchism could be suppressed, there would be no grievances in Macedonia to-day. The Albanians are turbulent sportsmen, engaging as individuals, but intolerable as neighbours. They must be made to understand that no further nonsense will be permitted. The Porte would be quite capable of reducing them to order if they had not a powerful protector at hand. The Porte could also reduce the Bulgarian conspirators if she did not fear to arouse prejudice in Europe. The echo of former Bulgarian ‘atrocities’ (as resolute government was dubbed), paralyses effective action. The Turks cannot punish Christian criminals so long as Exeter Hall is on the _qui vive_ to defend them. Give the Sultan a free hand, and the Macedonian conspiracy may be ended in a few weeks."
_Herbert Vivian, The Macedonian Conspiracy (Fortnightly Review, May, 1903)._
The British Government received the following representation of facts from its Minister to Bulgaria, Mr. Elliott, in a despatch dated May 19, 1903.
"There are some points which appear to me to be too frequently lost sight of in apportioning responsibilities for occurrences in Macedonia. In the first place, the term ‘Bulgarian’ is applied indiscriminately to subjects of the Principality and to Macedonians of Bulgarian race, and the former are made to bear the blame for the actions of the latter. In the same way, it appears to be believed that the ‘Bulgarian bands’ which make incursions into Macedonia from the territory of the Principality are composed of Bulgarian subjects, whereas the latter probably do not contribute more than 10 per cent, of the number of incursionists, the remainder being all Macedonians, of whom there are some 200,000 in the Principality."
The same Minister wrote from Sophia on the 1st of July: "All the reports received concur in stating that every Turkish official, civil and military, from Hilmi Pasha downwards, look to war as the only means of escape from a situation which is becoming intolerable. It is obvious that in such a war both sides would have much to lose and little material advantage to gain; but the Turks argue that if they could administer a crushing defeat to Bulgaria, of which they have no doubt, they would, even if they were afterwards obliged to withdraw, obtain some years’ peace in Macedonia, by the destruction of what they have been taught to believe, with some justification in the past, is the centre of disaffection, though the real cause of it is to be sought in their own maladministration. The Bulgarians, although believing that the conquest of Bulgaria would not prove the easy matter that the Turks seem to imagine, are, for the most part, under no illusions as to their ability to hold out single-handed against the Ottoman Empire; they are unprepared, and they have apparently been deserted by their protectors. They are, therefore, sincere in their desire to do everything to avoid a conflict. But it does not rest with them to avoid it. The Macedonian agitators will naturally do all they can to provoke a war. It is therefore of the most urgent importance that an attempt should be made by the Turkish Government to restore the conditions of life in Macedonia to something like their normal state. If the persecutions of the last few weeks continue, it will be impossible for the Government to restrain the Macedonians established in this country."
_Parliamentary Papers, Cd. 1875._
The condition of suffering in the region of country tormented by this inhuman strife is indicated by such despatches as the following, from the British Vice-Consul at Monastir, writing September 23, 1903:
"According to the best data actually available, the number of persons now wandering on the mountains homeless and destitute cannot be estimated at less than 40,000, while the number of Christians massacred may be safely put down at 3,000. Some of my colleagues, notably the Austrian, French, and Italian Consuls, have sent even higher figures to their embassies."
_Parliamentary Papers (Turkey, No. 2, 1904), Cd. 1879._
TURKEY: A. D. 1903-1904. The Mürzsteg Programme of Reforms in the Administration of Macedonia.
During a meeting of the Emperors of Austria-Hungary and Russia, in 1903, at Mürzsteg, in the Austrian Alps, a plan of supervised administration in Macedonia (known since as the Mürzsteg Programme), to be pressed on the Turkish Government, was agreed upon by the two sovereigns and their advisers. With the assent and support of the other Powers in Europe this was submitted to the Porte, and was accepted in principle on the 25th of November; but it was not until the following May that it could be said to have been brought at all into action. Turkey "agreed
(1) to the appointment, for two years only, of Austrian and Russian civil agents, with a limited staff of dragomans and secretaries, to reside in the same place as the Inspector-General, and to make tours in the interior, accompanied by a Turkish official, to question the inhabitants as to their grievances;
(2) to the appointment of an Italian general to reorganize the gendarmerie;
(3) to consider the question of altering the administrative districts so as to establish a more regular grouping of the various nationalities;
(4) that neither race nor religion shall be a hindrance to official employment;
(5) that an amnesty shall be granted to all persons implicated in the insurrection, except those guilty of dynamite outrages; and
(6) to exempt the inhabitants of destroyed villages from all taxation for one year."
_Annual Register, 1904, page 318._
General De Giorgis, of Italy, was appointed to the command of the gendarmerie. Hostility to the arrangements of the Mürzsteg programme in Albania was carried to the extent of open warfare, and a number of serious engagements between Turkish and Albanian forces occurred. Other collisions between the various quarreling races—Greek, Bulgarian and Servian—were not stopped by the reorganized _gendarmerie_. Turkish action and inaction afforded about equal occasion for Bulgarian complaints; but in April the Bulgarian and Turkish governments came to mutual agreements, that the former would stop the work of revolutionary committees within her territory, and that the latter would carry out the reforms of the Mürzsteg programme in good faith. No effective performance of either engagement appears to have been secured.
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TURKEY: A. D. 1903-1904. Incursions of Armenian Revolutionists from Russia and Persia into Asiatic Turkey. Exaggerated accounts of retaliatory Massacre.
Many bands of revolutionary Armenians who crossed the frontiers from Russia and Persia during 1903 and 1904, making incursions into Armenian Turkey, and bringing upon the inhabitants there the tender mercies of Turkish troops, appear to have been acting generally in cooperation with the Bulgarian revolutionists in Macedonia. The consequent barbarities were dreadful enough, no doubt, but were found to be greatly exaggerated in the reports current at the time. This was the conclusion of the British Ambassador to Turkey, derived from investigations made on the ground by a consular officer who traversed it with care. In a despatch dated August 16, 1904, the Ambassador, Sir N. O’Conor, related a conversation on the subject that he had had with the Armenian Patriarch, Mgr. Ormanian, as follows:
"In the course of conversation I told his Beatitude that I had heard with deep concern the statements he had made to several newspaper correspondents, to the effect that he believed that between 6,000 and 9,000 persons had been massacred in the Sasun and Talori districts during the late troubles, and that I deeply regretted that upon my applying for precise information which would enable me to make earnest representations to the Grand Vizier, his Beatitude has sent me word that he was unable to indicate the places at which these massacres had taken place or to affirm that his reports were based on really trustworthy information. His Beatitude replied that he had had no means of controlling these reports, and that he had communicated them to others as he had received them. I said that, judging from the reports of His Majesty’s Consul at Van, who had visited many of the districts in question, the numbers of victims mentioned by his Beatitude was grossly exaggerated. Captain Tyrrell was more inclined to estimate the number at 900 than 9,000, and he had, moreover, been unable to confirm the statements in the public press that there had been any massacre of Armenians in the ordinary sense of these words, although, no doubt, many innocent persons had been killed both by the insurgents and the troops. … I did not despair of following to the end the investigations which had been set on foot by the Grand Vizier. If, however, his Beatitude could now furnish me with more definite information, I would do all in my power, in conjunction with my French and Russian colleagues, to bring about a searching investigation on the spot. Mgr. Ormanian replied that he was not in a position to give me this information."
TURKEY: A. D. 1903-1905. A "Holy War" in Arabia. The Sheik Hamid Eddin contesting the Caliphate with the Sultan.
"Under the obscure heading of ‘Rebellion in the Yemen,’ a series of brief telegrams has recently appeared in the British and American press, describing in skeleton language the exploits of Sheik Hamid Eddin, the Sovereign of Hadramaut, against the troops of the Turkish Sultan. Absorbed in the contemplation of the Far-Eastern struggle, neither the writers nor readers of the newspapers have yet found leisure to reflect upon the meaning of the movement, which the Lord of the Land of Frankincense is leading. … But the Government in Constantinople, though it would fain throw dust in the eyes of Europe, is itself painfully conscious of the menacing character of the challenge which has gone forth from Arabia. It is, indeed, impossible for it any longer to doubt that Hamid Eddin, the namesake of Abdul Hamid, is contesting not only the possession of Yemen, but also the spiritual supremacy of Islam. A Holy War, in fact, has started in Arabia, and upon its issue depend the fate of Mecca and the title of Caliph. …
"For several years, the propaganda proceeded on comparatively peaceful lines. Only occasionally it was marked by collisions with the Turkish troops. But, towards the end of 1903, the Sheik entered the northern district of the Yemen and laid siege to the Turkish garrison of Assyr. The engagement ended disastrously for the Turks. … For a whole year the Turks refrained from attempting any serious resistance to the Arabian movement. In February of this year, however, they succeeded in inflicting on Hamid Eddin a slight reverse, which the authorities in Constantinople, for political reasons, at once magnified into a disaster."
_W. F. Bullock, The Fight for the Caliphate (North American Review, August, 1905)._
TURKEY: A. D. 1905-1906. Demand in Crete for Union with Greece. Resignation of Prince George as High Commissioner. Appointment of M. Zaimis.
See (in this Volume) CRETE: A. D. 1905-1906.
TURKEY: A. D. 1905-1906. Anti-British agitation in Egypt. Encroachments on the Sinai Frontier. The Tabah Incident.
See (in this Volume) EGYPT: A. D. 1905-1906.
TURKEY: A. D. 1905-1908. Continued Reign of Terror in Macedonia. Financial Reform forced on Turkey by a Naval Demonstration. Barbaric Warfare of Greek and Bulgarian Bands. Efforts of Great Britain to secure further action by the Powers.
On the 17th of January, 1905, the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Governments proposed to supplement the Mürzsteg Programme by a measure of financial reform, which would empower the agencies of the Imperial Ottoman Bank to "act as Treasurer and Paymaster-General in the three vilayets of Salonika, Kossovo and Monastir," to receive the net revenues of those vilayets, and to "be intrusted with the issue of payments of whatever nature and in whatever form." The Turkish Government submitted a counter proposition, somewhat to the same purpose, on the 5th of March; and, after much discussion between the six great Powers, of Austria-Hungary, Russia, Germany, Great Britain, France, and Italy, they joined in a note to the Sublime Porte, on the 8th of May, accepting the Turkish project of financial reform, provided the Porte would consent to complete it by adding the following:
"To supervise the execution of the financial reforms and the application of the preceding Regulation, and to insure its observation, the Governments will each nominate a financial Delegate. These Delegates of the four Powers will act in concert with the Inspector-General and the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Civil Agents, whose functions were defined in the Mürzsteg programme. The Commission thus formed will have all the powers necessary for the accomplishment of its task, and
## particularly for the supervision of the regular collection of
taxes, including also the tithe. {654} Before being finally settled, the budgets must be submitted to the Commission, which will have the right to amend, under the head of receipts and expenditure, any provision which may be inconsistent with the existing laws or unsuited to the economic and financial requirements of the country. With a view to facilitating its task, the Commission will have the power of nominating for each vilayet an inspector charged with the supervision of the agents employed in the different services of the Treasury."
The Porte declined to acquiesce in a proposal which it declared to be "contrary to the essential principles of the maintenance of the rights and independence of the Imperial Government." The demand was persisted in by the six Powers, inflexibly, and resisted as determinedly by the Sultan and his Ministers, during more than six months of parley. By that time the Powers had arranged for a joint naval demonstration, and landed forces at Mytilene on the 26th of November. This brought the Turkish Government to terms; details of the financial reform were settled on the 16th of December, 1905, and the international fleet was withdrawn.
Meantime conditions in the wretched country for which these attempted reforms of government were being so deliberately and laboriously prepared do not seem to have been much improved, if at all. On the 4th of September, the British Ambassador, Sir N. O’Conor, forwarded to his Government "a statistical résumé of the despatches recording occurrences in Macedonia" sent to him "by His Majesty’s Consuls at Salonica, Uskup, and Monastir between the 1st of January and the 27th of August," giving "the number of deaths for which the various nationalities and organizations are responsible" in those eight months of the year. The statistics were as follows:
Christians killed by Bulgarian Komitajis [Committees], 69; Moslems killed by Bulgarian Komitajis, 60; Christians killed by Greek Komitajis, 211; Moslems killed by Servian Komitajis, 12; Christians killed by Servian Komitajis, 10: total, 362.
Troops killed by various bands, 60; Bulgar Komitajis killed by troops, 145; Greek Komitajis killed by troops, 38; Serb Komitajis, killed by troops, 83; total 326.
Christians murdered by Moslems, 43; Christians killed during military operations, 54; total 97.
Throughout the next two years the monthly reports of British consular officers and the despatches of the Ambassador at Constantinople, as published in the British Blue Books, are monotonous in their sickening enumeration of single murders, wholesale massacres, destruction of villages, flights to the mountains of starving refugees,—outrages and miseries beyond description. On the 10th of June, 1906, the Consul-General at Salonika wrote:
"The general state of insecurity in the disturbed areas tends to grow worse rather than better, chiefly owing to the increase in the numbers and activity of the Greek bands and a slight recrudescence of Moslem crime, the most remarkable cases of which are attributed to a band of fifteen Albanians, who at the beginning of the month infested the forest country north of Niausta, where they robbed and murdered with impunity. The fact that their victims were nearly all Greeks has given rise to the belief in Greek circles that they have been acting in the interests of the Vlach and Bulgarian propagandas, though, so far as I know, there is no evidence whatever in support of this theory. The operations of Turkish troops have been on the whole very successful as against the small Bulgarian and Servian bands which still kept the field. Four of the former and two of the latter were totally destroyed, with comparatively small loss to the soldiery. It will be seen that the loss of life by violence again amounts to over 200 during the month. Of armed revolutionaries, about 40 Bulgarians, 19 Servians and 26 Greeks were accounted for, at a loss to the Turkish army of 23 killed. The great majority of the unarmed victims were Bulgarians, of whom 33 were killed by Greek bands, 15 by soldiers or in operation by the troops, about 15 by the Moslems, and 12 by Bulgarian Komitajis of rival factions; while 11 Vlachs were killed by Greek bands, 14 Greeks by Albanian brigands, 1 Greek by Bulgarian Komitajis, and 6 Mussulmans by Greek revolutionaries."
Conditions were still the same at the end of another year, and in December, 1907, the British Government addressed a memorandum on the subject to France and similarly to the other Powers, reciting some of the recent facts reported by its consular officers, and saying: "These facts and the circumstances of the outrages committed afford striking evidence of the manner in which the gradual extermination of the Christian inhabitants is being tolerated in Macedonia, where the Ottoman authorities have displayed an utter incapacity to maintain public tranquility. It therefore devolves upon the Powers to suggest the adoption of measures which will put an end to such a condition of affairs, and His Majesty’s Government earnestly hope that the French Government will give their most serious consideration to the proposals which they are about to put forward. … His Majesty’s Government are profoundly convinced that the time has now arrived when General Degiorgis and the foreign Staff Officers should be intrusted with a full measure of executive control, and when the force under his command should be properly qualified for effective action by a substantial increase in numbers and an adequate equipment."
To this communication there was no encouraging response from any other Government; and on the 3d of March, 1908, the British Foreign Minister, Sir Edward Grey, reopened the subject, expressing the regret with which His Majesty’s Government had received the replies made to their proposals.
"The situation is not beyond remedy, but it cannot be remedied by half-measures. Were a Governor of Macedonia to be appointed who would be given a free hand and be irremovable for a term of years except with the consent of the Powers, and were an adequate force of gendarmerie and European officers placed at his disposal, His Majesty’s Government are convinced that the country might be cleared of bands and pacified in a short time."
{655}
The measure proposed to other Powers by the British Government, in this communication of the 3d of March, 1908, obtained the assent of none, but it opened a discussion of the subject between London and St. Petersburg which brought Great Britain and Russia together, in joint action that gave promise of effective results. The negotiations ensuing, between the two Governments led to the drafting of two schemes of further reform in Macedonia, to be pressed upon the Porte. Great Britain accepted the Russian scheme, submitted in the form of an _aide mémoire_, dated July 2, 1908. Some inkling of this new programme, which the European Concert of Powers was about to be asked to support, had been given to the public by this time, and it seems to have precipitated a revolutionary conspiracy for the self-reformation of Turkish Government, which had been in the process of organization for many years, and which had now drawn near to the point of open action.
TURKEY: A. D. 1906. A Troublesome Punctilio removed. The United States represented at Constantinople by an Ambassador.
"According to usage in Constantinople, an Ambassador may obtain an audience at any time with the Sultan, and force many items through even against the influence of both the Palace and the Porte. But every representative lower than an Ambassador can never appear before the Sultan except when called for by His Gracious Majesty. This invitation can be secured sometimes by indirect means; but when, for any reason, the Sultan does not wish to see a Minister of any foreign Power, the Palace officials can baffle him, if necessary, for years. Now, the American representative is called ‘Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary,’ and is outranked by every Ambassador to Turkey. Hence, he lacks the all-important privilege of approaching the Sultan uninvited."
_Americus, Some Phases of the Issues between the United States and Turkey (North American Review, May, 1906)._
The obstacle to American influence with the Turkish Government which is explained in the statement above was removed in 1906, by raising the diplomatic representative of the United States at Constantinople to the rank of Ambassador.
TURKEY: A. D. 1907-1909. The Cretan Situation as dealt with by the Four Protecting Powers.
See (in this Volume) CRETE: A. D. 1907-1909.
TURKEY: A. D. 1908. Building the Damascus to Mecca Railway.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: ASIATIC: A. D. 1908.
TURKEY: A. D. 1908 (March). The Races in Macedonia. Struggle for Political Predominance. The Bulgarian Propaganda.
"Macedonia, although a country of numerous tribes and tongues, has a population of which the chief ethnic elements are Serbs, Bulgarians, and Greeks. The last-named are numerically the most important, while the Turks are, so to say, intruders. Between Bulgarians and Serbs, a bitter struggle has been waged for political predominance, each party being supported more or less effectively by its kindred in the kingdom of Servia or the Principality of Bulgaria. Both races in Macedonia speak almost the same language, profess the same religion, and inter-marry, so that the need of distinguishing between them did not arise until the Bulgarian Church, freeing itself from the Greek Patriarch, established an exarchate. Then all the flock of the Exarchate was deemed to consist of Bulgarians, although in reality many were Serbs; and the vigorous proselytising campaign carried on by agents from the Principality was successful in gathering many thousands more into the true fold.
"Bulgaria had luck from the outset. Before this people had been freed from the Mohammedan yoke the Turkish Government favoured them because it hated the Serbs, who were believed to be trying to gather together all Slavs and to found a powerful Slav state. After the creation of the Bulgarian Principality the Turks continued to wink at the Bulgarian propaganda in Macedonia, because of Stambuloff’s anti-Russian and Turcophile policy. And in this way crowds of Macedonians were won over to the Bulgarian Exarchate. Moreover, the Prince’s Government warmly seconded the efforts of its agents. Money was spent liberally and judiciously. Many Macedonians who distinguished themselves at school were sent to finish their education at Sofia, where the most gifted among them received high places in the civil service or the army. In time, however, peaceful agitation gave way to filibustering expeditions, culminated in bloodshed, and drove the Turks to repressive measures against the Bulgarian element in Macedonia."
_E. J. Dillon, Foreign Affairs (Contemporary Review, March, 1908)._
TURKEY: A. D. 1908 (July-December). The Young Turk party and its Revolutionary organization. Its Plans hurried by the Anglo-Russian project of a new Macedonian Intervention. Beginning and Rapid Spread of Revolt. Proclamation of the Constitution of 1876. Yielding of the Sultan. Intense Joy in the Empire. Election of a Parliament.
Until July 3, 1908,—the day after M. Isvolsky, Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, had dated (as stated above) his _aide mémoire_ of Macedonian Reform, which he and Sir Edward Grey were about to submit to the Powers,—the Turkish party since famous under the name of "the Young Turks" had attracted not much general attention, and, even in diplomatic circles, there does not seem to have been much known of the extraordinary work of revolutionary propagandism and organization it had done. Its leadership, seated at Salonika, had been in a Committee, named formerly the Committee of Liberty, but styled in later years the Ottoman Committee of Union and Progress. Of the rise and origin of this Young Turk party, the following account was written some years before it leaped into public fame, by the veteran apostle of political liberty, Karl Blind:
"I remember its rise and origin in the sixties, when, between 1867 and 1868, a small group of Turkish exiles—namely, Zia Bey, Ali Suavi, and Aghaia Effendi—lived in London. They published here and in Paris an ably conducted journal, called the _Mukhbir_ (the ‘Advertiser’), copies of which are still in my library. That paper came out under the auspices of Mustafa Fazil Pasha, the well-known statesman who contributed so much to the spread of public instruction and of Liberal ideas by sending young students and others—among them, a distinguished poet, Kemal—to Paris and London. In the _Mukhbir_, parliamentary institutions and all other desirable reforms were advocated.
{666}
"In 1876, the Sofia rising at Constantinople at last brought about the introduction of a Charter under the young Sultan, who had just come to the throne—the present Abdul Hamid the Second. It was a popular movement, officered by the better educated class of Mohammedans. In a famous rescript, the Sultan said that ‘if his sire had lived longer, a constitutional era would have been inaugurated under him. Providence, however, had reserved for him (the son) the task of accomplishing this happy transformation, which is the highest guarantee of the welfare of his subjects.’ He went on to denounce ‘the abuses which are the result of the arbitrary rule of one or of some individuals.’ He then enumerated the various reforms to be accomplished by the National Assembly: responsibility of ministers; parliamentary right of control; independence of the courts of justice; equilibrium of the budget.
"All races and all creeds were represented in that Parliament, which sat during 1877-1878: Turks and Armenians, Bulgars, Greeks, Albanese, Syrians, and Arabs; Mohammedans, Greco-Catholics, Armenian Christians, Protestants, and Jews. Its debates, through the whole of which I went carefully at the time in the French text of the Constantinople press, exhibited a remarkable degree of ability. I learnt afterwards, from men conversant with Turkish, and who had repeatedly been present at the sittings, that these official reports had even considerably toned down the liveliness of the discussions.
"I need not refer to the activity of Midhat Pasha, nor go into the many useful reforms then debated, including freedom of the press; equality before the law; liberty in matters of public instruction; admission of all citizens, irrespective of race and creed, to the various public employments; an equal imposition of taxes; free exercise of every religious cult, and so forth. …
"How did that Assembly come to grief? When the Russian army arrived before the gates of Constantinople [in 1878], the Sultan, pressed close by the Czar, and being at issue with the representatives of the people on account of the exile of Midhat and about budget questions, suddenly _prorogued_ Parliament. Alexander the Second, the ‘Divine Figure from the North,’ was thus freed from the danger of hearing Liberal subjects of his own uttering the cry: ‘Let us, by way of reward for our sacrifices in blood and money in this war, have parliamentary government as in Turkey!’
"Prorogued the Turkish National Assembly was, let it well be remembered—not abolished; not dissolved even. Ever since, the Young Turkish party has called for its restoration."
_Karl Blind, Macedonia and England’s Policy (Nineteenth Century, November, 1903)._
When it came to be known, in the spring or early summer of 1908, that Great Britain and Russia were concerting a fresh proposal to the Powers of more thorough going intervention in Macedonian affairs, the Young Turk leaders are said to have been driven to a hurried rearrangement of their own plans. They had not expected, it seems, to be in readiness for a decisive movement until some months or a year hence; but they could not afford to have the Concert of Europe as well as the despotism of the Sultan to deal with in their revolutionary undertaking, contemplating as that did a state of government for Turkey which outside nations would have no right or need to be meddlesome with. Hence they hastened preparations for an explosion of the revolt they had organized so patiently, and its first outbreaks chanced to occur just as M. Isvolsky had signed and dated the statement of his scheme of intervention for communication to other Powers.
The beginnings, on the 3d of July, were in the vilayet of Monastir, where the officers and soldiers of two battalions, at Resna and Presba, with some officials of the district, formed themselves openly into a "Young Turk" band, seized arms and the military chest, and went into the mountains. Similar movements in the Kossovo and Salonika vilayets followed quickly. On the 7th, at the city of Monastir, General Shemsi Pasha, when setting forth to take command of operations against the insurgents, was shot, and the soldiers of his escort were reported to have allowed the assassins to escape by firing in the air. Other murders of officers who showed
## activity against the rebels were soon announced. The Ottoman
Committee of Union and Progress had now issued a manifesto, announcing that the object of their League was to secure the restoration of the Constitution of 1876, and appealing to the Great Powers "to show their good will towards the peoples of Turkey by earnestly urging His Majesty, the Sultan, to yield to the legitimate demands of his subjects, who are loyal, though in revolt against the shameful situation of their country." The Committee protested solemnly that the League entertained no hostility to non-Moslems; that it would avoid useless bloodshed, and employ "energetic methods" only in extreme cases against the enemies of liberty.
By the 22d of the month the Sultan had become sufficiently alarmed to dismiss his Grand Vizier, Ferid Pasha, and call Kiamil Pasha, the former Grand Vizier, to his council again. Kiamil exacted conditions which his master was slow in yielding to, and he seems to have been Grand Vizier _de facto_ for a short time before he accepted the responsible title. Change of Ministry, however, did not check the deepening and spreading of revolt. On the 23d of July the Young Turks, having complete possession of the cities of Monastir and Salonica, and of several lesser towns, made solemn proclamation of the Constitution, with popular demonstrations and ceremonies of prayer and speech in which Moslems and Christians were joined. That night the Sultan held long counsel with his Ministers, at the Palace, and before morning the reestablishment of the suspended Constitution of 1876 was decided.
See (in this Volume) CONSTITUTION OF TURKEY.
The morning papers of the 24th gave the decree to the public of Constantinople and the news of it was flashed throughout the Empire and to the ends of the earth. This was the message that went from the Grand Vizier to Hilmi Pasha, Inspector General at Salonika:
"In compliance with the wish expressed by the people and by order of His Majesty the Sultan, the Constitution promulgated on the 11th (23d) December, 1876, which had for various reasons been withdrawn, has been again enforced. The General Assembly (Senate and Chamber of Deputies) may assemble on the terms prescribed by law. I beg you to convey this news to the public."
{657}
According to all accounts of the time, the feeling evoked by the announcement of a constitutionalized government—as soon as the long oppressed people could be persuaded of its actuality —was quite extraordinary, and it swept away temporarily, at least, the enmities of religion and race to a remarkable extent. What occurred, for example, at Beirut, in Syria, as described by a missionary, was probably not exceptional in that place. "Men gathered," he says, "in large groups. Audiences and orators sprung up like mushrooms. The torrent of eloquence that poured forth there was such as would put Niagara to shame. There were people mingling together there who during the past years had been bitterly antagonistic to each other, but who now were showing their friendship in public; Greek Orthodox and Mohammedan priests were embracing each other; branches were cut down from the trees; rugs were brought out from the houses; the streets were lined with people offering their hospitality to their new-found brothers; everywhere, even among the criminal classes, there were these evidences of good fellowship."
_Howard S. Bliss, Address to National Geographic Society, December 18, 1908._
On the night of the 26th of July the Sultan received a deputation, headed by the Sheikh-ul-Islam, who petitioned for the removal of certain obnoxious favorites of the "Palace camarilla," and especially for the dismissal of the notorious Izzet Pasha, one of his secretaries, who was hated and feared above all. Abdul Hamid refused at first; but three days later he ordered Izzet Pasha into exile and disgraced Ismail Pasha, his Aide-de-camp, who was said to be the chief spy of the military schools. Izzet succeeded, a few days later, in escaping from the country, and so, undoubtedly, saved his life.
On the 29th of July the British Ambassador at Constantinople, Sir G. Lowther, sent the following telegram to Sir Edward Grey:
"The Sultan has sworn on the Koran, as Caliph, not to repeal the Constitution, and the Sheikh-ul-Islam has officially notified the oath, which was registered at his Department, to the people. It religiously binds not only Abdul Hamid but also his successors in the Caliphate to govern in accordance with the Constitution, and becomes part of the Sheri law. This step was demanded by the Young Turkey and Constitutional party, in order to prevent the Constitution being put aside, as was that of 1876." On the 31st, announcement was made in the morning papers of Constantinople that "a Hatti Humayun which is binding on the successors of the Sultan will be publicly read at the Porte confirming the Constitution." Subsequently, on sending a copy of this instrument to his Government, Sir G. Lowther remarked that "a Hatti Humayun is the most binding form of legislation in the Ottoman Empire." In the present case it seems to have supplemented as well as confirmed the original Constitution, pledging equality of freedom and of rights to all subjects of every race and religion; supremacy of law; inviolability of the individual domicile; inviolability of the Post; freedom of the Press; freedom of Education, etc., etc.
The ministers and spies of the old regime of despotism and corruption were now proceeded against with celerity and vigor. Some escaped, some were imprisoned, some were killed by enraged crowds of people. The latter was the fate of Fehim Pasha, who had been at the head of the secret police. At the same time exiles of an opposite character were returning to their country and meeting with excited welcomes as they came.
Kiamil Pasha took his proper place as Grand Vizier on the 7th of August, and formed a new Cabinet, with Tewfik Pasha as President of the Council of State and Minister of Foreign Affairs. In announcing the composition of the Cabinet, Ambassador Lowther remarked: "Kiamil Pasha appears very wisely to have taken the League of Union and Progress into his counsels in forming his Ministry, all of whom were incorruptible opponents of the old regime, while two of them are Christians, in accordance with the principles of the Constitution."
While practically dominating the Imperial Government on one hand, the ruling Committee of the League was likewise bringing to terms the lawless Bulgarian, Greek, and other bands which had tortured and terrorized Macedonia so long, and was respectfully but plainly intimating its expectation that foreign management of the gendarmerie and the finances of that region would soon be withdrawn. Already, as early as the 25th of July, M. Isvolsky had withdrawn, for the time being, at least, his project of further intervention, saying that "Russia will follow with the most sympathetic attention the efforts of Turkey to insure the working of the new regime. She will abstain, for her part, from all interference calculated to complicate this task, and will exercise all her influence in order to obviate and prevent all disturbing action on the part of the Balkan States." Of course the British Government was moved by the same feeling, and, as the new order in Turkey gave more and more promise of stability, the willingness to suspend the foreign organization of gendarmerie in the Macedonian provinces became general among the Powers. A collective note, accordingly, was addressed to the Sublime Porte in September, asking if the Imperial Government had any objection to a provisional suspension of its contract with foreign officers, with leave of absence to them _sine die_. The Porte promptly acquiesced and the Macedonian intervention came to an end.
Preparations for the election of representatives in the new Parliament became active in October, the League of Union and Progress sending agents into the provinces to give much-needed instructions to officials and people as to what they must do and how. The elections were conducted under a complicated electoral law. Excepting foreign residents, natives in foreign service, soldiers not on furlough, bankrupts, criminals, and a few other classes, all male tax-payers twenty-five years of age were made "electors in the first degree." By their vote they chose, not the parliamentary representative, but "electors in the second degree" who would meet subsequently and make that choice. At the preliminary elections 250 to 750 voters were entitled to one elector; 750 to 1250 to two, and so on. The representation in Parliament was by one Deputy for 25,000 to 75,000 electors of the first degree; two for 75,000 to 125,000,—and further at that rate. Candidates for Parliament were to be not less than thirty years of age.
{658}
According to the Constitution the chosen Deputies to Parliament were to assemble at Constantinople on the 30th of October, old style; but inevitable delays in the elections postponed the meeting of Parliament until the 17th of December, on which day it was opened by the Sultan in person, good order prevailing in the city. In a written Speech from the Throne, read by his First Secretary, he offered as an explanation of the long suspension of the Constitution of 1876, that, in consequence of the difficulties encountered in operating the parliamentary system thirty years ago, it was thought best that "the execution of the said Constitution should be postponed until, by the progress of instruction in my Empire, the capacity of my people should be brought up to the desired level." As this was now believed to have been accomplished, he had "proclaimed the Constitution anew without hesitation, in spite of those who hold views and opinions opposed thereto." With marked abruptness the Sultan’s speech was then turned to some recent occurrences which have not yet been touched in this narrative of events. Its reference to them was in these words: "Whilst the Ministry formed under the Presidency of Kiamil Pasha, to whom the office of Grand Vizier was intrusted upon this change in the system of administration, was occupied with organizing the new Constitutional Administration, Prince Ferdinand, Prince of Bulgaria and Vali of the Province of Eastern Roumelia, departing, for whatever reason, from the loyalty due to our Empire, proclaimed the independence of Bulgaria; and immediately after this the Government of Austria-Hungary also announced to the Porte and to the Cabinets of the other Great Powers that it had decided to annex to the sphere of its dominion Bosnia and Herzegovina, which were subject to the temporary occupation and administration of Austria in accordance with the Treaty of Berlin. These two important events, which are prejudicial to existing legal rights and relations, are occurrences which have moved me to very great regret, and our Ministers have been intrusted with the task of taking the necessary action consequent on these encroachments and of safeguarding (he rights of the State. In regard to this matter, and under all circumstances, the help and support of Parliament are desired."
The concluding words of the Sultan’s brief speech were these:
"I open the Chamber of Deputies to-day with prayers for the happiness and prosperity of our Empire and country. I am happy to see in my presence the Deputies of my nation. My intention to govern our country under the Constitution is absolute and unalterable. Please God our Chamber of Deputies will accomplish good work for our Empire and our nation, and our fatherland will attain to happiness of every kind. May God make us all the objects of His divine grace!"
TURKEY: A. D. 1909. American Mission Schools.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: TURKEY AND THE NEAR EAST.
TURKEY: A. D. 1909 (January-May). Wise Moderation of the Young Turks. Gathering of Opposition to them. The Counter-Revolution of April 13. Treacherous Agency of the Sultan in it. Quick Recovery of Power by the Young Turks. Battle in Constantinople. Moslem attack on Armenians in Asiatic Turkey. Deposition of Abdul Hamid. Mohammed V. placed on the Throne.
The declaration of Bulgarian independence and the Austrian annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, protested against by the Sultan in his Speech from the Throne at the opening of the new Parliament, on the 17th of December, are recounted at some length in another place, with notice of the prolonged anxieties they produced in Europe at large.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1908-1909 (OCTOBER-MARCH).
In Turkey itself the feeling roused by these offensive proceedings was overborne to a great extent by increasing excitements in home politics at the time. The first unity of welcome and support to the revolution, as organized by the League of Union and Progress, was now being broken, as always happens in such movements, by conflicts of ambition and differences of opinion and aim. In other words, contentions of party and faction were coming into play. The Young Turk leaders of the League had manifestly conducted the whole movement of revolution with extraordinary ability, self-effacement, and restraint. The President of Robert College, at Constantinople, Dr. C. Frank Gates, who must be accounted a trustworthy observer of events in the Ottoman capital, writing in _The Outlook_, November 7, 1908, of "Turkey under the New Regime," paid this high tribute to its chiefs:
"One of the most striking features of this movement to those who have lived long in the country is the moderation shown by the Young Turks. The regime which has been overthrown was oppressive in the extreme, and all the people had suffered terribly from it. The Turks have often said, ‘We suffer more than the Christians.’ Many have predicted a day of terrible retribution, when the old regime should fall into the hands of its victims. But there have been no reprisals. Officers of the army were killed in order to gain control of the army, a few spies fell into the hands of the people and were killed, the notorious Fehim Pasha was torn to pieces by the mob at Broussa, but most of the rascals have been held for regular trial, and the leaders of the new movement have firmly insisted that it is no time for vengeance or for the gratification of personal animosities; only one consideration can be admitted, and that is the good of the country. Their eyes are upon the future, not upon the past. This is wonderful. If one could have expected a reign of terror anywhere, here was the place to expect it, but it has not come.
"The Young Turks have shown a practical wisdom in dealing with the various parties and in solving the questions which have arisen which commands the admiration of all. A friend who is very well acquainted with the leaders in this movement said the other day, ‘The most wonderful thing of all is the committees.’ Properly speaking, there are no committees and no tangible organization. There are men who stand behind the present Government and practically guide and control it, but they are content to be unknown and to work in silence. They say, ‘It is the work of God,’ 'Do not congratulate us: thank God.’
{659}
"The difficulties which these men have to face are enormous. There is the difficulty of financing the Government, which is aggravated by the fact that some of the provinces have understood liberty as meaning freedom from taxes. Then there is the difficulty of forming a programme for the new regime. There have been two parties among the Young Turks, the Committee of Union and Progress, and the Party of Decentralization headed by Sebaheddin. … Sebaheddin has been explaining his programme to popular audiences. His plan is to have local assemblies in the provinces, to which shall be relegated many of the functions which have been centralized in Constantinople under the old regime."
The working of the new machinery of government went smoothly, in appearance, for some weeks after this was written. On the 1st of January the Sultan gave a banquet to the Deputies of Parliament at the Yildiz Kiosk, sitting with them at table and speaking to them with eloquent piety and patriotism; subsequently permitting a general kissing of his hands, which performance of affectionate reverence was much disapproved by some of the Turkish journals next day. A fortnight later Mr. Hagopian, special correspondent at Constantinople of the New York _Evening Post_, seemingly intimate in acquaintance with the inner circles of parties, began to be sharply critical of the Committee of Union and Progress, saying that their "arrogant programme" "has led more enlightened Turks to organize a new party, the Sons of Liberal Ottomans." Then he speaks of what appears to be another party, "the association of ‘Fedakiarans’ (Confederates), composed of all former political exiles and prisoners who became free after the establishment of the new regime. On the surface their aim is said to be to assist all their unfortunate members who have been brought to poverty, or disabled by the tortures of prison and exile. Their membership within the last four months has reached twenty thousand. …
"The mistake which the Young Turks committed in opposing Kiamil Pasha, and in persecuting the Confederates," this writer goes on to say, "has strengthened the cause of Sabakheddin Bey and his followers. All the oppressed Christian races, who welcomed the inauguration of a liberal government in Turkey, were alarmed when a part of the young Turks came forward as champions of Panislamism, and to-day they are inclined to be in the rank and file of this new liberal movement. The Young Turkish Parliament has shown a tendency to be a Moslem institution."
A fortnight later Kiamil Pasha, the Grand Vizier, or Prime Minister, as he preferred, it is said, to be called, dropped Ali Riza Pasha, Minister of War, and Aarif Pasha, Minister of Marine, from his Cabinet, appointing them to other posts, which they declined; and this completed his breach with the Committee of Union and Progress. Mr. Hagopian, in his next letter to the _Evening Post_, averred that the Grand Vizier had discovered a plot, organized by the Young Turks, to dethrone the Sultan and proclaim Youssuf-Izeddin, elder son of Abdul Aziz, the murdered former Sultan, and that he defeated their project by the sudden change he made in the Ministries of War and Marine. Other reporters from Constantinople to the Press do not seem to have given credit to this explanation. Whatever the inner facts may have been, the Young Turk Committee proved stronger than the Grand Vizier, and they forced his resignation on the 13th of February, by an overwhelming vote in the Chamber of Deputies, 198 to 8, that he "no longer possesses its confidence." He had commanded foreign confidence more, perhaps, than any other Turkish statesman, and his overthrow gave a serious shock for the moment to the hopefulness with which the Turkish constitutional experiment had come to be quite generally regarded.
Hilmi Pasha, who had been Minister of the Interior under Kiamil, was now called by the Sultan to be Grand Vizier, and a new Cabinet was formed, Ali Riza Pasha resuming the portfolio of the Ministry of War, and with it that of the Marine. The administration was now entirely in harmony with the Committee of Union and Progress. During the next two months there was not much in Turkish affairs to command attention abroad. But political hostility to the Committee of Union and Progress was evidently increasing. The correspondent of the London _Times_ wrote to his paper from Constantinople in March that "one of the most perplexing and disquieting features of the situation since the fall of the late Cabinet has been the persistent manner in which the Committee have denied that any extra-Parliamentary pressure was employed to effect that change, or that, since it was accomplished, extra-Parliamentary forces have exercised any influence on the conduct of affairs. Had they frankly admitted that such influences had been, and were still, brought to bear—as, indeed, the speech of the President of the Chamber implicitly acknowledges—but that such interference was justified by circumstances and would continue to be exercised until the country had safely emerged from the critical period through which it is passing, many who are now falling away from them would have been found to agree, and few persons capable of forming an unbiased opinion would have ventured to declare that their contention was altogether unreasonable and unjustifiable. By adopting a different course they have alienated much of the sympathy and confidence they hitherto commanded, and given rise to suspicions, quite possibly unfounded, as to the purity of their motives, with the result that the country, which needs and will long continue to need the united energies of all its ablest and most enlightened citizens, for the tremendous task of regeneration and reorganization, is now weakened by a fierce party struggle, and that many competent observers regard a fresh Ministerial crisis as an event which cannot be delayed for many weeks."
The anticipated crisis came about four weeks after this had been written, in a form much more serious than that of a mere Ministerial collapse. It was precipitated by excitements that followed the murder, on the 6th of April, of a political journalist, Hassan Fehmi Effendi, editor of the _Serbesti_, the organ of the Liberal party. As the murdered man had been a vigorous critic and opponent of the Committee of Union and Progress, that organization was accused at once of having brought about his death. {660} This gave the start to agitations and demonstrations that were secretly pushed for several days, until they culminated, on the 13th, in an outbreak of soldiers and city mobs which reversed for a time the Young Turk revolution of the previous July. That the crafty Abdul Hamid had more than lent his hand to the reactionary outbreak was universally believed; but when it had accomplished the overthrow of Hilmi Pasha and his Ministry the Sultan did not venture to call creatures of his own to take their place. On the contrary, he gave the office of Grand Vizier to Tewfik Pasha, one of the most respected and independent of the elder officials of the Empire, charging him, in an imperial rescript, "to form a Cabinet to conform more directly to the sacred law and to maintain the Constitution and guard public order." These words are indicative of the nature of the hostility to the regime of the Young Turks which had been worked up. Formerly, as appears in one of the quotations above from Mr. Hagopian, the Young Turks had been accused of being "champions of Pan-Islamism," and their Parliament of showing "a tendency to be a Moslem institution." Latterly, Moslem orthodoxy had been appealed to against them on the charge that they were unfaithful to "the sacred law" (the Sheriat), and that they were making the Constitution a mere cover for designs that boded evil to Islam. A fair inference from the contradictoriness of the charges brought against them is decidedly favorable to the party of the Young Turks.
At the outset of the revolutionary riot in Constantinople a few murders were committed and some fatal shooting at random was done, the victims including the Minister of Justice, an Albanian Deputy and a few officers of the riotous soldiery; but the mob-rising, as a whole, appears to have been kept under singular restraint. No important members of the League of Union and Progress are reported to have been killed. Those who were in Constantinople escaped, and their ruling Committee was soon established in activity at Salonika again, taking measures which resulted quickly in the recovery of more than the power that they had seemed for the moment to have lost.
That no reaction of substantial influences at Constantinople against constitutional and representative government was signified by what had occurred there was made plain by an important proclamation, issued on the 16th of April, by the Committee of the Ulema, the Moslem Doctors of the Sacred Law. It was addressed to the Deputies and the Nation, in these words:
"We are informed that certain Deputies, fearing for their lives, wish to resign, while, on the other hand, the public fears the return of despotic rule. The Committee of the Ulema, which has never doubted that the Constitution is in entire conformity with sacred law, and has not forgotten the burning of Islamic books at Gulhaneh in the days of absolutism, will defend the Constitution, which is in conformity with the Sheriat, to the last, aided by the army and Parliament. Its members consider it to be a religious duty to sacrifice their lives for this end. They and the nation preserve the confidence of Deputies, Moslem and non-Moslem alike, save such as have resigned, or have fled and are thereby considered to have resigned. Deputies, therefore, are informed that henceforth those who resign will be considered traitors. Let them do their duty justly and honourably, and they may be sure of the support of the nation and the spiritual aid of the Prophet. We beg the glorious army to maintain order and discipline, following the counsels of the Ulema, for it is thus that the Almighty will grant salvation to the country and happiness in this world and the next."
But Asiatic Turkey was easily made distrustful and suspicious of a change in government which appeared to lower the authority and dignity of the Sultan-Caliph; and news of the seeming triumph of that sacred sovereign in what had happened at Constantinople must have had not a little to do with the sudden outburst, on the 15th of April, of Moslem hostility to the Armenian Christians in parts of Asia Minor and Syria. The fighting and massacre then begun, and which continued for many days, was most fiercely carried on within a circle of towns at the corner where Syria and Asia Minor touch, and where the Gulf of Iskanderun runs far into the land. On the northern and western side, this piece of the Turkish dominion was the ancient province of Cilicia, which Pompey added to the empire of Rome; in which St. Paul was born, and which received its modern name of Adana from Haroun al Raschid, the most famous of the Caliphs of Bagdad,—thanks to "The Arabian Nights." In and around its three principal towns, of Adana, Mersina, and Tarsus, the first and worst of the atrocities occurred.
The League of Union and Progress had given way for an instant, only, to the outbreak at Constantinople, which must have taken its leaders by surprise. But the momentary reverse was a gift of opportunity, in fact, to prove the astonishing energy of ability that was in this remarkable body of men. They had been betrayed by a considerable part, at least, of the division of the army which garrisoned Constantinople, and which is said to have been heavily bribed with money that must have come from the Sultan’s purse. But the Second and Third Corps of the army in Macedonia were unshaken in fidelity to them and their cause. It was on Tuesday, the 13th of April, that their opponents at the capital had their triumph; on Wednesday, the 14th, the two trusted corps were under orders from Salonika to march on Constantinople. Nine days later Mahmud Shevket Pasha, who commanded the movement, was in full possession of the city, with the Sultan a prisoner, and the victorious general was about to publish the following brief report of what had been done in the interval:
"Our Second and Third Army Corps," he wrote, "being the nearest to Constantinople, undertook as the executive power of the whole Ottoman nation to shed the last drop of their blood in defence of the Constitutional _régime_. Having therefore taken counsel together and organized a force sufficient for the purpose, they marched to Constantinople, in order to counteract the effects of the despotic blow recently struck at that _régime_, to subdue and chastise the guilty, and to take the necessary measures for the prevention of similar attempts in the future. Leaving Salonika on Wednesday, I arrived the following day at San Stefano and gave orders for a general movement preparatory to entering the capital on Friday. {661} The troops quartered at the Ministry of War were compelled to surrender before they had time to defend themselves. Only the mutinous troops at Taslikishla and other barracks in Pera offered any resistance to the army of occupation. These barracks were accordingly bombarded and destroyed, their garrisons being disabled or forced to surrender. As our heroic army began operations at night and entered the town at dawn, and as the inhabitants remained in their houses and the shops were closed, there were no deaths in the civil population and no disorder took place. The losses on both sides were heavy, but the numbers are not yet known. I pray God that the hearts of all Ottomans may rejoice at the news of this great victory and that it may prove the dawn of a great future for our country."
Military observers who accompanied Shevket Pasha and his army are said to have been profoundly impressed by the masterly handling of the whole operation, from start to finish. His fellow Constitutionalists were equally impressed by the qualities that he had revealed. A Press despatch to New York, from Constantinople, April 26, reported:
"Schefket Pasha, commander of the Constitutional army, is the man of the hour. The leading civilian members of the Committee of Union and Progress desire him to be grand vizier in succession to Tewfik Pasha, and he has been assured that a majority of Parliament would gladly support a ministry under his leadership in succession to the Tewfik ministry, which resigned to-day. In reply to these proposals Schefket Pasha said that the premiership afforded such a splendid opportunity to assist in the political development of the country that he would have rejoiced to accept the honor had it come to him under any other circumstances, but that he could not accept it while still leader of the army. To do so would not accord with his ideas of civil and political liberty of action." This seems to have been a true exhibit of the fine spirit and intelligent patriotism of the man, and it added much to the hopefulness of the regenerative undertaking of the Young Turks. Shevket is an Arab, from Bagdad, who had his training as a soldier in Germany and had lived in Europe twelve years.
What to do with Abdul Hamid was a question over which the Committee of Union and Progress wasted very little time. He became their captive on the 24th. On the 26th it was known that he would be deposed and exiled to Salonika. His falsity in all that he had professed of a willing adoption of constitutional government, and his treacherous engineering of the conspiracy against it, were believed to be open to no doubt. It was probably not easy to save him from the doom of death which he feared: but the men of calmly tempered mind and will who had ruled the revolution from its beginning were still in control. On the morning of the 27th a _fetva_ or formal decision by the Sheik-ul-Islam, authorizing the deposition of Abdul Hamid from the Ottoman throne, was sent to the National Assembly and read. It was in the form of a question from that body, answered tersely by the supreme judge of the law of Islam,—as follows:
"What becomes of an Imam [the title of the Sultan of Turkey as head of the Orthodox faith] who has destroyed certain holy writings, who has seized property in contravention to the Sheri laws, who has committed cruelties in ordering the assassination and imprisonment of exiles without any justification under the Sheri laws, who has squandered the public money, who, having sworn to govern according to the Sheriat, has violated his oath, who, by gifts of money, has provoked internecine bloodshed and civil war, and who no longer is recognized in the provinces?" To this the Sheik-ul-Islam replied: "He must abdicate or be deposed." At once, by unanimous vote, the deposition of Abdul Hamid and the succession of his younger brother, Mohammed Reschad Effendi was pronounced by the National Assembly. The new Sultan was proclaimed with impromptu ceremony in the afternoon, at the Seraskierat, to which he went in the plain costume of a Turkish gentleman. He was received by Mahmud Shevket Pasha and his staff in the central court. The Grand Vizier, the Sheikh-ul-Islam, Said Pasha, President of the Senate, and Ahmed Riza, President of the Chamber, stood at the foot of the stairs. All kissed hands, and the whole group, headed by his Majesty, proceeded to a reserved chamber, the gallery above the court being in the meantime crowded with Senators, Deputies, officers, journalists, and ordinary sightseers. The Deputies and Senators were then admitted to kiss hands, and a prayer was recited. This ended the simple ceremony of the day; but one of more solemnity occurred on the 10th of May, when the Sultan received the sword of Osman—the equivalent of a coronation—in the Mosque Ayub, which Christians are never permitted to enter, and was conducted in an imposing procession through the streets of the city.
Mohammed Reschad Effendi, who reigns as Mohammed V., was in his sixty-fifth year when he came to the throne. Until the revolution of the previous July he had been practically a prisoner in one of the palaces on the Bosporus, surrounded by the creatures of his jealous and suspicious brother, without whose permission he could not leave the palace grounds. Latterly he had enjoyed some degree of personal freedom, for the first time in his life. An anonymous contributor to the _London Times_, who had had an opportunity to meet him since the revolution broke his bonds, wrote thus of the interview:
"I had the privilege of a long conversation with Reschad when I was in Constantinople in the autumn, on condition that the visit should be conducted with some secrecy and should remain secret until the return of Hamidianism was beyond the range of possibility. I believe I was the first European whom he had seen since the revolution of July mitigated the severity of the reclusion enforced for 30 years by Abdul Hamid. The Heir Apparent was still living in the Palace adjoining Dolma Baghche, which had been his prison throughout the reign, jealously guarded by the Sultan’s Pretorians at the entrances from the main road, and by a gunboat moored in the Bosporus opposite the water approach. …
"His Highness talked slowly and hesitatingly, often lowering his voice to a whisper and casting furtive glances round the room as if he was still haunted by the fear of spies, but he listened eagerly while I told him of my own many journeyings in Turkey, whose people I had known since the beginning of the Hamidian _régime_, occasionally interrupting me with an apposite remark, or asking for an explanation which showed both interest and intelligence. {662} There was something strangely pathetic in this desire for information about his own country, over which his Highness was soon destined to reign. A full hour’s conversation left the impression that, given favourable circumstances and good advisers, the Prince was well qualified to preside over a period of peaceful transition."
Punishment of the authors of the counter-revolution followed quickly on the reestablishment of constitutional authority, and it was sternly meted out. As Mr. Hagopian expressed the feeling of the Young Turks, in his letter of April 26 to the New York _Evening Post_, they "could not afford to be lenient. The conspiracy of April 13," he added, "was no longer a secret. In the last two days 15,000 soldiers and 6,000 _hodjas_ and spies had been arrested. In their possession over half a million dollars had been found. Where had this money come from? Who could deny any longer that Abdul Hamid drew from his bank about ten million dollars a month ago? His favored son, Burhaneddin Effendi, went from barrack to barrack and distributed the money among the soldiers. Former spies, disguised in Turkish clergymen’s garments, went among the troops and won them over with the Sultan’s bribes. Soldiers, when arrested, were found to have an average of one hundred dollars; some had two hundred, three hundred, and even five hundred. Indeed, Abdul Hamid was the head of the conspiracy, and the massacre in Adana was instigated by his emissaries sent from Constantinople. The old and the new Yildiz cliques were not less responsible." By the 12th of May thirty-eight executions had been reported, most of them by hanging in public places. "A member of the court-martial that sentenced these men to death explained the reason of the public hangings by saying that Constantinople was such a city of rumor and traditions of corruption that, had the announcement been made that these men had been executed in private, it would not have been believed by the masses. It was desired to impress the people with the fact that the guilty had been punished."
TURKEY: April-December. Outbreak of Massacre in Southeastern Asia Minor.
The first news of the outbreak of massacre in southeastern Asia Minor came to Europe and America in a telegram from Constantinople, dated April 15, saying: "A massacre of Armenians is in progress to-day at Mersina, a seaport of Asia Minor on the Mediterranean." In this report the outbreak was ascribed to the provocation of a murder of two Moslems by an Armenian; but nothing that appeared subsequently gave any confirmation to this. The Sultan has been accused of having instigated the rising, as a means of starting complications which might check the Young Turks; but that remains unproved.
Mersina, from which the first report of massacre came, is thirty-six miles by railway from Adana, the capital of the vilayet of that name and an important missionary station of several American missionary organizations. Adana was a city of about 45,000 inhabitants, mostly Mohammedans, but with Armenians in considerable numbers and a few Greeks. The Christian missions included important schools. In this city the murderous mob had begun its work on the 14th of April, a day prior to the Mersina report, and it is found to have been the center of the deadly outbreak throughout. The Moslem fury was directed against the Armenians, and, though two missionaries were among the killed, they do not appear to have been objects of attack, but to have suffered incidentally to the efforts they made for the protection of their Armenian neighbors and their schools. There were Turkish troops in the city from the beginning of the slaughter, but they did nothing to stop it for five days. According to some accounts the vali, or governor, kept them shut up in quarters; according to others they took part in the massacre. The Reverend Stephen Trowbridge, who was in Adana during these terrible days, declared a little later: "One man is responsible for the disorders here. This is the vali himself. He had it in his power to suppress lawlessness and massacre, but deliberately refrained from doing so. He said simply: ‘We are not responsible.’ The better class of Turks in Adana," Mr. Trowbridge continued, "the members of the Committee of Union and Progress, are deeply grieved and saddened at these dreadful events. Some of them are ready to join us in relief work for the Armenians. One Bey already has opened his house to refugees." This gives color to the belief that the outbreak was not mere mob-madness, but captained in some way from a higher center of Turkish authority. Such, indeed, was the firm conviction of many who were witnesses of what occurred. Writing on the 24th of April from Tarsus, which bore its share of the widespread attack, another missionary said: "The massacres all began on the same day, Wednesday, the 14th, showing, were there no other proof, that they were inaugurated by telegraphic orders from Adana, probably from Constantinople. The only places where the Christians took up arms for a short time to defend themselves were Adana, Hadjin, and near the battle-field of Issus; at the latter place they are still holding out. The statement by Turkish officials that there was an Armenian insurrection, that Turks were massacred, and houses burned by the Christians, etc., etc., are simply abominable lies. This cannot be put too strongly. … During fifty long hours, while battle and murder and burnings were going on all around our school and residence in Adana, the vali, though he had hundreds of soldiers at the Konak, sent not one to protect us and our property."
According to a report made some months later, after investigations under the new Turkish regime, and quoted from a Turkish newspaper, the number killed in all parts of the province was 20,008; 620 were Moslems, and the remaining 19,400 were non-Moslems. Of the non-Moslems killed, 418 were Old Chaldeans, 163 Chaldeans, 210 Armenian Catholics, 655 Protestants, 99 Greeks, and the remainder Gregorian Armenians. The same report estimated the destruction of property as having been equal to two-thirds of the entire wealth of the province. The appearance of Adana and of the surrounding country after the massacres were stopped was described by one who made the journey from Tarsus to Adana, and who wrote:
{663}
"Leaving behind us the ruins of Tarsus, and the hundreds of weeping widows and orphans there, we came by train to Adana. Near the city the road runs for miles through vineyards and gardens, in former days a beautiful sight. But now it is a waste of desolation; all the houses of the Christians are heaps of ruins; in and around those houses more than five hundred were slain during the three terrible days of April. The houses of Moslems have not been injured. We noted a like contrast as respects the numerous farms on the plain between Tarsus and Adana. And yet the charge is made, and believed, that the Armenians were the aggressors!
"In the once prosperous Adana, nothing but ruins; it is like the pictures I have seen of Pompeii. The wretched survivors wander by twos and threes around the places where once stood their happy homes; they look more like ghosts than human beings, these pale, dejected, barefooted widows and orphans."
On the 12th of May, after the Young Turks had recovered power at Constantinople, the Turkish Embassy at London gave out the following announcement: "Order and tranquillity prevail throughout the Sanjak of Djebel-i-Bereket. Troops are arriving gradually and are being distributed according to the necessities of each place. The local authorities at Adana are about to proceed at once to confiscate stolen property and to disarm Musulmans and non-Musulmans alike. This measure will be adopted generally in the other parts of the vilayet as soon as the troops which are coming from the various places have reached the positions to which they have been assigned. The authorities are very busily engaged in finding homes for people who are without shelter and in supplying them with food. A Commission for that purpose has been appointed at Adana."
A Court Martial and a Parliamentary Commission were now sent to Adana to investigate the massacre and punish the guilty. Their work was soon showing results. On the 24th of May a report came from Constantinople that "Ferid Pasha has informed a representative of the Tanin that several of the soldiers who took part in the recent massacres in Cilicia have been arrested. Nine persons have already been condemned to death by the Court-martial. With regard to the responsibility for the outbreak, the Minister said that, while he could not definitely ascribe it to official promptings, certain officials had failed to do their duty, among them the Mutesarrif of Jebel Bereket, who had been imprisoned pending an inquiry into his conduct. The reactionaries had certainly played a part in fomenting the outbreak, but other elements—which the Minister did not specify—had contributed thereto."
On the 13th of July it was reported that "an Imperial Iradeh has been issued ordering the arrest of the ex-Governors of Adana and Djebel Bereket, the commander of the Adana garrison, and a number of notables of Cilicia, among whom is the editor of the Itidal, the notorious Baghdadi."
Two days later it was said that "the ex-Governors of Adana and Djebel Bereket have been sent to Adana under a strong escort. Some 20 leading Moslem notables of Adana who have been arrested will be immediately brought before a Court-Martial. The Grand Vizier has given orders for a manifesto to be prepared by the Sheikh-ul-Islam, demonstrating by means of texts from the Koran and the Traditions that the duty of all good Moslems is to treat Christians with justice and to regard them as fellow-citizens with equal rights. It is to be distributed by the kadis, muftis, and hodjas in every town and village of the empire, and the most learned ulema are to take it as their text in the sermons to be preached during next Ramazan."
July 18th the court-martial was stated to have made a report which concluded as follows:
"‘Fifteen persons have been already hanged, 800 deserve death, 15,000 deserve hard labour for life, and 80,000 deserve minor sentences. If it is decided to proceed with the punishment, we will draw a cordon around the town and deal expeditiously with the matter.’ In view, however, of the general reconciliation between the various elements, the Court-martial recommends a general amnesty on the occasion of the National Fête."
The 11th of August brought accounts of the publication of a declaration by a Commission of three ministers in the Turkish Cabinet appointed to prepare it, acquitting the Armenians of all responsibility for the outbreak at Adana. This declaration, drawn up after a careful examination of the reports of the members of the Parliamentary Commission on the massacres and approved by the Council of Ministers, ascribes the massacre to the ignorance of the population. "In the reign of Abdul Hamid the people had become imbued with the idea that every Armenian was a separatist at heart, and were therefore averse from equality with the Armenian community. They had become in consequence the tools of religious or political agitators. The declaration censures severely the local officials for their failure, not only to quell the outbreak, but to warn the Government that the situation in Cilicia was critical."
One of the Deputies of the Parliamentary Commission which investigated matters at Adana gave, perhaps, a more distinct idea of the causes that worked to produce the massacres, in an interview published during August, when he said:
"The massacre in Adana had two strong causes: reaction and tyranny. The joy of the July demonstrations [of 1908] had scarcely passed when, at the beginning of August, tyrannical tendencies began to appear. The former Mufti of Bakhcheh went hither and thither declaring that liberty and the constitution were the work of the Christians, that the constitution was contrary to the Sheriat. In this way he stirred up Moslems against the Christians and the constitution. In place of the joy which appeared among all classes during the first days of the constitution, a spirit of revenge and enmity against non-Moslems began to spread."
Evidently the amnesty recommended by the Court-martial in July was not granted; for the following telegram was sent from Constantinople on the 12th of December to the London _Times_: "Twenty-six Moslems, who were sentenced to death in connexion with the Adana massacres in April last, were executed at Adana yesterday and to-day. Order was maintained, although the population was much moved, the women relatives of the condemned publicly manifesting their grief. One Armenian is awaiting execution."
{664}
Nevertheless the Armenians have not been satisfied with the punishments inflicted, and the Armenian Patriarch resigned in September, as a mark of protest, maintaining that the real instigators of the massacres went unpunished.
TURKEY: A. D. 1909 (May-December). Hilmi Pasha, Grand Vizier. Parliament opened by the new Sultan. Constitutional Amendments on Religion and Education. The Committee of Union and Progress. Change of Ministry.
From the 1st to the 5th of May Tewfik Pasha was Grand Vizier, by appointment from the new Sultan. Then, as had been expected, Hilmi Pasha was called to his place, and remained at the head of the Government until the last week of the year. On the 20th of the month the Sultan in person opened the session of Parliament, and, after a speech from the throne had been read by the Grand Vizier, pronounced the following words: "I have sworn to respect the Sheriat and the Constitution in its entirety, and not to transgress for one instant from safeguarding the national rights and interests of the country. You must now in return take the necessary oath." The oath was then taken by the Senators and Deputies in turn, his Majesty watching the proceedings from the Imperial box. On the 24th the Grand Vizier announced the programme of measures and general policy to be undertaken by his Ministry, and received, after debate, a vote of confidence by 190 to 5. The reconstituted Government was now a fully organized fact.
Questions concerning the attitude of the State towards religion and education, as it should be defined in the Constitution, were among the earliest of high importance to be brought before the Parliament. On the 8th of June it adopted an amendment to the article in the Constitution of 1876 reading as follows:
See, (in this Volume) CONSTITUTION OF TURKEY.
"Islam is the State religion.
"The State, while safeguarding this principle, guarantees the free exercise of all cults recognized in the Empire, and maintains the religious privileges granted to divers communities, provided public order and morality be not infringed."
On the subject of education the Constitution was amended to read:
"Education is free.
"All schools are placed under the control of the Government. The necessary measures shall be taken to assure to every Ottoman subject a uniform system of education. There shall be no interference with the religious education of the different communities."
The Christian communities, especially the Greek, objected strenuously to this, fearing that governmental control would be found to mean the imposition of the Turkish language in all schools, as an instrument of nationalization.
Another proposed amendment, making members of the Chamber of Deputies eligible for the posts of Parliamentary Under-Secretaries of State, failed to secure the requisite two-thirds majority, and this was regarded as a defeat of the civilian leaders of the "Young Turk" Committee of Union and Progress, who were supposed to be desirous of holding the posts in question, while sitting also in the Chamber.
The firm control of affairs which the Committee in question had exercised throughout the revolutionary movement, while keeping itself mysteriously anonymous in the background, had been extraordinarily successful, indicative of high wisdom and a very genuine public spirit. But the forces thus handled by the Committee, especially in the military element of the revolution, were growing restive, it would appear, under the feeling of too much subordination, and gave increasing signs of discontent with the invisibility of the wires by which they were pulled. Without doubt, it was evidence of this which led the Committee, at a meeting at Salonika, in October, to resolve and announce that their organization should no longer be a secret society, but open to public knowledge and directed henceforth by a responsible executive. Whether the Committee did or did not strengthen itself by thus coming into the open, it has maintained its ascendancy and still exercises a controlling power.
The second session of Parliament was opened by the Sultan, on the 14th of November, with a speech of roseate contentedness in its contemplation of Turkish affairs. Late in December a change of Ministry occurred, in somewhat obscure connection with a consolidation of steamer lines on the Euphrates. A British line of steamers, known as the Lynch Line, which had been running on that river since 1860, was being consolidated with a Turkish line that the Turkish Government controlled, and something in the transaction which raised an issue between Parliament and the Grand Vizier. Hilmi Pasha, led the latter to resign December 28. Nobody seems to have doubted, however, that the real cause of his leaving office was in the willingness of the Committee that he should do so. General Mahmud Shevket, the able military leader of the Revolution, was invited to form a Cabinet, but declined, as he is said to have done before. The high office was then conferred on Hakki Bey, Turkish Ambassador at Rome, and Mahmud Shevket Pasha accepted office in his Cabinet as Minister of War.
TURKEY: A. D. 1909 (October). Railway and Irrigation Projects in the Tigris-Euphrates Delta.
Sir William Willcocks, the British engineer who has been engaged for some time past in surveys for the Turkish Government, having reference to irrigation and railway improvements for the reclamation of the great Mesopotamian region, made a report to the Ministry of Public Works at Constantinople in October, 1909, of which the following account was given to the Press through Reuter’s Agency:
"Sir William Willcocks advocates the construction of a railway from Baghdad to the Mediterranean. The proposed railway would start from Baghdad, cross the Euphrates at Feludia, and follow the Valley to Hit. At Hit the line would take the Euphrates Valley and traverse the flat desert in a straight line to El Kaim, near Abu Kemal, the northern limit of the cataracts. From El Kaim to Der Zor, the Euphrates has no cataracts, and the river Khabour, which joins the Euphrates at Mayadin, the ancient Rehoboth, is, like the Euphrates, navigable during the whole year. These parts of the Euphrates and Khabour could be extensively developed and all their products transported to El Kaim by boat and thence by rail. From El Kaim the railway would proceed to Tidmor (Palmyra) and follow the old trade route over a flat desert supplied with water. From Palmyra the line would go either to Homs or Damascus. The total length of the railway from Baghdad to Damascus is placed at 880 kilometres.
{665}
"The report next deals with the works of irrigation to be undertaken at once. These consist of barrages of the Hindich canal, dams on the Habbania and Sakhlawia, and works for the navigation on the Tigris. The total cost of the entire works on the Euphrates is estimated at £T1,034,000, while that of the works on the Tigris is placed at £T1,110,480. The cost of the works to be undertaken forthwith attains the following figures:—
On the Euphrates, £T822,700; on the Tigris, £T710,000; total, £T1,532,700.
The railway could be built in two years, while the irrigation works would take eight years to complete. To begin with, one million hectares of land would be restored to its former prosperity out of five million hectares which comprise the Tigris-Euphrates delta."
----------TURKEY: End--------
TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE: Its Twenty-fifth Anniversary.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1906.
TWEEDMOUTH, LORD: First Lord of the Admiralty.
See (in this Volume) ENGLAND: A. D. 1905-1906.
TWO-HUNDRED-AND-THREE METRE HILL.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905 (MAY-JANUARY).
TWO POWER STANDARD, NAVAL.
See (in this Volume) War, The PREPARATIONS for.
TURNEY, DANIEL BRAXTON: Nominated for President of the United States.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1908 (APRIL-NOVEMBER).
TYRREL, Father George: Writer of a Famous Letter on Questions of Religion. His death.
The Reverend George Tyrrel, widely known as Father Tyrrel, died on the 15th of July, 1909, at Storrington, Sussex, England. He was the writer of a letter which gave a notable impulse to the movement of thought in the Roman Catholic Church known as "Modernism," which Pope Pius X. condemned as heretical in his encyclical of 1907. The letter was addressed to an English man of science (supposed to have been Professor Mivart) who, being a Roman Catholic, found difficulty in reconciling his scientific convictions with the tenets of his Church. Parts of the letter obtained publication in Italy, and led to the expulsion of Father Tyrrel from the Society of Jesus. He then gave publication to the full text of the letter, under the title of "A Much Abused Letter." On the appearance of the encyclical against Modernism he criticised it with keenness, and was virtually excommunicated from the Church. The fact that on his death-bed, when stricken with speechlessness, he received the sacraments of the Church, gave rise to much controversy, as to his volition in the matter and as to the justification of the priest who ministered to him.
Father Tyrrel had entered the Roman Church in 1879, under the influence of the writings of Cardinal Newman.
TZE-HSI: Dowager-Empress of China. Her death.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1908 (NOVEMBER).
U.
UGANDA: Its habitability by Whites.
See (in this Volume) AFRICA.
ULEMA, THE.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1909 (JANUARY-MAY).
UNDERFED SCHOOL CHILDREN.
See (in this Volume) POVERTY, THE PROBLEMS OF.
UNEMPLOYMENT, THE PROBLEM OF.
See (in this Volume) POVERTY, THE PROBLEMS OF.
UNIFORM STATE LAWS.
See (in this Volume) LAW AND ITS COURTS: UNITED STATES.
UNITED DRY GOODS COMPANIES.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL, &C.: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909.
UNITED FREE CHURCH, OF SCOTLAND.
See (in this Volume) SCOTLAND: A. D. 1904-1905.
UNITED MINE-WORKERS, OF AMERICA.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES.
UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, OF SCOTLAND.
See (in this Volume) SCOTLAND: A. D. 1904.
----------UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Start--------
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1901 (September). The Assassination of President McKinley.
"On the sixth of September, President McKinley was shot by an anarchist while attending the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, and died in that city on the fourteenth of that month. Of the last seven elected Presidents, he is the third who has been murdered, and the bare recital of this fact is sufficient to justify grave alarm among all loyal American citizens. Moreover, the circumstances of this, the third assassination of an American President, have a peculiarly sinister significance. Both President Lincoln and President Garfield were killed by assassins of types unfortunately not uncommon in history; President Lincoln falling a victim to the terrible passions aroused by four years of civil war, and President Garfield to the revengeful vanity of a disappointed office-seeker. President McKinley was killed by an utterly depraved criminal belonging to that body of criminals who object to all governments, good and bad alike, who are against any form of popular liberty if it is guaranteed by even the most just and liberal laws, and who are as hostile to the upright exponent of a free people’s sober will as to the tyrannical and irresponsible despot.
"It is not too much to say that at the time of President McKinley’s death he was the most widely loved man in all the United States; while we have never had any public man of his position who has been so wholly free from the bitter animosities incident to public life. His political opponents were the first to bear the heartiest and most generous tribute to the broad kindliness of nature, the sweetness and gentleness of character, which so endeared him to his close associates. {666} To a standard of lofty integrity in public life he united the tender affections and home virtues which are all-important in the make-up of national character. A gallant soldier in the great war for the Union, he also shone as an example to all our people because of his conduct in the most sacred and intimate of home relations. There could be no personal hatred of him, for he never acted with aught but consideration for the welfare of others. No one could fail to respect him who knew him in public or private life. The defenders of those murderous criminals who seek to excuse their criminality by asserting that it is exercised for political ends, inveigh against wealth and irresponsible power. But for this assassination even this base apology cannot be urged. …
"The blow was aimed not at this President, but at all Presidents; at every symbol of government. President McKinley was as emphatically the embodiment of the popular will of the Nation expressed through the forms of law as a New England town meeting is in similar fashion the embodiment of the law-abiding purpose and practice of the people of the town. On no conceivable theory could the murder of the President be accepted as due to protest against ‘inequalities in the social order,’ save as the murder of all the freemen engaged in a town meeting could be accepted as a protest against that social inequality which puts a malefactor in jail."
_Message of President Roosevelt to Congress, December 3, 1901._
See (in this Volume) Buffalo: A. D. 1901.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1901 (September). Settlement of Boxer Indemnity from China.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1901-1908.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1901 (December). Communication of German Claims and Complaints against Venezuela. The President’s Reply. Interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine.
See (in this Volume) VENEZUELA: A. D. 1901.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1901-1902. The "Boom Years" in Trade and Investment of Capital.
See (in this Volume) FINANCE AND TRADE: A. D. 1901-1909.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1901-1902. Efforts of Secretary Hay to maintain the "Open Door" in Manchuria.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1901-1902.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1901-1902 (October-January). The Second International Conference of American Republics.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1901-1902 (November-February). Negotiation and Ratification of the Second Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, relative to a Ship Canal between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
See (in this Volume) PANAMA CANAL: A. D. 1901-1902.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1901-1903. Urgency of President Roosevelt for more Effective Legislation to control the Operation of so-called Trusts.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS: INDUSTRIAL, &c.: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1903.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1901-1903. Purchase of Franchises and Property of French Panama Canal Co. Failure of Canal Treaty with Colombia. Secession and recognized Independence of Panama. Treaty with the Republic of Panama. Undertaking of the Canal.
See (in this Volume) PANAMA CANAL.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1901-1905. The Cabinet of President Roosevelt during his First Term.
On succeeding the murdered President McKinley, to fill the unexpired term, President Roosevelt retained his predecessor’s Cabinet, three members of which remained in it throughout the term. These were John Hay, Secretary of State, Ethan Allen Hitchcock, Secretary of the Interior, and James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture. Lyman J. Gage, Secretary of the Treasury, resigned in 1902 and was succeeded by Leslie M. Shaw. Elihu Root, Secretary of War, was succeeded by William H. Taft in 1904. John D. Long, Secretary of the Navy, retired in 1902, to be succeeded by William H. Moody, who went two years later to the Department of Justice, as Attorney-General, taking the place of Philander C. Knox, and being followed in the Navy Department by Paul Morton. Charles E. Smith, Postmaster-General, left the Cabinet in 1902, and his place was taken by Henry C. Payne, who was succeeded in turn by Robert J. Wynne in 1904. The Department of Commerce and Labor, created in February, 1903, was filled first by George B. Cortelyou, until 1904, then by Victor H. Metcalf.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1901-1905. Urgency of President Roosevelt for more effective Railway Rate Legislation.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1870-1908.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1901-1906. Governmental Action against Corporate Wrongdoing. A summary of Legislation, Litigation, and Court Decisions.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1906.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1901-1909. Progress of Civil Service Reform under President Roosevelt.
See (in this Volume) CIVIL SERVICE REFORM: UNITED STATES.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1901-1909. The great National Movement for an organized Conservation of Natural Resources.
See (in this Volume) CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: UNITED STATES.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1902. Arbitration at The Hague of the Pious Fund Dispute with Mexico.
See (in this Volume) MEXICO: A. D. 1902.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1902 (August). Assertion to Germany of Principles involved in the Right of Expatriation.
See (in this Volume) NATURALIZATION.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1902 (January). Founding of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE AND INVENTION: CARNEGIE INSTITUTION.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1902 (February-March). Visit of Prince Henry of Prussia.
A visit by Prince Henry of Prussia, brother of the German Emperor, was an event of considerable importance, in what it signified of friendly relations between Germany and the United States. The Prince arrived on the 22d of February and remained in the country until the 11th of March, visiting and being entertained at Washington (and Mt. Vernon), Annapolis, West Point, Philadelphia, New York, and making a six days trip into the West.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1902 (March). Creation of a Permanent Census Bureau.
After long urging, Congress, in February, 1902, passed a bill authorizing the organization of a permanent Census Bureau in the Department of the Interior.
{667}
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1902 (May). Unveiling of a Monument to Marshal de Rochambeau.
A joint resolution of the two Houses of Congress, in the following words, was approved by the President on the 21st of March, 1902:
"That the President be, and is hereby, authorized and requested to extend to the Government and people of France and the family of Marshal de Rochambeau, commander in chief of the French forces in America during the war of independence, and to the family of Marquis de Lafayette, a cordial invitation to unite with the Government and people of the United States in a fit and appropriate dedication of the monument of Marshal de Rochambeau to be unveiled in the city of Washington on the twenty-fourth day of May, nineteen hundred and two; and for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of this resolution the sum of ten thousand dollars is hereby appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, the same, or so much thereof as may be necessary, to be expended under the direction of the Secretary of State."
The invitation was conveyed to the President of France by an autograph letter from President Roosevelt, while Secretary Hay, at the same time, communicated it officially, through the American Ambassador at Paris, to representatives of the families of Marshal de Rochambeau and the Marquis de Lafayette. France, in response, sent a battleship, the _Gaulois_, bearing a general and an admiral, with two aids each, and two officials from the foreign office. The invitation was accepted by the present Count and Countess de Rochambeau; and, as explained by Ambassador Porter in a despatch, "Mr. Gaston de Sahune de Lafayette and his wife, not being able to proceed to the United States, the invitation is accepted for Mr. Paul de Sahune de Lafayette, who has been living in the United States for the last two years and who speaks English. He is the brother of Mr. Gaston de Sahune de Lafayette."
The ceremonies of the unveiling of the monument took place at Washington on the 24th of May, and were followed by official hospitalities to the guests of the occasion at Washington, Annapolis, West Point, New York, Newport, and Boston. With the sailing of the _Gaulois_, on the 1st of June, the formalities of the visit came to an end.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1902 (May). Establishment of the Republic of Cuba. Transfer of Executive Authority from U. S. Military Governor to President-elect Palma.
See (in this Volume ) CUBA: A. D. 1901-1902.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1902 (May-November). The Restoration of the White House.
Until 1902 the residence and the executive offices of the President of the United States were crowded together in the historic White House, with increasing inconvenience and impropriety. Many projects for their separation had been discussed, involving generally the erection of a new mansion for the chief magistrate; but they had no result until President Roosevelt, with characteristic resolution, took the matter in hand. His emphatic pronouncement that "under no circumstances should the President live elsewhere than in the historic White House" appealed strongly to a very common public feeling, and smoothed the way for an undertaking which speedily cleared the White House of its secretarial and clerical offices and made it a fit and worthy residence for the chief citizen of the Republic and his family.
On consultation with the Park Commission of Washington, and especially with the architect, Mr. McKim, who was one of its members, as to the expenditure of the annual appropriations of Congress for repairs to the White House, it was decided to be thriftless policy "to patch a building that needed thorough reconstruction. When asked for his ideas as to such reconstruction, Mr. McKim advised that a temporary one-story building be located west of the White House, nearly on the site once occupied by Thomas Jefferson’s offices, and be distinctly subordinate to the main building; and that the White House be restored to its original uses as a residence. This solution commended itself to the President, but lateness in the session of Congress seemed to make the project impossible of immediate execution.
"The discussion was still in the academic stage when, one day [in May, 1902], Mr. McKim outlined his ideas to the late Senator McMillan, who straightway asked the cost of the proposed changes. Pressed for an immediate answer, Mr. McKim made a rough estimate. The Sundry Civil Appropriation Bill was then pending in the Senate Committee on Appropriations, and within an hour from the time the figures were given that committee agreed to insert an item for the restoration of the White House and for the construction of temporary executive offices. To Senators Allison and Hale the President afterward submitted the architect’s scheme; and when the item was reached during the passage of the bill in the Senate, the plan was received with favor, and the appropriation was agreed to without objection."
It passed the House with equal promptitude. The President then stipulated that "the work should be completed in time for the next social season, and that the executive offices and the living portion of the White House should be ready in November, 1902. That meant a campaign. Stones for floors and stairways must be selected piece by piece at the distant quarry; steel must be found to replace the over-tired wooden floor-beams; velvets and silks must be woven; hardware must be fashioned; and a thousand and one details must be looked after, because in less than six months the White House was to be made over from cellar to garret, and every piece of woodwork, every item of furniture, each ceiling and panel and moulding, must be both architecturally correct and also befitting a house of the latter part of the eighteenth century. Such was the task which the architects, Messrs. McKim, Mead & White, took upon themselves. …
"The total amount which Congress placed in President Roosevelt’s hands for both the executive offices and the White House was $530,641, and he might expend the money either by contract or otherwise in his discretion. This amount was based on estimates furnished by the architects, with the understanding that any portion saved on one item might be used on others, a very happy proviso, as it turned out, because the electric wiring had to be entirely renewed, new heating apparatus provided, and even a new roof put on the house--all unforeseen requirements. …
"At the outset the architects discovered that simply by carrying out completely the early plans as to the exterior, and by making certain rearrangements in the interior, the … White House problems could be solved, at least for the immediate future, without destroying one single feature of the historic building. …
{668}
"By the restoration of the east and west terraces the White House now rises from a stylobate 460 feet in length, thus greatly enhancing the dignity of the structure. The roofs of these terraces (which are level with the ground on the north) are surrounded with stone balustrades bearing electric lamps."
_Charles Moore, The Restoration of the White House (Century Magazine, April, 1903)._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1902 (June). Reclamation (Irrigation) Act of Congress.
See (in this Volume) CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: UNITED STATES.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1902 (October). Failure of Projected Purchase of the Danish West Indies.
See (in this Volume) DENMARK: A. D. 1902.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1902-1903. Friendly course of Germany in undertaking Proceedings, with Great Britain and Italy, against Venezuela. Recognition of the Monroe Doctrine. Intermediation of the United States.
"If any proof were needed of Germany’s purpose to maintain good relations with our country [the United States], her course in the Venezuela matter has amply supplied it.
See (in this Volume) VENEZUELA: A. D. 1902-1904]
Indeed, the fact that Germany came to an understanding with our government before taking forcible measures against Venezuela is of most momentous significance. Why? Because this was the first explicit recognition of the Monroe Doctrine by any Continental Power. It is a notable milestone passed in the history of our country and its relations with European governments. It gives the Monroe Doctrine a validity no longer to be disputed. All this was instantly recognized in Germany. ‘America for the Americans,’ said a great Berlin daily, ‘has become an irreversible fact.’ German Jingo organs were dazed, and angrily exclaimed, ‘Must we ask permission at Washington to collect our claims from Venezuela?’ Papers of more rational temper, however, accepted Germany's course, as not only without detriment to her dignity, but as in harmony with her political interests. Indeed, this saner section of the German press was even pleased that the government had thus made such an emphatic disavowal of the aims and dreams of the noisy, fantastic Pan-Germans."
_W. C. Dreher, A Letter from Germany (Atlantic Monthly, March, 1902)._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1902-1903. Extension of Civil Service Classification to Rural Free Delivery Service. Order concerning Unclassified Laborers.
See (in this Volume) CIVIL SERVICE REFORM: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1902-1903.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1902-1905. Negotiation and Senatorial Destruction of the Hay-Bond Reciprocity Treaty with Newfoundland.
See (in this Volume) NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1902-1905.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1902 (February). Creation of the Department of Commerce and Labor in the National Government. The Bureau of Corporations.
"The establishment of the Department of Commerce and Labor, with the Bureau of Corporations thereunder, marks a real advance in the direction of doing all that is possible for the solution of the questions vitally affecting capitalist and wage-workers. The act creating the Department was approved on February 14, 1903, and two days later the head of the Department was nominated and confirmed by the Senate. Since then the work of organization has been pushed as rapidly as the initial appropriations permitted, and with due regard to thoroughness and the broad purposes which the Department is designed to serve. After the transfer of the various bureaus and branches to the department at the beginning of the current fiscal year, as provided for in the act, the personnel comprised 1,289 employees in Washington and 8,836 in the country at large. The scope of the Department’s duty and authority embraces the commercial and industrial interests of the Nation. It is not designed to restrict or control the fullest liberty of legitimate business action, but to secure exact and authentic information which will aid the Executive in enforcing existing laws, and which will enable the Congress to enact additional legislation, if any should be found necessary, in order to prevent the few from obtaining privileges at the expense of diminished opportunities for the many.
"The preliminary work of the Bureau of Corporations in the Department has shown the wisdom of its creation. Publicity in corporate affairs will tend to do away with ignorance, and will afford facts upon which intelligent action may be taken. Systematic, intelligent investigation is already developing facts the knowledge of which is essential to a right understanding of the needs and duties of the business World. The corporation which is honestly and fairly organized, whose managers in the conduct of its business recognize their obligation to deal squarely with their stockholders, their competitors, and the public, has nothing to fear from such supervision. The purpose of this Bureau is not to embarrass or assail legitimate business, but to aid in bringing about a better industrial condition—a condition under which there shall be obedience to law and recognition of public obligation by all corporations, great or small."
_Message of the President to Congress, December 7, 1903._
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1903 (February). Passage of the Act to further regulate Commerce with Foreign Nations and among the States, known commonly as the Elkins Anti-Rebate Law.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1903 (FEBRUARY).
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1903 (October). Settlement of the Alaska Boundary Question.
See (in this Volume) ALASKA: A. D. 1903.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1903 (October). Lease from Cuba of two Coaling and Naval Stations.
See (in this Volume) CUBA: A. D. 1903.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1903 (October). New Treaty with China. Two Ports in Manchuria opened to Foreign Trade.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1903 (MAY-OCTOBER).
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1903 (October). Commercial Relations with Germany as affected by the new German Tariff Law.
See (in this Volume) GERMANY: A. D. 1902 (OCTOBER).
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1903-1904. The Financial Crisis.
See (in this Volume) FINANCE AND TRADE: A. D. 1901-1909.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1903-1904. Contention against Canadian claims to Sovereignty over Land and Sea in Hudson Bay Region. Canadian Measures to establish it.
See (in this Volume) CANADA: A. D. 1903-1904.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1903-1905. Investigation and Prosecution of the "Beef Trust," so called.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1903-1906.
{669}
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1903-1906. Unearthing of Extensive Frauds in the Land Office.
Late in December, 1902, the Secretary of the Interior Department, the Honorable Ethan Allen Hitchcock, received information which led him, with the President’s approval, to demand the resignation of the Commissioner of the Land Office, Binger Hermann, of Oregon. Mr. Hermann was a man of importance in the Republican party, and he rallied powerful influences to his support. They could not anchor him durably in the Land Office, but they did delay his departure from it for about a mouth, during which time he is said to have destroyed thousands of letters and documents bearing on land frauds which he was under suspicion of having protected and promoted. Returning to Oregon from Washington he sought and obtained from his party an election to Congress, to fill a vacancy which death had caused opportunely, and this seemed to augment his political power. But agents of the Interior Department were in Oregon and other Western States at the same time, gathering evidence which soon removed all doubt of the huge conspiracy of fraud which Commissioner Hermann had been a party to, and which had wide ramifications wherever public lands of value were open to entry, under the Homestead Act, the Desert Land Act, or the Timber and Stone Act.
The frauds were carried on under false appearances of compliance with the requirements of law, and the dismissal of Hermann had not cleared from the General Land Office all the treacherous connivance which made them possible. Other allies of the land-thieves were tracked to their official desks, some at Washington, some in the Interior Department, some in Congress, and some out in the land offices at the West. Then the Federal Grand Jury at Portland, Oregon, began to turn out indictments, on evidence handled by Francis J. Heney, now entering on a famous career, as special prosecutor for the Government. Mr. Heney was appointed by the President on the recommendation of Secretary Hitchcock and Attorney-General Knox, with neglect of advice from Oregon Senators and Congressmen. One of the first of the indictments found struck an Oregon Senator, John H. Mitchell, and brought him to a prison sentence, which death rescued him from. Another put a member of the House of Representatives, J. H. Williamson, on trial; a third put its brand on a recently removed United States District Attorney, John H. Hall. Binger Hermann, a State Senator, and several special agents of the Land Office were among the other subjects of prosecution, besides a large number of private operators in the land-thieves’ ring.
These proceedings were at the beginning of vigorous measures which have gone far towards, if not fully to the end of arresting the frauds which were rapidly robbing the nation of the last of its valuable public lands.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1904. Representation in the Interparliamentary Union.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1904-1909.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1904 (May). Kidnapping of Mr. Ion Perdicaris at Tangier, for Ransom.
See (in this Volume) MOROCCO: A. D. 1904-1909.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1904 (May-October). The Louisiana Purchase Exposition.
See (in this Volume) ST. LOUIS: A. D. 1904.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1904 (May-November). The Presidential Election.
## Parties, Candidates, and Platforms.
Election of President Roosevelt.
The questions of leading interest and influence in the canvass preliminary to the Presidential election of 1904 were undoubtedly those relating to the governmental regulation of interstate railways and of the capitalistic combinations called "trusts"; but those questions had not yet acquired the height of importance in the public mind which they reached before the next quadrennial polling of the nation occurred. The question of tariff revision and a moderated protective system, in the interest of the great mass of consumers, was rising in interest, especially at the West; but that, too, was but mildly influential in the campaign. As for the imperialistic ambitions that had been excited for a time by the conquests of 1898, they had cooled to so great a degree as to offer no longer much challenge to opposition; opinion in the country now differing on little more than the length of time to which American guardianship over the Philippine Islands should be allowed to run. The voters of the United States, in fact, made their election between the men who were offered to it as candidates, far more than between the parties and the policies whom the candidates represented; and President Roosevelt was reelected on personal grounds, in the main, because the kind of vigorous character he had shown was greatly to the liking of a large part of the people.
The first nominating convention to be held was that of the Socialist party, whose delegates met at Chicago, May 2, and nominated for President Eugene V. Debs, of Indiana; for Vice-President Benjamin Hanford, of New York.
On the same day the United Christian Party, whose declaration of principles appears below, met at St. Louis.
The Convention of the Republican Party, also held at Chicago, came next in time, June 21, and, with Theodore Roosevelt, of New York, for reëlection as President, it named for Vice-President Charles Warren Fairbanks, of Indiana.
The Prohibition Party, in convention at Indianapolis, June 29, named Silas C. Swallow, of Pennsylvania, for President, and George W. Carroll, of Texas, for Vice-President.
On the 4th of July the People’s or Populist Party held convention at Springfield, Illinois, and nominated Thomas E. Watson, of Georgia, for President, with Thomas H. Tibbles, of Nebraska, for Vice-President.
Meeting two days earlier, in New York City, but in session some days longer, the Socialist Labor Party named for President Charles Hunter Corregan, of New York, and for Vice-President William Wesley Cox, of Illinois.
The convention of the Democratic Party opened its session, at St. Louis, on the 6th of July. Its nominee for President was Alton B. Parker, of New York; for Vice-President Henry G. Davis, of West Virginia.
The National Liberty Party met at St. Louis on the 7th of July and put forth its platform of principles.
The last of the nominations were presented on the 31st of August, at Chicago, by a convention representing a new party, the Continental, whose candidates then named declined and were subsequently replaced by Austin Holcomb, of Georgia, for President, and A. King, of Missouri, for Vice-President.
{670}
With some abridgment, the declarations of principles and pledges of party policy adopted by these several conventions on the main questions at issue are given conveniently for comparison in the following arrangement by subjects:
Trusts.
The Republican Party contented itself with a brief boast of "laws enacted by the Republican party which the Democratic party failed to enforce," but which "have been fearlessly enforced by a Republican President," and of "new laws insuring reasonable publicity as to the operations of great corporations and providing additional remedies for the prevention of discrimination in freight rates."
The Democratic Party condemned with vigor the failure of Republicans in Congress to prohibit contracts with convicted trusts; declared that "gigantic trusts and combinations" "are a menace to beneficial competition and an obstacle to permanent business prosperity;" denounced "rebates and discrimination by transportation companies as the most potent agency in promoting and strengthening these unlawful conspiracies against trade," demanded "an enlargement of the powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission," "a strict enforcement of existing civil and criminal statutes against all such trusts, combinations and monopolies," and "the enactment of such further legislation as may be necessary to effectually suppress them."
The People’s Party set forth the proposition that, "to prevent unjust discrimination and monopoly the Government should own and control the railroads and those public utilities which in their nature are monopolies." It should "own and operate the general telegraph and telephone systems and provide a parcels post." Corporations "should be subjected to such governmental regulations and control as will adequately protect the public," and demand was made for "the taxation of monopoly privileges, while they remain in private hands, to the extent of the value of the privileges granted."
The Continental Party contended for a guarded chartering by Congress of "all railroad and other corporations doing business in two or more States," and for having the "creating of ‘corners’ and the establishing of exorbitant prices for products necessary to human existence … made a criminal offence."
The United Christian Party declared that "Christian government through direct legislation will regulate the trusts and labor problem according to the golden rule."
The Tariff.
The Republican Party declared "Protection" to be its "cardinal policy," maintenance of the principles of which policy is insisted upon; wherefore "rates of duty should be readjusted only when conditions have so changed that the public interest demands their alteration," and "this work cannot safely be committed to any other hands than those of the Republican party."
The Democratic Party, on the contrary, denounced "protection as a robbery of the many to enrich the few," favored "a tariff limited to the needs of the Government, economically administered," and called for a "revision and gradual reduction of the tariff by the friends of the masses, for the commonwealth, and not by the friends of its abuses, its extortions and its discriminations."
The People’s Party declared for a change in our laws that "will place tariff schedules in the hands of an omni-partisan commission."
The Continental Party limited its declaration on this subject to one pronouncing for an "adherence to the principles of reciprocity advocated by that eminent statesman, James G. Blaine, as applied to Canada and all American Republics."
Capital and Labor. Public Ownership. Socialism.
The Republican Party recognized "combinations of capital and labor" as "being the results of the economic movements of the age," but "neither must be permitted to infringe upon the rights and interests of the people"; "both are subject to the laws, and neither can be permitted to break them."
The Democratic Party expressed similar impartiality, in favoring "the enactment and administration of laws giving labor and capital impartially their just rights."
The People’s Party pledged its effort to "preserve inviolate" "the right of labor to organize for the benefit and protection of those who toil." It would seek "the enactment of legislation looking to the improvement of conditions for the wage-earners, the abolition of child labor, the suppression of sweat shops and of convict labor in competition with free labor"; also the "exclusion from American shores of foreign pauper labor," and "the shorter work day."
The Continental Party adopted these expressions of the People’s Party, in identical words.
The National Liberty Party asked "that the General Government own and control all public carriers in the United States."
The Prohibition Party declared itself "in favor of … the safeguarding of the people’s rights by a rigid application of the principles of justice to all combinations and organizations of capital and labor."
The United Christian Party pronounced simply for "Government ownership of coal mines, oil wells and public utilities."
The Socialist Party pledged itself "to watch and work, in both the economic and the political struggle, for each successive immediate interest of the working class": for "shortened days of labor and increases of wages"; for "insurance of the workers against accident, sickness and lack of employment"; for pensions; for "public ownership of the means of transportation, communication and exchange"; for graduated taxation of incomes, etc.; for "complete education of children and their freedom from the workshops"; for "free administration of justice"; for "the initiative, referendum, proportional representation, equal suffrage for men and women," etc.; and for "every gain or advantage for the workers that may be wrested from the capitalist system and that may relieve the suffering and strengthen the hands of labor"; but in so doing it proclaims that it is "using these remedial measures as means to the one great end of the co-operative commonwealth."
The Socialist Labor Party declared that "the existing contradiction between the theory of democratic government and the fact of a despotic economic system … perverts government to the exclusive benefit of the capitalist class"; wherefore, "against such a system the Socialist Labor Party raises the banner of revolt, and demands the unconditional surrender of the capitalist class."
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Nomination and Election. Initiative and Referendum.
The Democratic Party declared for the election of United States Senators by direct popular vote.
he People’s Party demanded "that legal provision be made under which people may exercise the initiative and referendum, and proportional representation, and direct vote for all public officers, with the right of recall."
The Continental Party demanded "the enactment by the several States of a primary election law"; the "elimination of the party ‘boss’"; "direct legislation by the method known as the initiative and referendum," and the possession by each State of "the sole right to determine by legislation the qualifications required of voters within its jurisdiction, irrespective of race, color or sex."
The Prohibition Party expressed itself in favor of the popular election of United States Senators; of "a wise application of the principle of the initiative and referendum," and of making the right of suffrage "depend upon the mental and moral qualifications of the citizen."
Natural Resources. Land. Reclamation. Waterways.
The Republican Party pointed simply to the fact that it had "passed laws which will bring the arid lands of the United States within the area of cultivation."
The Democratic Party congratulated "our western citizens upon the passage of the law known as the Newlands Irrigation Act," claiming it as "a measure framed by a Democrat, passed in the Senate by a non-partisan vote, and passed in the House against the opposition of almost all Republican leaders, by a vote the majority of which was Democratic." It declared for "liberal appropriations for the improvement of waterways of the country," and pronounced its opposition to "the Republican policy of starving home development in order to feed the greed for conquest and the appetite for national prestige."
The People’s Party asserted that "Land, including all the natural sources of wealth, is a heritage of all the people, and should not be monopolized for speculative purposes; and alien ownership of land should be prohibited."
Each of the party platforms was fluent on many other topics, such as the protection of citizens at home and abroad, the Panama Canal, territories and dependencies, injunctions, public economy, taxation, monetary questions, pensions, the civil service, army and navy, merchant marine, liquor-licensing and prohibition (the specialty of the Prohibition Party), divorce, polygamy, etc.; but these entered so little into the canvass that the party declarations on them had small effect, if any, on the popular vote.
At the election, in November, the votes given to the Republican nominees numbered 7,623,486; to Democratic, 5,077,971; to Socialist, 402,283; to Prohibition, 258,536; to People’s, 117,183; to Socialist Labor, 31,249.
The electoral votes cast were 336 for Roosevelt and Fairbanks; 140 for Parker and Davis.
The States which gave Republican majorities were California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming,—32.
Democratic majorities were given in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia,—12.
In Maryland, where the electors are chosen by the Legislature, 6 votes were given to the Democratic candidates and 2 to the Republican.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1904 (October). Initial invitation by the President to the holding of a Second Peace Conference.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1907.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1904 (November). President Roosevelt’s Renunciation of any Third Term Candidacy.
On the evening of the day of election, as soon as the result was known to have given him a second term in the presidential office, President Roosevelt issued the following acknowledgment and announcement to the country:
"I am deeply sensible of the honor done me by the American people in thus expressing their confidence in what I have done and have tried to do. I appreciate to the full the solemn responsibility this confidence imposes upon me, and I shall do all that in my power lies not to forfeit it. On the Fourth of March next I shall have served three and one-half years, and this three and one-half years constitutes my first term. The wise custom which limits the President to two terms regards the substance and not the form. Under no circumstances will I be a candidate for or accept another nomination."
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1904-1905. Beginning and Organization of Work on the Panama Canal.
See (in this Volume) PANAMA CANAL: A. D. 1904-1905.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1904-1909. Progress of State, County, and Town Prohibition.
See (in this Volume) ALCOHOL PROBLEM: UNITED STATES.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1905. Arbitration Treaty with Mexico.
See (in this Volume) MEXICO: A. D. 1904-1905.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1905. Reopened Controversy over American Fishing Rights on the Newfoundland coast.
See (in this Volume) NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1905-1909.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1905. Assistance to San Domingo against threatening Creditors.
See (in this Volume) SAN DOMINGO: A. D. 1904-1907.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1905 (February). Concentration of Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture.
See (in this Volume) CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: UNITED STATES.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1905 (February-June). Recovery from France of the body of Admiral John Paul Jones.
On the 13th of February, 1905, President Roosevelt addressed a Message to Congress which gave the following information:
"For a number of years efforts have been made to confirm the historical statement that the remains of Admiral John Paul Jones were interred in a certain piece of ground in the city of Paris then owned by the Government and used at the time as a burial place for foreign Protestants. These efforts have at last resulted in documentary proof that John Paul Jones was buried on July 20, 1792, between 8 and 9 o’clock P. M., in the now abandoned cemetery of St. Louis, in the northeastern section of Paris. About 500 bodies were interred there, and the body of the admiral was probably among the last hundred buried. It was encased in a leaden coffin, calculated to withstand the ravages of time.
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"The cemetery was about 130 feet long by 120 feet wide. Since its disuse as a burial place the soil has been tilled to a level and covered almost completely by buildings, most of them of an inferior class. The American ambassador in Paris, being satisfied that it is practical to discover and identify the remains of John Paul Jones, has, after prolonged negotiations with the present holders of the property and the tenants thereof, secured from them options in writing which give him the right to dig in all parts of the property during a period of three months for the purpose of making the necessary excavations and searches, upon condition of a stated compensation for the damage and annoyance caused by the work. The actual search is to be conducted by the chief engineer of the municipal department of Paris having charge of subterranean works at a cost which has been carefully estimated. The ambassador gives the entire cost of the work, including the options, compensation, cost of excavating and caring for the remains as not exceeding 180,000 francs, or $35,000, on the supposition that the body may not be found until the whole area has been searched. If earlier discovered, the expense would be proportionately less."
The President recommended an appropriation of the sum named, "or so much thereof as may be necessary for the purposes above described, to be expended under the direction of the Secretary of State."
On the 14th of April following a telegram from the Ambassador at Paris, General Horace Porter, announced that his "six years’ search for the remains of Paul Jones" had resulted in success, and described the identification of the body. This had been verified by Doctors Capitan and Papillault, distinguished professors of the School of Anthropology, who had ample particulars of information from which to judge. Arrangements were made at once for sending a naval squadron, under Admiral Sigsbee, to France, to bring the remains to the United States. This was done in the following June, when the relics of the first of American naval heroes received the high honors that were due to his exploits. They were deposited in a vault on the grounds of the Naval Academy at Annapolis.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1905 (June-October). Mediation by the President between Russia and Japan. The Peace Treaty of Portsmouth.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1905 (JUNE-OCTOBER).
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1905 (July). Proclamation of the Death of John Hay, Secretary of State.
"John Hay, Secretary of State of the United States, died on July 1st. His death, a crushing sorrow to his friends, is to the people of this country a national bereavement; and it is in addition a serious loss to all mankind, for to him it was given to stand as a leader in the effort to better world conditions by striving to advance the cause of international peace and justice. He entered the public service as the trusted and intimate companion of Abraham Lincoln, and for well nigh forty-five years he served his country with loyal devotion and high ability in many positions of honor and trust, and finally he crowned his life work by serving as Secretary of State with such far-sighted reading of the future and such loyalty to lofty ideals as to confer lasting benefits not only upon our own country, but upon all the nations of the earth.
"As a suitable expression of national mourning, I direct that the diplomatic representatives of the United States in all foreign countries display the flags over their embassies and legations at half-mast for ten days; that for a like period the flag of the United States be displayed at half-mast at all forts and military posts and at all naval stations and on all vessels of the United States. I further order that on the day of the funeral the Executive Departments in the city of Washington be closed, and that on all public buildings throughout the United States the national flag be displayed at half-mast.
"Done at the city of Washington this third day of July, A. D. 1905, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and twenty-ninth. Theodore Roosevelt."
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1905-1906. American Claims against Venezuela.
See (in this Volume) VENEZUELA: A. D. 1905-1906, and 1907-1909.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1905-1906. Part taken in the organization of the International Institute of Agriculture.
See (in this Volume) AGRICULTURE.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1905-1906. The new Period of Inflated Exploitation of Capital. Increased Cost of Living.
See (in this Volume) FINANCE AND TRADE: A. D. 1901-1909.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1905-1907. Receivership of San Domingo Revenues. The "Modus Vivendi" and the Treaty.
See (in this Volume) SAN DOMINGO: A. D. 1905-1907.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1905-1909. The Cabinet of President Roosevelt during his Second Term.
During the second term of President Roosevelt his Cabinet underwent the following changes: On the death of John Hay, in July, 1905, Elihu Root became Secretary of State, and continued in the office until January, 1909, when he resigned, and was succeeded by the Assistant Secretary of State, Robert Bacon. Leslie M. Shaw left the Treasury Department in 1907, and the secretaryship was given to George B. Cortelyou. William H. Taft continued in charge of the War Department until his nomination for President, in 1908, when General Luke E. Wright was called to his place. Charles J. Bonaparte, appointed Secretary of the Navy at the beginning of the President’s new term, was transferred in 1907 to the Department of Justice, succeeding Attorney-General Moody, appointed to the bench of the Supreme Court, and being succeeded in the Navy Department by Victor H. Metcalf, previously Secretary of Commerce and Labor. In the Department of the Interior, Secretary Hitchcock resigned in 1907, and James R. Garfield, previously Commissioner of Corporations, came into his place. George B. Cortelyou had been called to the Post Office Department at the beginning of the new presidential term, and transferred thence to the Treasury Department in 1907. His place in the Post Office was then filled by George von L. Meyer. The Secretary of Agriculture, James Wilson, remained at the head of that Department throughout the term. On the transfer of Mr. Metcalf from the Department of Commerce and Labor to that of the Treasury, in 1907, his place in the former was taken by Oscar S. Straus.
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1906. Joint Action with Mexico in Central American Mediation.
See (in this Volume) CENTRAL AMERICA.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1906. Act for the Preservation of the Scenic Grandeur of Niagara Falls.
See (in this Volume) NIAGARA FALLS.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1906. Dealings with Turkey facilitated by making the American Minister an Ambassador.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1906.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1906. Enactment of a National Pure Food Law.
See (in this Volume) PUBLIC HEALTH.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1906 (January-April). Represented at the Algeciras Conference on the Morocco Question. Instructions to the Delegates. Declaration made on signing the Act of the Conference.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1905-1906.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1906 (March). Supreme Court Decision enforcing the Demand of the Government for the production of Books and Papers by the so-called Tobacco Trust before a Federal Grand Jury.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1905-1906.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1906 (April). Laying the Corner Stone of an Office Building for Congressmen.
On the 14th of April, 1906, the corner stone of a building designed to supply each member of the House of Representatives with an office was laid with ceremony, the President delivering an address. Besides 410 distinct offices, the design of the building contemplated a large assembly room for public hearings before committees of the House. Its estimated cost was something over $3,000,000. A corresponding office building for the Senate was also in view.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1906 (April). Convention with British Government for Determining and Marking the Alaska Boundary Line.
See (in this Volume) ALASKA: A. D. 1906.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1906 (April-July). Long and Widespread Suspension of Coal Mining, both Anthracite and Bituminous.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1906.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1906 (June). The Joint Statehood Act.
By the Joint Statehood Bill, approved by the President June 16, 1906, Indian Territory and Oklahoma were united to form the State of Oklahoma, the people being authorized to adopt a constitution. Arizona and New Mexico were proffered a similar union, in a State to be called Arizona. On the question of such union the Bill provided for a vote to be taken in each Territory, following which, if a majority in each should be found to favor the union, delegates to be chosen at the same election should meet and frame a constitution for submission to the people. The contemplated vote was taken at the election of November 6, and resulted in the rejection of the proposal by Arizona, while New Mexico gave assent. The project was thus defeated.
The plan of union was successful, however, in the creation of the State of Oklahoma. Delegates to a convention for framing its Constitution were elected November 6, 1906; the convention began its session on the 20th of the same month, and finished its labors on the 16th of July, 1907. By proclamation of the President the new State,—the 46th of the Federal family,—was admitted to the Union on the 16th of November following, under the Constitution which had been ratified by vote of a majority of the citizens of each of the Territories now united in it. For some account of the Constitution;
See (in this Volume) CONSTITUTION OF OKLAHOMA.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1906 (July-August). The Third International Conference of American Republics, at Rio de Janeiro.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1906 (August). The Brownsville Affair.
On the 13th of August, 1906, a riotous affair of a much-disputed nature occurred at Brownsville, Texas, in which one man was killed and two, at least, were wounded. The shooting was alleged to have been done by colored soldiers who formed part of a battalion of the Twenty-fifth Infantry, United States Army, stationed at Brownsville. An investigation of the affair convinced the President that some few soldiers of the battalion were guilty of what had been done, and that their comrades knew of their guilt, but were shielding them, by assertions to the contrary. On this belief he ordered the entire battalion to be discharged from the service, and angry controversy over his action arose at once. The negro soldiers were championed by a considerable part of the Press of the country, and by a section of Congress when it met. The evidence of their guilt was declared to be more than doubtful, and the authority of the President to issue the order of discharge was challenged.
In the annual report of the then Secretary of War, now President Taft, the action of President Roosevelt was firmly sustained. Secretary Taft’s version of the circumstances of the affair was substantially to the following effect: Some number of men, from a battalion of 170, formed a preconcerted plan to revenge themselves upon the people of a town for insults which they resented. They left their barracks about midnight and fired into the houses of the town for the purpose of killing those against whom they had a grievance. They did kill one man, wound another, and seriously injure the chief of police. There can be no doubt, therefore, that this squad of men were guilty; the purpose of one was the purpose of all. Within a few minutes after the crime was committed, the men returned to their places in the ranks (a call to arms having been sounded), and must have been among the last to take their places, for the firing continued after the formations had begun. The absence of their rifles from the racks could not have escaped the attention of the sergeants who had the keys; yet all the sergeants swear that the rifles were in the racks, untouched. It is impossible that many of the battalion who did not take part as active members of the conspiracy were not made aware, by one circumstance or another, of the identity of the persons who committed the offense, instead of giving to their officers or the inspectors the benefit of anything which they knew tending to lead to a conviction of the guilty men, there was a conspiracy of silence on the part of many who must have had some knowledge of importance. "These enlisted men," said Secretary Taft, "took the oath of allegiance to the Government, and were to be used under the law to maintain its supremacy. Can the Government properly, therefore, keep in its employ for the purpose of maintaining law and order any longer a body of men, from five to ten per cent. of whom can plan and commit murder, and rely upon the silence of a number of their companions to escape detection? "
{674}
Mr. Taft then called attention to the fact that "when a man enlists in the army he knows that, for the very purpose of protecting itself, the Government reserves to itself the absolute right of discharge, not as a punishment, but for the public safety or interest." He thus corrected the supposition that the discharge was a punishment either of the innocent or the guilty. He said further: "The discharge ‘without honor’ is merely the ending of a contract and separation from the service under a right reserved in the statute for the protection of the Government, which may work a hardship to the private discharged, but which, in the public interest, must sometimes be arbitrarily exercised."
Of the repeated investigations, Congressional and military, that ensued, and of the protracted disputation, led in Congress by Senator Foraker, and echoed in the newspapers, it is needless to attempt an account; for no greater certainty as to the facts in the case can be recognized to-day than when Secretary Taft's report was made.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1906 (August-October). Insurrection in Cuba. American Intervention called for. The Cuban Government dissolved. Provisional Government established by Secretary-of-War Taft.
See (in this Volume) CUBA: A. D. 1906 (AUGUST-OCTOBER).
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1906 (October-November). Segregation of Orientals in San Francisco Schools. Resentment of the Japanese.
See (in this Volume) RACE PROBLEMS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1904-1909.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1906-1909. The Provisional Government of Cuba. Reinstatement of the Republic.
See (in this Volume) CUBA: A D. 1906-1909.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1906-1909. The Reform of the Consular Service.
See CIVIL SERVICE REFORM: UNITED STATES.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1907. Monetary Panic. Distress among the Speculative Great Capitalists. Industrial Paralysis. Unemployment for Labor.
See (in this Volume) FINANCE AND TRADE: A. D. 1901-1909.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1907. Enactment of a new Law of Citizenship.
See (in this Volume) NATURALIZATION.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1907 (January). Act to prohibit Corporations from making Contributions in connection with Political Elections.
The following Act of Congress was approved by the President, January 26, 1907.
"That it shall be unlawful for any national bank, or any corporation organized by authority of any laws of Congress, to make a money contribution in connection with any election to any political office. It shall also be unlawful for any corporation whatever to make a money contribution in connection with any election at which Presidential and Vice-Presidential electors or a Representative in Congress is to be voted for or any election by any State legislature of a United States Senator. Every corporation which shall make any contribution in violation of the foregoing provisions shall be subject to a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, and every officer or director of any corporation who shall consent to any contribution by the corporation in violation of the foregoing provisions shall upon conviction be punished by a fine of not exceeding one thousand and not less than two hundred and fifty dollars, or by imprisonment for a term of not more than one year, or both such fine and imprisonment in the discretion of the court."
According to a statement presented to the Senate in February, 1908, the laws of the following nineteen States and Territories contain provisions for the publicity of election contributions or expenditures originally enacted at the dates given:
Alabama, 1903; Arizona, 1895; California, 1893 Colorado, 1891; Connecticut, 1895; Iowa, 1907; Massachusetts, 1892; Minnesota, 1895; Missouri, 1893; Montana, 1895; Nebraska, 1897; New York, 1890; Pennsylvania, 1906; South Carolina, 1905; South Dakota, 1907; Texas, 1905; Virginia, 1903; Washington, 1907; Wisconsin, 1897.
The laws of the three following States, which contain no publicity provisions, forbid corporations to contribute in any manner for political purposes: Florida, 1897; Kentucky, 1897; Tennessee, 1897.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1907 (April). First National Peace Congress.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1907.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1907 (June-October). Represented at the Second Peace Conference.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1907.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1907-1909. The World-round Cruise of the Battleship Fleet.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR: NAVAL.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1908. Supreme Court Decision affirming right to specially limit the Hours of Labor for Women.
See (in this Volume) LABOR PROTECTION: HOURS OF LABOR.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1908 (April). Conditional Ratification, by the Senate of the Peace Conference Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1907.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1908 (April). Treaty with Great Britain respecting the Demarcation of the International Boundary between the United States and Canada.
See (in this Volume) CANADA: A. D. 1908 (APRIL).
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1908 (April). Convention for the Preservation and Propagation of Food Fishes in waters contiguous to the United States and Canada.
See (in this Volume) FOOD FISHES.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1908 (April). Passage of Act relating to the Liability of Common Carriers by Railroad to their Employees.
See (in this Volume) LABOR PROTECTION: EMPLOYERS’ LIABILITY.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1908 (April-November). The Presidential Election.
## Parties, Candidates, and Platforms.
Election of President Taft.
In the interval between the presidential elections of 1904 and 1908 the Trust and the Tariff questions had both received an increase of attention and of real study, and were factors of more influence in the latter than in the former election. The energy with which President Roosevelt had pressed both legislative and executive action, towards a more effective restraint and regulation of monopolistic combinations, had greatly strengthened his party in public favor. His extraordinary personal force, moreover, had made itself felt in many quickenings and stimulations of public spirit and of governmental action, which gave a cheering experience to the country. {675} The various ends to which this worked, and especially on the lines which looked to the rescuing of the rich natural resources of the country from private monopoly and reckless waste became associated in thought with the President, and widely talked of as belonging to "the Roosevelt policies." Popular satisfaction with these policies and their champion would have given Mr. Roosevelt a renomination by his party, if he had not emphatically reiterated his pledge of four years before, that "under no circumstances" would he "be a candidate for or accept another nomination." There were some who strove to persuade him to be false to that pledge; but they were not the people who esteemed him most truly. Naturally the nomination that would have gone again to Mr. Roosevelt if he had been free to accept it sought a candidate so closely identified with what he had stood for and labored for that no departure from the favored "policies" need be feared. Quite as naturally that candidate won a large majority of the popular votes.
The first nominating convention held in 1904 was that of the People’s or Populist Party, which sat in St. Louis April 2-3, and again named its old leader, Thomas E. Watson, of Georgia, for President, with Samuel W. Williams, of Indiana, for the second place.
Reverend Daniel Braxton Turney, of Illinois, was the next to be named for President, and L. S. Coffin, of Iowa, for Vice-President, by the United Christian Party, at Rock Island, Illinois, May 1.
On the 10th of May the Socialist Party met in convention at Chicago and was in session until the 18th, again nominating Eugene V. Debs, of Indiana, and Benjamin Hanford, of New York, for President and Vice-President.
The Republican convention was assembled at Chicago, June 16-19, and its nominees were William Howard Taft, of Ohio, for President, and James Schoolcraft Sherman, of New York, for Vice-President.
The Socialist Labor Party, at New York, July 24, nominated, for President, August Gillhaus, of New York; for Vice-President, Donald L. Munro, of Virginia.
At Denver, July 7-10, the Convention of the Democratic Party named, for the third time, William Jennings Bryan, of Nebraska, for President, and for Vice-President John Worth Kern, of Indiana.
The Prohibitionists convened at Columbus, Ohio, July 15-16, and the candidates named by them for President and Vice President were Eugene W. Chafin, of Illinois, and Aaron S. Watkins, of Ohio.
The last of the parties to meet in convention was that organized by William R. Hearst and named the Independence Party. The candidates put forward were Thomas L. Hisgen, of Massachusetts, and John Temple Graves, of Georgia.
Of the eight political parties which offered candidates to the voters of the nation, four presented them on special grounds, aside from which their standing on other questions of public policy was but slightly and incidentally made known. The "platforms" of the remaining four were of the scope of general politics, defining positions taken on all or most of the political discussions of the time. The declarations of these latter on the questions which enlisted real interest in the country will be given, as in the treatment of the party platforms of 1904, under a dissected arrangement, by subjects, for convenient comparison; while the former cannot easily be dealt with in that analytic way. In both cases the distinctly declaratory text of the platforms, only, will be given, with some abridgment, as follows:
Trusts.
"The Republican Party," it asserted, "passed the Sherman anti-trust law over Democratic opposition, and enforced it after Democratic dereliction. … But experience has shown that its effectiveness can be strengthened and its real objects better attained by such amendments as will give to the Federal Government greater supervision and control over, and secure greater publicity in, the management of that class of corporations engaged in interstate commerce having power and opportunity to effect monopolies."
The Democratic Party demanded "the enactment of such additional legislation as may be necessary to make it impossible for a private monopoly to exist in the United States." Among the additional remedies required it specified three:
(1) "A law preventing a duplication of directors among competing corporations";
(2) requirement of a federal license for a manufacturing or trading corporation, "before it shall be permitted to control as much as 25 per cent. of the product in which it deals, the license to protect the public from watered stock, and to prohibit the control by such corporation of more than 50 per cent. of the total amount of any product consumed in the United States"; and
(3) " a law compelling such licensed corporation to sell to all purchasers in all parts of the country on the same terms, after making due allowance for the cost of transportation."
The People’s Party declared that "the Government should own and control the railroads and those public utilities which in their nature are monopolies," including the telegraph and telephone systems, and should provide a parcels post. From those trusts and monopolies which are not public utilities or national monopolies it demanded a withdrawal of the special privileges they enjoy; taxation of all such privileges while they remain in private hands, and "a general law uniformly regulating the powers and duties of all incorporated companies doing interstate business."
The Independence Party denounced all combinations which "are not combinations for production, but for extortion," and demanded "the enforcement of a prison penalty against the guilty and responsible individuals controlling the management of the offending corporations." It advocated, "as a primary necessity for sounder business conditions and improved public service, the enactment of laws, State and National, to prevent watering of stock, dishonest issues of bonds and other forms of corporation frauds."
Tariff.
The declarations of the Republican and Democratic national conventions touching a revision of the tariff have been quoted already in this Volume.
See (in this Volume) TARIFFS: UNITED STATES.
The Independence Party, like the Democratic, demanded a revision of the tariff, not by its friends, but by the friends of the people, and declared for a gradual reduction of tariff duties.
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Capital and Labor. Injunctions.
The Republican Party recited the enactments of the existing Congress in the interest of labor, and pledged "its continued devotion to every cause that makes for safety and the betterment of conditions among those whose labor contributes to the progress and welfare of the country." On the burning question of the interference of courts of law, by writ of injunction, with labor "strikes," it declared that, while "the Republican Party will uphold at all times the authority and integrity of the courts," it believes "that the rules of procedure in the writ of injunction should be more accurately defined by statute, and that no injunction or temporary restraining order should be issued without notice, except where irreparable injury would result from delay, in which case a speedy hearing thereafter should be granted."
The Democratic Party gave expression to the same desire to maintain the dignity of the courts, but had seen that "experience has proven the necessity of a modification of the present law relating to injunctions," and added: "we reiterate the pledges of our national platforms of 1896 and 1904 in favor of the measure which passed the United States Senate in 1896, but which a Republican Congress has ever since refused to enact, relating to contempts in Federal courts and providing for trial by jury in cases of indirect contempt. … We deem … that injunctions should not be issued in any case in which injunctions would not issue if no industrial dispute were involved." Its further declarations were against any "abridgment of the right of wage-earners and producers to organize for the protection of wages and the improvement of labor conditions"; for "the eight hour law on all government work"; for the enactment by Congress of a "general employers’ liability act," and for the creation of "a department of labor, represented separately in the President’s cabinet."
The Independence Party denounced "the so-called labor planks of the Republican and Democratic platforms as political buncombe and contemptible clap trap," and asserted "that in all actions growing out of a dispute between employers and employees concerning terms and conditions of employment no injunction should issue until after a trial upon the merits; that such trial should be held before a jury, and that in no case of alleged contempt should any person be deprived of liberty without a trial by jury." In further declarations the party indorsed "those organizations among farmers and workers which tend to bring about a just distribution of wealth," and favored legislation to "remove them from the operation of the Sherman anti-trust law"; endorsed the eight-hour work day, and would have it applied to all work done for the Government; called for legislation to prohibit "any combination or conspiracy to blacklist employees"; demanded "protection for workmen through enforced use of standard safety appliances and provision of hygienic conditions"; advocated State and Federal inspection of railways to secure a greater safety for employees and the travelling public; condemned the manufacture and sale of prison-made goods; favored a Federal department of labor, with its chief in the Cabinet; and called for a Federal inspection of grain.
The People’s Party condemned "all unwarranted assumption of authority by inferior Federal courts in annulling by injunction the laws of the States," and demanded legislation to "restrict to the Supreme Court of the United States the exercise of power in cases involving State legislation"; condemned the "attempt to destroy the power of trades unions through the unjust use of the Federal injunction"; demanded the abolition of child labor in factories and mines, suppression of sweat shops, exclusion of foreign pauper labor, the enactment of an employers’ liability act and measures against carelessness in the operation of mines; opposed the use of convict labor; favored the eight-hour work-day, and "legislation protecting the lives and limbs of workmen through the use of safety appliances"; declared that when working men are thrown into enforced idleness works of public improvement should be inaugurated.
Banking and Currency.
The Republican Party approved "the emergency measures adopted by the government during the recent financial disturbances" and declared the party to be "committed to the development of a permanent currency system, responding to our greater needs." It favored the establishment of a postal savings bank system.
The Democratic Party pointed to the panic of 1907, "coming without any legitimate excuse," as furnishing additional proof that the Republican party "is either unwilling or incompetent to protect the interests of the general public," having "so linked the country to Wall Street that the sins of the speculators are visited upon the whole people." It declared the belief that "in so far as the needs of commerce require an emergency currency, such currency should be issued, controlled by the Federal Government and loaned on adequate security to National and State banks." It pledged itself "to legislation under which the national banks should be required to establish a guarantee fund for the prompt payment of the depositors of any insolvent national bank under an equitable system which shall be available to all State banking institutions wishing to use it." It favored a postal savings bank "if the guaranteed bank can not be secured, and believed that it should be so constituted as to keep the deposited money in the community where the depositors live."
The People’s Party reiterated its belief that "the issuance of money is a function of government and should not be delegated to corporation or individual." It therefore demanded "that all money should be issued by the Government direct to the people, without the intervention of banks, and shall be a full legal tender for all debts, public and private, and in quantities sufficient to supply the needs of the country." It also demanded postal savings banks.
The Independence Party made a similar declaration, "that the right to issue money is inherent in the Government," and it favored "the establishment of a central governmental bank, through which the money so issued shall be put into general circulation." It also called for an extension of the parcels post system and for postal savings banks, the deposits in which should "be loaned to the people in the locality of the several banks."
Railroads.
The Republican Party approved the railroad rate law and "the vigorous enforcement by the present administration of the statutes against rebates and discriminations"; believing, "however, that the interstate commerce law should be further amended so as to give railroads the right to make and publish traffic agreements subject to the approval of the commission." It declared for legislation and supervision to "prevent the future overissue of stocks and bonds by interstate carriers."
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The Democratic Party asserted "the right of Congress to exercise complete control over interstate commerce, and the right of each State to exercise like control over commerce within its borders"; and it demanded a needed enlargement of the powers of the interstate commerce commission. It recommended a valuation of railroads by the commission. It favored legislation to "prohibit the railroads from engaging in business which brings them into competition with their shippers"; to prevent the overissue of stocks and bonds, and to "assure such reduction in transportation rates as conditions will permit." It approved the laws prohibiting the pass and the rebate. It favored giving to the interstate commerce commission "the initiative with reference to rates and transportation charges," also permitting it, "on its own initiative to declare a rate illegal," and otherwise enhancing its efficiency.
The Independence Party advocated "a bill empowering shippers in time of need to compel railroads to provide sufficient cars for freight and passenger traffic and other railroad facilities through summary appeal to the courts." It also favored "the creation of an Interstate Commerce Court, whose sole function it shall be to review speedily and enforce summarily the orders of the Interstate Commerce Commission," and it urged that the Commission "should proceed at once with a physical valuation of railroads engaged in interstate commerce."
Natural Resources. Public Lands. Waterways.
The Republican Party indorsed "the movement inaugurated by the administration for the conservation of natural resources"; commended "the work now going on for the reclamation of arid lands"; reaffirmed "the Republican policy of the free distribution of the available … public domain to the landless settler," and declared it to be "the further duty, equally imperative, to enter upon a systematic improvement, upon a large and comprehensive plan, just to all portions of the country, of the water harbors and Great Lakes."
The Democratic Party repeated "the demand for internal development and for the conservation of our national resources contained in previous platforms," covering lines of policy the same as above, and adding "the development of water power and the preservation of electric power generated by this natural force from the control of monopoly." It insisted upon "a policy of administration of our forest reserve which shall … enable homesteaders as of right to occupy and acquire title to all portions thereof which are especially adapted to agriculture, and which shall furnish a system of timber sales available as well to the private citizen as to the larger manufacturer and consumer." It called for regulations "in relation to free grazing upon the public lands outside of forest or other reservations until the same shall eventually be disposed of." It favored the "immediate adoption of a liberal and comprehensive plan for improving every water course in the Union which is justified by the needs of commerce," with "the creation of an ample fund for continuous work."
The People’s Party declared that the public domain is a sacred heritage of all the people, and should be held for homesteads for actual settlers only; alien ownership should be forbidden.
The Independence Party rejoiced "in the adoption in both the Democratic and Republican platforms of the demand of the Independence party for improved national waterways." It declared for the reclamation of arid lands and generally for the conservation of the country’s natural resources. It called for provision to be made for free grazing on public lands outside of forest or other reservations. It protested against the sale of water and electric light power derived from public works to private corporations.
On other subjects touched in their platforms the declarations of these parties varied little from those of 1904, and cannot be regarded as having much historical significance.
Of the remaining parties, which are organizations with special objects, the Socialist set forth the most elaborate programme of demands, under three headings,—General, Industrial, and Political. The first included "immediate Government relief for the unemployed" by public works of many descriptions; collective ownership of railroads, telegraphs, etc., and all lands; "collective ownership of all industries which are organized on a national scale and in which competition has virtually ceased to exist"; inclusion of mines, quarries, oil wells, forests and water-power in the public domain. Industrial demands included improved industrial conditions; shortened work days; a weekly rest-period of not less than a day and a half; effective inspection of factories and shops: no child labor under sixteen years of age; no interstate transportation of products of child labor; substitution of compulsory insurance against unemployment, illness, age, etc., for all official charity. Political demands were for extended and graduated inheritance taxes; a graduated income tax; equal suffrage for men and women; the initiative, referendum, recall, and proportional representation; abolition of the Senate; abolition of power in the Supreme Court to pass on the constitutionality of legislation; amendability of the Constitution by a majority vote, election of all judges for short terms; free administration of justice; further measures for general education and conservation of health.
The Socialist Labor Party repeated in substantially the same words its general declarations of 1904, against a "despotic economic system," as quoted above, under the heading "Capital and Labor."
The Prohibition Party embodied its fundamental object in demands for the submission of a constitutional amendment prohibiting the manufacture, sale, etc., of alcoholic liquors for beverage purposes; suppression of the liquor traffic in all places under the jurisdiction of the National Government, and repeal of the internal revenue tax on alcoholic liquors. To this it added demands for a popular election of United States Senators; graduated income and inheritance taxes; postal savings banks; guarantee of deposits in banks; regulation of corporations doing an interstate business; a permanent tariff commission; uniform marriage and divorce laws; enforcement of law against the social evil; an equitable employers’ liability act; court review of post office decisions; prohibition of child labor in mines, workshops and factories; suffrage based on ability to read and write the English language; preservation of the resources of the country, and improvement of highways and waterways.
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The United Christian Party, basing its platform, as before, on the ten commandments and the golden rule, favored "direct primary elections, the initiative, referendum, recall, uniform marriage and divorce laws, equal rights for men and women, government ownership of coal mines, oil wells and public utilities; the regulation of trusts and the election of the president and vice-president and senators of the United States by the direct vote of the people."
The votes cast at the popular election, November 3, numbered 7,637,676 for the Republican nominees; 6,393,182 for the Democratic; 420,464 for the Socialist; 231,252 for the Prohibitionist; 83,183 for the Independence; 33,871 for the Populist; 15,421 for the Socialist Labor. The total of votes polled, including a few thousands to other than party nominees, was reported to be 14,863,711.
The States which gave Republican majorities were California, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming,—29.
The States which gave Democratic majorities were Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia,—16.
Maryland, where the electors are chosen by the Legislature, divided its vote, giving 6 to the Democratic nominees and 2 to the Republican.
The total vote in the Electoral College was 326 for Taft and Sherman and 157 for Bryan and Kern.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1908 (May). The Emergency Currency Act.
See (in this Volume) FINANCE AND TRADE; UNITED STATES: A. D. 1908.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1908 (July). Remission to China of Part of Boxer Indemnity.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1901-1908.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1908 (October). Reply of Secretary Root to the announcement from Belgium of the Annexation of the Congo State. Recognition of the Annexation reserved.
See (in this Volume) CONGO STATE: A. D. 1906-1909.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1908 (November). Supreme Court Decision in Case of Virginia Railroads vs. the State Corporation Commission of Virginia.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS. UNITED STATES: A. D. 1908 (NOVEMBER).
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1908 (November). Exchange of Notes with Japan embodying a Declaration of Common Policy in the East.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1908 (NOVEMBER).
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1908 (December). Extension of the Competitive System of Appointment to Fourth Class Postmasters in a large section of the Country.
See (in this Volume) CIVIL SERVICE REFORM: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1908.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1908 (December). Relief for the Survivors of the Earthquake at and around Messina.
See (in this Volume) EARTHQUAKES: ITALY.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1908-1909. Diminished Consumption of Whiskey and Beer.
See (in this Volume) ALCOHOL PROBLEM: UNITED STATES.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1908-1909. The Government giving attention to Liberian Affairs.
See (in this Volume) LIBERIA: A. D. 1907-1909.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1908-1909 (August-February). The Country Life Commission, and its Report.
On the 10th of August, 1908, President Roosevelt addressed a letter to five gentlemen whom he asked to serve upon a Commission on Country Life. The five thus addressed were Professor L. H. Bailey, New York State College of Agriculture, Ithaca (named as Chairman of the Commission); Mr. Henry Wallace, of _Wallace’s Farmer_, Des Moines, Iowa; President Kenyon L. Butterfield, Massachusetts Agricultural College, Amherst; Mr. Gilford Pinchot, of the United States Forest Service; Mr. Walter H. Page, of _The World's Work_, New York. Subsequently, Mr. Charles S. Barrett, of Georgia, and Mr. William A. Beard, of California, were added to the Commission.
In his letter to the original appointees the President wrote: "I doubt if any other nation can bear comparison with our own in the amount of attention given by the Government, both Federal and State, to agricultural matters. But practically the whole of this effort has hitherto been directed toward increasing the production of crops. Our attention has been concentrated almost exclusively on getting better farming. In the beginning this was unquestionably the right thing to do. The farmer must first of all grow good crops in order to support himself and his family. But when this has been secured the effort for better farming should cease to stand alone, and should be accompanied by the effort for better business and better living on the farm. It is at least as important that the farmer should get the largest possible return in money, comfort, and social advantages from the crops he grows as that he should get the largest possible return in crops from the land he farms. Agriculture is not the whole of country life. The great rural interests are human interests, and good crops are of little value to the farmer unless they open the door to a good kind of life on the farm. … The farmers have hitherto had less than their full share of public attention along the lines of business and social life. There is too much belief among all our people that the prizes of life lie away from the farm."
The Commission entered promptly on its task, of obtaining wide and exact information as to the existing conditions of farm life and work in the country, as to homes and schools; means of communication and intercourse, by postal service, telephone, highway, electric railway and other railways; neighborhood organizations to promote mutual advantages in buying and selling; profitable sale of products; supply of labor; facilities for business in banking, credit, insurance; sanitary conditions; social entertainment; meetings for mutual improvement, etc., etc.
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This was sought, in the first instance, by a circular of questions, about 550,000 copies of which were sent to names supplied by the United States Department of Agriculture, state experiment stations, farmers’ societies, women’s clubs, to rural free deliverymen, country physicians and ministers, and others. To these inquiries about 115,000 persons have replied before the report of the Commission was made, "mostly with much care and with every evidence of good faith."
In addition to the replies given to the circular questions, a great number of persons sent carefully written letters and statements that were invaluable. At thirty places, in all sections of the country, the Commission, or part of it, held appointed hearings in November and December, and obtained much light from those. Its report of the conclusions to which it had been led was presented to the President on the 23d of January, 1909, and transmitted by him to Congress on February 9th.
The Commission found an unquestionable lack in the country of a well organized rural society, and came to clear conclusions concerning the many causes therefor, which are fully discussed in its report. The leading specific causes are summarized with brevity at the outset, as follows.
"A lack of knowledge on the part of farmers of the exact agricultural conditions and possibilities of their regions;
"Lack of good training for country life in the schools;
"The disadvantage or handicap of the farmer as against the established business systems and interests, preventing him from securing adequate returns for his products, depriving him of the benefits that would result from unmonopolized rivers and the conservation of forests, and depriving the community, in many cases, of the good that would come from the use of great tracts of agricultural land that are now held for speculative purposes;
"Lack of good highway facilities;
"The widespread continuing depletion of soils, with the injurious effect on rural life;
"A general need of new and active leadership.
"Other causes contributing to the general result are: Lack of any adequate system of agricultural credit, whereby the farmer may readily secure loans on fair terms; the shortage of labor, a condition that is often complicated by intemperance among workmen; lack of institutions and incentives that tie the laboring man to the soil; the burdens and the narrow life of farm women; lack of adequate supervision of public health."
To this summary of main deficiencies the Commission adds the following, of chief remedies:
"Congress can remove some of the handicaps of the farmer, and it can also set some kinds of work in motion, such as:
"The encouragement of a system of thorough-going surveys of all agricultural regions, in order to take stock and collect local fact, with the idea of providing a basis on which to develop a scientifically and economically sound country life;
"The encouragement of a system of extension work in rural communities, through all the land-grant colleges, to the people at their homes and on their farms;
"A thorough investigation by experts of the middleman system of handling farm products, coupled with a general inquiry into the farmer’s disadvantages in respect to taxation, transportation rates, cooperative organizations and credit, and the general business system;
"An inquiry into the control and use of the streams of the United States, with the object of protecting the people in their ownership and of saving to agricultural uses such benefits as should be reserved for these purposes;
"The establishing of a highway engineering service, or equivalent organization, to be at the call of the States in working out effective and economical highway systems;
"The establishing of a system of parcel posts and postal savings banks;
"Providing some means or agency for the guidance of public opinion toward the development of a real rural society that shall rest directly on the land. …
"Remedies of a more general nature are: A broad campaign of publicity, that must be undertaken until all the people are informed on the whole subject of rural life, and until there is an awakened appreciation of the necessity of giving this phase of our national development as much attention as has been given to other phases or interests; a quickened sense of responsibility in all country people, to the community and to the State, in the conserving of soil fertility, and in the necessity for diversifying farming in order to conserve this fertility and to develop a better rural society, and also in the better safe-guarding of the strength and happiness of the farm women; a more widespread conviction of the necessity for organization, not only for economic but for social purposes, this organization to be more or less cooperative, so that all the people may share equally in the benefits and have voice in the essential affairs of the community; a realization on the part of the farmer that he has a distinct natural responsibility toward the laborer in providing him with good living facilities and in helping him in every way to be a man among men; and a realization on the part of all the people of the obligation to protect and develop the natural scenery and attractiveness of the open country.
"Certain remedies lie with voluntary organizations and institutions. All organized forces, both in town and country, should understand that there are country phases as well as city phases of our civilization, and that one phase needs help as much as the other."
In his Message communicating the reports of the Commission to Congress the President focussed attention on four "great general and immediate needs of country life" which stand out of the exhibit before all others:
"First, effective coöperation among farmers, to put them on a level with the organized interests with which they do business.
"Second, a new kind of schools in the country, which shall teach the children as much outdoors as indoors and perhaps more, so that they will prepare for country life, and not as at present, mainly for life in town.
"Third, better means of communication, including good roads and a parcels post, which the country people are everywhere, and rightly, unanimous in demanding.
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"To these may well be added better sanitation: for easily preventable diseases hold several million country people in the slavery of continuous ill health.
"The commission points out, and I concur in the conclusion, that the most important help that the Government, whether National or State, can give is to show the people how to go about these tasks of organization, education, and communication with the best and quickest results. This can be done by the collection and spread of information."
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1908-1909. Spasmodic Process of Recovery from the Financial Crisis of 1907.
See (in this Volume) FINANCE AND TRADE: A. D. 1901-1909.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1908-1909. Second Conference of State Governors and Report of National Conservation Commission. Its Inventory of Natural Resources.
See (in this Volume) CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: UNITED STATES.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1909. Existing Treaties with China and existing Enactments relative to the Admission of Chinamen to the United States. The Question of their Consistency with each other. Chinese Complaints. The present Status of the Question.
See (in this Volume) RACE PROBLEMS: UNITED STATES.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1909. The Census Bill and the President’s Veto. he Amended Bill, which became Law.
See (in this Volume) CIVIL SERVICE REFORM: UNITED STATES.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1909. Protest against the Russo-Chinese Agreement of May, relative to Municipalities on the line of the Chinese Eastern Railway.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1909 (MAY).
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1909. Trouble with Nicaragua.
See (in this Volume) CENTRAL AMERICA: A. D. 1909.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1909 (January). The Waterways Treaty with Great Britain, concerning Waters between the United States and Canada.
See (in this Volume) CANADA: A. D. 1909 (JANUARY).
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1909 (February). Anti-Opium Act.
See (in this Volume) OPIUM PROBLEM.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1909 (February). Initiative in securing International Opium Commission at Shanghai.
See (in this Volume) OPIUM PROBLEM.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1909 (February). Invitation of Canada and Mexico to a Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources.
See (in this Volume) CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: NORTH AMERICA.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1909 (March). The Inauguration of President Taft. Intimations of Policy in his Inaugural Address. His Cabinet.
The ceremonies of the inauguration of President Taft on the 4th of March were performed under singularly unfavorable circumstances, in consequence of one of the most dreadful storms that ever visited the Capital. Trains blocked by it contained thousands of people who reached Washington too late for what they had travelled far to witness or to take part in, while those who did arrive on the scene were hardly gladdened by their success. The President, however, accepted the untoward conditions with a characteristic high-hearted equanimity. His inaugural address, delivered in the Senate Chamber, instead of in the open air at the East front of the Capitol, opened with the following words:
"Any one who takes the oath I have just taken must feel a heavy weight of responsibility. If not, he has no conception of the powers and duties of the office upon which he is about to enter, or he is lacking in a proper sense of the obligation which the oath imposes.
"The office of an inaugural address is to give a summary outline of the main policies of the new Administration, so far as they can be anticipated. I have had the honor to be one of the advisers of my distinguished predecessor, and as such, to hold up his hands in the reforms he has initiated. I should be untrue to myself, to my promises, and to the declarations of the party platform upon which I was elected to office, if I did not make the maintenance and enforcement of those reforms a most important feature of my administration. They were directed to the suppression of the lawlessness and abuses of power of the great combinations of capital invested in railroads and in industrial enterprises carrying on interstate commerce. The steps which my predecessor took and the legislation passed on his recommendation have accomplished much, have caused a general halt in the vicious policies which created popular alarm, and have brought about, in the business affected, a much higher regard for existing law. To render the reforms lasting, however, and to secure at the same time freedom from alarm on the part of those pursuing proper and progressive business methods, further legislative and executive action are needed."
From this general intimation of the course to which his mind was turned, the incoming President went on to a more specific unfolding of his views on many subjects of governmental care. The following is a summary of the suggestions of future policy conveyed in the Address:
Reorganization of the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Corporations of the Department of Commerce and Labor and of the Interstate Commerce Commission.
Tariff revision in accord with the promises made in the national platform adopted at Chicago.
A continuation of scientific experiments in the Department of Agriculture for the improvement of agricultural conditions.
The enactment and carrying out of laws for the conservation of the resources of the country.
Maintenance of the army and navy in such a state of preparation as will insure a continuance of peace with other countries.
A continuation of that treatment of aliens which will insure for the people of the United States respect and fair treatment among the peoples of other countries.
The enactment of legislation which will empower the Federal government to enforce treaty promises made to other countries within every State.
Such changes in the monetary and banking laws as will insure a greater elasticity of the currency.
The enactment of a law providing for postal savings banks.
The encouragement of American shipping through the use of mail subsidies.
A continuation of work on the Panama canal along the plans which have been adopted for a lock type with such energy as will insure the earliest possible completion of the work.
The continuation of a colonial policy which will still further increase the business prosperity of our dependencies.
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The betterment of the condition of the negro in the South through observance of principles laid down in the Fifteenth Amendment.
The promotion of legislation for the protection of labor and the betterment of labor conditions.
On the day following his inauguration the President named his chosen Cabinet to the Senate, and the nominations were duly confirmed, as follows.
Philander C. Knox of Pennsylvania, to be Secretary of State.
Franklin MacVeagh of Illinois, to be Secretary of the Treasury.
Jacob M. Dickinson of Tennessee, to be Secretary of War.
George W. Wickersham of New York, to be Attorney-General.
Frank H. Hitchcock of Massachusetts, to be Postmaster-General.
George von L. Meyer of Massachusetts, to be Secretary of the Navy.
Richard A. Ballinger of Washington, to be Secretary of the Interior.
James Wilson of Iowa, to be Secretary of Agriculture.
Charles Nagel of Missouri, to be Secretary of Commerce and Labor.
A few days after the appointment of the Cabinet, Mr. Dickinson, the new Secretary of War, in a speech at Chicago, explained why President Taft had chosen him, a Democrat, for a place in a Republican Cabinet, and why he had accepted it. He said that Mr. Taft, as President of the whole country, desired to have a representative of the South among his counsellors. To have chosen a Southern Republican would have been to perpetuate the bitter sectionalism which it was Mr. Taft's desire to obliterate. He had therefore chosen a Democrat who had voted against him. Mr. Dickinson continued:—
"That his purpose was broad, magnanimous, and patriotic none can question. The wisdom both of his purpose and his selection must be tried by time, but I have every assurance that his
## action in appointing me, and my action in accepting, are
approved by the South, and, having this approval, I can bear with equanimity any criticism from individual Democrats elsewhere."
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1909 (March). Passage of new Copyright Act.
See (in this Volume) COPYRIGHT.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1909 (March-August). Tariff Revision. The Payne-Aldrich Tariff-Act.
See (in this Volume) TARIFFS: UNITED STATES.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1909 (May). Creation of the Senate Committee on Public Expenditures.
An important incident of the Special Session of Congress which was called by President Taft immediately after his inauguration, was the creation by the Senate of a new Standing Committee, on Public Expenditures, the function of which was indicated in the following resolution of the Senate, adopted May 29:
"Resolved, That the Committee on Public Expenditures be, and they are hereby, authorized and directed, by subcommittee or otherwise, to make investigations as to the amount of the annual revenues of the Government, and as to the expenditures and business methods of the several departments, divisions, and branches of the Government, and to report to the Senate from time to time the result of such investigations and their recommendations as to the relation between expenditures and revenues and possible improvements in Government methods; and for this purpose they are authorized to sit, by subcommittees or otherwise, during the recesses or sessions of the Senate, at such times and places as, they may deem advisable, to send for persons and papers, to administer oaths, and to employ such stenographic, clerical, expert, and other assistance as may be necessary, and to have such printing and binding done as may be necessary, the expense of such investigations to be paid from the contingent fund of the Senate."
Seven members of the Committee are the chairmen of the seven committees in the Senate to some one of which every bill providing for revenue or carrying an appropriation is submitted. "Thus," as has been remarked, "is provided a medium for better co-ordination and co-operation between what may be termed the revenue and appropriation committees. The powers of existing committees are not affected, but an avenue is provided for concentration and distribution of information—a committee forum for the discussion and recommendation of fundamentals affecting the Government."
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1909 (May). Establishment in the Government of a General Supply Committee.
On the 13th of May the President issued an Executive Order establishing an Administrative General Supply Committee, which is to purchase all supplies for Government use, paying one price instead of several prices for the same supplies.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1909 (May). Second National Peace Congress.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1909.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1909 (July). Proposed Constitutional Amendment authorizing the Levying of an Income Tax.
Without a dissenting vote, on the 5th of July, 1909, the Senate adopted a joint resolution providing for the submission to the several States of a proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as follows:
"Article XVI. The congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without any apportionment among the several states and without regard to any census or enumeration."
In reporting this action, a newspaper correspondent of considerable sagacity remarked that the ease with which the resolution glided through the Senate, and would with certainty pass the House, must be regarded as "an indication of the expectation of the representatives of capital and of high protection that twelve states can be found among the forty-six in the union to refuse their assent to the amendment, in which event it will fail."
The endorsement of the House to the resolution was given on the 12th, by a vote of 317 to 14, the negative votes being all from Republicans. An attempt to have the resolution amended so that the constitutional amendment would be submitted to state conventions for ratification instead of to legislatures was ruled out of order, and an appeal from Speaker Cannon’s ruling was voted down, 185 to 143, on a strict party division.
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The first State to act on the proposed amendment was Alabama, where it was ratified by the Legislature and signed by the Governor, August 17.
In the State of New York, on the 5th of January, 1910, Governor Hughes addressed a special message to the Legislature, recommending that the amendment in its proposed form should not be ratified. He said: "I am in favor of conferring upon the Federal government the power to lay and collect an income tax without apportionment among the States according to population. I believe that this power should be held by the Federal government so as properly to equip it with the means of meeting national exigencies.
"But the power to tax incomes should not be granted in such terms as to subject to Federal taxation the incomes derived from bonds issued by the State itself, or those issued by municipal governments organized under the State’s authority. To place the borrowing capacity of the State and of its governmental agencies at the mercy of the Federal taxing power would be an impairment of the essential rights of the State, which, as its officers, we are bound to defend. …
"The comprehensive words, 'from whatever source derived,' if taken in their natural sense, would include not only incomes from ordinary real or personal property, but also incomes derived from State and municipal securities. It may be urged that the amendment would be limited by construction. But there can be no satisfactory assurance of this. The words in terms are all-inclusive. …
"In order that a market may be provided for State bonds, and for municipal bonds, and that thus means may be afforded for State and local administration, such securities from time to time are excepted from taxation. In this way lower rates of interest are paid than otherwise would be possible. To permit such securities to be the subject of Federal taxation is to place such limitations upon the borrowing power of the State as to make the performance of the functions of local government a matter of Federal grace."
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1909 (July). The Question of American Participation in the Hankau-Szechuan Railway Loan.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1904-1909.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1909 (September). Visit of a Commercial Commission from Japan.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1909 (SEPTEMBER).
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1909 (September-October). Tour of President Taft. Meeting with President Diaz on Mexican Soil.
In the fall of 1909 President Taft made an extended tour of the country, from New England to the Pacific Coast and southward to Mexico and the Gulf, speaking to great assemblies at many points on all the important questions, political and economical, that were then before the country. In the course of the tour a meeting between President Diaz of Mexico and himself was arranged, and took place on the 16th of October, first at El Paso, on the Texas side of the Rio Grande, and then at Ciudad Juarez, on the Mexican side, formal visits being thus exchanged. Finally, in the evening, President Taft was entertained at dinner in the Mexican city by President Diaz. This was a second time that a President of the United States had left the soil of his own country while in office, President Roosevelt having done the same at Panama in 1906.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1909 (October-November). Further Disclosures of Corruption in the Customs Service.
The shameful disclosure in 1907-1908 of Sugar Trust frauds on the Federal Treasury afforded glimpses of a state of corruption in the Customs Service of the Government, at the port of New York especially, which were more than verified within the next year and a half.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL, &c.: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1907-1909.
The Collector of Customs, Mr. William Loeb, Jr., who took charge of the New York office in the spring of 1909, exercised a watchfulness which soon put him on the traces of fraud, and he pursued them with an energy and determination that cannot have been brought into action before. The first case brought to light was that of a cheese-importing firm, the members of which, father and son, were found to have paid bribes to weighers of the Custom House for false reports of the quantities on which duties were paid. Conviction was obtained by means of evidence from some of the guilty officials, who were given immunity and retained in service, in order to secure information without which, it was said, the well-covered corruption in the service could not be successfully probed. In his annual report, made in December, 1909, Secretary MacVeagh, of the Treasury Department, had this to say of the vigorous reformatory measures thus undertaken at the port of New York, and of the significance of the consequent revelations:
"The revelations made and proven were so startling and impressive that opposition was silenced; and in this silence the necessary, clear-cut measures could be carried out without meeting serious obstructions.
"It soon developed that the frauds of the American Sugar Refining Company, while, perhaps, the most important instances, were as had been apprehended, symptoms of a diseased condition, not universal by any means, but almost general. And difficult as it always is to sufficiently bring to light the facts of such a condition to afford a basis for rehabilitation, this has been already largely accomplished. Much has been discovered to afford an understanding of the situation, with the result of numerous seizures, of numerous prosecutions made or projected, and of important and successful beginnings of a complete rehabilitation. While the recovery of evaded duties, and the prosecution of individuals have been of large significance, the greatest asset to the government of these disgraceful conditions is the knowledge and the light which guarantee in time a wholesome reorganization.
"The study of the causes of the demoralization which has been revealed is still incomplete, but the main causes are evident. It is clear, for instance, that the influence of local politics and politicians upon the customs service has been most deleterious, and has promoted that laxity and low tone which prepare and furnish an inviting soil for dishonesty and fraud. Unless the customs service can be released from the payment of political debts and exactions, and from meeting the supposed exigencies of political organizations, big and little, it will be impossible to have an honest service for any length of time. Any considerable share of the present cost of this demoralization to the public revenues, to the efficiency of the service, and to public and private morality is a tremendous amount to pay in mere liquidation of the small debts of political leaders.
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"It is also clear that the widespread disposition of returning American travellers to evade the payment of legal duties has greatly helped to create the conditions which have become intolerable. Those Americans who travel abroad belong to the sections of the people which most readily create public sentiment, and are most responsible for it; and the fact that in so many instances these travellers are willing to defraud the government out of considerable or even small sums creates an atmosphere on the docks that strongly tends to affect the morale of the entire customs service. And when to this is added the frequent willingness upon the part of these responsible citizens to specifically corrupt the government's men, then the demoralization is further accentuated."
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1909 (November). Arbitration of the Alsop Claim against Chile.
See (in this Volume) CHILE: A. D. 1909.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1909 (December). Proposal to neutralize Manchurian Railways.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1909-1910.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1910 (January). President’s Message on Legislation relating to "Trusts" and Interstate Commerce.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL, &c.: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1910, and RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1910.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Movements of Reform in Municipal Government.
See (in this Volume) MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Comparative Statement of the Consumption of Alcoholic Drink.
See (in this Volume) ALCOHOL PROBLEM.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: The Interchange of People between the United States and Canada.
See (in this Volume) CANADA: A. D. 1896-1909.
----------UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: End--------
UNITED STATES SENATORS: Proposed Election by Direct Popular Vote.
"On December 3, 1895, the State of Idaho, taking advantage of that provision of article 5, which permits States to apply to Congress for authority to hold a constitutional convention, passed a resolution requesting Congress to call such a convention. Since then the States of Wyoming, Ohio, Minnesota, Montana, Utah, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nevada, Washington, Tennessee, South Dakota, Colorado, Oregon, Michigan, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Texas, California, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Alabama, have taken legislative action in some form or other expressing either a demand similar to that of the State of Idaho, or a sympathy with the intent of the Idaho resolution. These thirty-one States form a constitutional two-thirds of the forty-six States of the Union.
"One of the complications which have arisen in connection with these resolutions is the fact that only twenty-four of them are of record as having been actually received by the Senate of the United States. One of them, that of the State of Ohio, which was the third State to act, was only recently discovered to be in the Senate files. It is possible therefore, that since the question of submitting the proposed amendment has become a live issue, a further search of the files may increase the number of State resolutions on this subject which are actually on hand.
"A legal quibble is bound to ensue over the form of some of these resolutions. Nine of the resolutions now on file in the Senate are already held to be of doubtful legality, but the ground on which they are held doubtful will appeal to most people as a mere splitting of legal hairs. Nevertheless, the Senate of the United States, at least, is, as a whole, a notorious legal hair-splitter, and this fact must be taken into account.
"It is, of course, a matter of record, that the House of Representatives has four times sent to the Senate a proposed joint resolution calling for the direct election of United States Senators."
_Washington Correspondent of the New York Evening Post, October 13, 1909._
UNITED STATES STEEL CORPORATION: Its conflict with the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Plate Workers.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901.
UNITED STATES STEEL CORPORATION: The Placing of its Stock among its Employés.
See (in this Volume) LABOR REMUNERATION: PROFIT-SHARING.
UNIVERSITIES.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION.
URIBE-URIBE, RAFAEL.
See (in this Volume) COLOMBIA: A. D. 1898-1902.
URUGUAY: A. D. 1901-1906.
## Participation in Second and Third International Conferences
of American Republics.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
URUGUAY: A. D. 1904. Rebellion and prolonged Civil War.
On the 8th of January, 1904, the American Minister at Montevideo reported by telegram to the State Department at Washington "that another crisis is at hand in Uruguay; that encounters have taken place between groups of ‘Blanco,’ and the Government forces, and that the former, who were neither concentrated nor well organized, have been dispersed. A number were killed and wounded. The Government is making an aggressive campaign and demands obedience to the constituted authority as a condition before peace negotiations will be entered into."
This was the beginning of a state of civil war that was prolonged through nine months, with infinite harm to the country.
When peace came, at the end of September, it was practically bought from the insurgents, the terms of submission, as officially announced, including the following: "Sixth, incorporation into the army of all the chiefs and officers included in the amnesty law. Seventh. A mixed committee appointed by agreement by the Government and insurgents will distribute the sum of $100,000 between the chiefs, officers, and soldiers of the rebel forces."
URUGUAY: A. D. 1910. Agreement with Argentina concerning the River Plate.
See (in this Volume) ARGENTINE REPUBLIC: A. D. 1910.
URUSSOFF, PRINCE: Speech in the Duma.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1906.
URYU, ADMIRAL.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (FEBRUARY-JULY).
UTAH: Law limiting Hours of Adult Labor in Mines.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1902.
UTILITIES, PUBLIC.
See (in this Volume) PUBLIC UTILITIES.
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