problems of modern self-government now seem destined to be approached. Perhaps no race of men is not in some fashion inherently capable of self-government. The growth of the principle in human nature, however, cannot be looked for without due preparation of the soil and a cherishing of the young plant, necessitating as well the eradication of noxious vegetation. For the weaker peoples a tutelage at the hands of the stronger and more capable is

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hand.

essential. The ideal towards which civilization is striving with growing consciousness comprises not only selfgoverning peoples but a self-governing world in which the public concerns of humankind shall eventually be administered under an intelligent mutuality as complete in automatic efficiency as that of the primitive savage democracy in meeting the simple needs of its community.

HE voters of this country have become thoroughly convinced that dishonesty is rampant on every The investigations which have been made by the national and State government into the land frauds; the rebates of the Standard Oil Company; the cheating in connection with the Chicago & Alton railroad; the graft of the big insurance companies; the stealings in the furnishing of the new State capitol of Pennsylvania-these official exposures, added to the reliable magazine and newspaper exploitations of other forms of graft, both public and private, all taken together have satisfied the people that the acquiring of wealth by grossly dishonest methods is rampant.

Not only so, the voters are unitedly of the opinion that this age of graft should come to an end. They feel no disposition to be lenient towards those who are doing the robbing.

With public sentiment thus hostile to graft, and a unit for its exposure and punishment, ought there not also to be a general agreement as to the best. methods of stopping it?

Unquestionably, public opinion supports President Roosevelt and other ex

ecutives in their efforts to punish evil doers and prevent future wrong-doing. It likewise favors the passage of more stringent laws.

But it may well ask itself whether the attempts now being made will reach the root of the evil at which they are directed. Will they effectually check the dishonesty? Will not their effect be temporary,?

The widespread graft has been extending for many years, until now it has attained to vast and most alarming proportions. It is like a disease which has become chronic and has seized upon the vital organs. And every disorder of such a character, whether in the human body or body politic, can only be cured through a removal of the

cause.

In order, therefore, to arrive at an agreement as to the remedy, it is necessary to determine just what are the underlying causes.

Persons may be found who think that this generation is more degenerate than its predecessors, that in fact the number of persons willing to do wrong for the sake of gain has become so large that every opportunity to make money by fraud is accepted.

To this charge I very strongly object. And whether this generation be more or less honest than that which immediately preceded it, one thing is certain, the people now living, as well as their ancestors, are sound at the core. The great mass of them not only gain their livelihood honestly, but condemn the unscrupulous short cuts to wealth. As compared with the whole number of adults in the country, those who have thrown aside their allegiance to the ten commandments are few indeed.

One of the causes of graft, although a minor one, is that punishment has not been meted out to the guilty. Undoubtedly, some members of the community, particularly at this juncture when poverty is so dreaded and dreadful, must be restrained in order to prevent them from combating it without regard to the moral law.

The most effective appeal to such, is not to their consciences but to their fears. Consequently, the attempts now being made to fine, and particularly to imprison, the criminal rich, will have some effect in deterring others.

However, inasmuch as faith in immunity is not a chief cause of this, or any other, class of crimes, the undermining of that faith will go but a little way towards staying their sweep. We must look farther, and a great deal farther, than this for both cause and

cure.

Explanatory in a measure of the present dash for wealth, regardless of the means used, is the existing environment. Everyone is much influenced by the moral atmosphere in which he lives. We are known by the company, we keep. Not only is a horror of penury now oppressive, but the aspiration for wealth is also acute. There are so many things which great wealth can bring things hard to do without, as most people must.

How delightful it is to take annually a long vacation; to visit Europe or go around the world; to possess an automobile and the time to enjoy it; to own and occupy a beautiful residence; to attend the theatre and the opera, appropriately clad; to eat, drink and be merry without regard to the money cost. Contrasting these luxuries with the deprivations, discomforts, and constant self-denials of a life of poverty, and the small and slow returns to honest toil, it is not strange that human nature should yield to the temptation to get rich quickly.

No doubt one's environment would be far less of a temptation to graft, if poverty were rendered less common and less terrible by means of an increased remuneration to labor; but that is not the most fundamental nor most removable cause.

The source of the existing readiness to acquire riches, without regard to the commands of either the statute or the moral law, may be traced, I feel sure, to the manner in which we choose national, State and municipal legislators. Almose invariably these public officials, who endowed with tremendous powers for the weal or woe of the community, are chosen from districts, usually single, by plurality vote. In every such district a very small percentage of the votes cast determine the result of an election. The smaller the district the more surely this is the case, but it is true also of most of the Congressional districts, which are the largest of any.

If in a district one party has undisputed control, then the decision is made -too often by the use of money or fraud-in the primary meetings or convention of that party. If the district is a close one, sometimes the nominations of both parties are manipulated, and

If the man thus controlled be influential in the legislative body of which he is a member, and is both unscrupulous and smart, he demands pecuniary compensation for the work he is to do. In other words he becomes a grafter. In not a few cities and in some States, the legislators have become so astute as very generally to demand payment for their votes as representatives.

The tunes to which the legislators dance always have one refrain—the passage of a law or ordinance granting special privileges to the men behind the music box. The little grafters serve the big grafters. Each helps to corrupt the other.

The big grafters, who prefer the title of Captains of Industry, have become enamored with the acquirement of wealth without the trouble of earning it. They delight in issuing watered stock and unloading it upon the public. After booming and selling the inflated shares, they amuse and enrich themselves by pushing down the price and buying in the stock sacrificed at a forced sale. Then, shoving up the market price, they again sell. So goes the see-sawheads, I win; tails, you lose. The example they set stimulates others to make their millions at the expense of

the public by means of law-created monopoly.

The men who can put an end to the graft which now permeates society are those who legislate for the people. The whole system of dishonesty circles and centers about the various legislative bodies in their nomination, in their election, and in their law-making.

The subject under consideration, therefore, resolves itself into this: Is it possible to make legislative bodies truly representative of the wishes and interests of the people? If that be impracticable, then graft will continue.

But it is hopeless to improve any legislature for a considerable length of time, so long as its members are chosen in the present manner.

What the public must keep in mind, therefore, is the attainment of a better system of electing representative bodies.

Election machinery, warranted to produce legislators mentally and morally superior, has been invented and only needs to be brought into use. In order to apply it to the choice of a legislature, a change in the State Constitution is necessary. Instead of single districts for choosing State Senators or Representatives, a considerable number, six or more, should be elected from each district, and no vote should count for more than one candidate.

The effect of this change is to have the members of the six (or more) groups in each district drawn together because of agreement in opinion, instead of having the majorities in six single districts bound together by ties very different from harmony of views.

In a district containing 12,000 voters, and electing six representatives, any two thousand, by concentrating their votes upon one candidate, could elect him; so another group of two thousand could elect a second representative, and

so on, the six receiving the highest number of votes, consequently, representing the six leading opinions in the district, would be elected. Popular candidates under those circumstances would be assured of election without the expenditure of one penny. Dishonest candidates would be known as such, would be deserted by all but purchasable and purchased voters, and either would fail of election, or, if chosen, would be recognized as a corruptionist and therefore be without influence in the legislature.

The net result of the simple change in the methods of electing representatives would be a legislature composed almost wholly of men of decided ability, who, having gained office by meriting it, would be their own masters as officials, would be, not merely unpurchasable by lobbyists or corporations, but devoted to the service of their constituents. Such representatives would enact just laws instead of that special legislation which now disgraces the statute books of every American State.

Talented business men, finding that they could no longer secure a monopoly from the law-making branch of the government, would turn their attention

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to legislative industry. They would not become suddenly nor enormously rich, as they now do, but would gain a fortune sufficient for their needs, at the same time leaving to all others the income really, earned.

As a result, whilst there would be no multi-millionaires, there would be no tramps, no involuntary poverty, but on the contrary a people contented and prosperous in every walk of life.

Therefore, to stop graft in any State a constitutional amendment is necessary. Experience proves that if the people really are determined to secure a given change in the constitution, they can bring it about.

Whether the end be gained by direct. amendment, through a constitutional convention, or by means of the popular initiative such as obtains in Oregon. and Oklahoma, makes little difference.

Proportional representation, which reflects public sentiment like a mirror, will put a stop to graft. To its accomplishment, then, the wise will address themselves.

LUCIUS F. C. GARVIN.
Lonsdale, R. I.

franchise. This end it could easily have accomplished by reason of its powerful majorities, thereby augmenting its already overwhelming strength. But it has studiously neglected to take advantage of the situation, principally because it did not feel the need of the advantage it might have gained thereby.

The subject is, however, one of national concern, and wider in its bearings than mere party or sectional interest. The present mode of apportionment and representation in the lower house of

the National Legislature, and in the Electoral College, is absurdly unfair to certain localities and correspondingly unduly advantageous to other localities. The present method of basing representation on population, which makes our national legislators and presidential electors in theory the representatives of States, ought to give way to a method that shall have respect solely to the actual, and active, units in the government of the nation-the citizens who are qualified equally in one place as in another to exercise the voting right.

Amid the conflicting State laws the voting prerogatives of United States citizens are extremely uncertain quantities, and exceeding variable quantities in the several States. Such State allows rights and privileges to American citizens that are distinctly greater or less than those granted by other States. In fact, the term "American citizenship," so far as it pertains to the voting right in national affairs, has no definite meaning, but is protean-shaped, differing wherever found.

For example, in certain States of the West, an alien may vote on national and State issues before becoming a citizen of the United States. On the other hand, in most States of the East a voter must be a full fledged "American citizen" i. e., naturalized, and also be a citizen of the State at least one year before he is allowed to vote. Furthermore, several States of the South require the unusually long period of residence of two years, as a prerequisite to voting. In other words, an American citizen, already qualified for exercising the suffrage, has his privilege of participating in national affairs suspended, pending the completion of a two years' residence in those States.

Again, as the result of the vagueness and lack of harmony of State laws and

the national constitution, a State is able with impunity,-in other words, without answering to the Federal government, to abridge, and in certain instances, entirely to deny, the rights belonging to citizens of the United States. States are doing this continually and in a wholesale manner. The so-called disfranchising amendinents which certain Southern States have adopted and which clearly subject them to a curtailed representation if the words of the Fifteenth Amendment can be taken to mean anything, set up a barrier to the voting rights of American citizens by the thousands. But other States than those having these disqualifying provisions in their constitutions are doing the same thing without even the form of law. In a half dozen Southern States in the recent national election hundreds of legally cast votes were counted out with hardly a thought as to the shameful lawlessness of the proceeding, and, indeed, scarcely a protest from the injured parties. Long practice, covering a period of almost a quarter of a century, has given a sort of local sanction to a process that even leading conscientious citizens do not deem improper or needing the legal support of a disfranchising amendment.

For,

Perhaps some justification, or at least some extenuation of these quadrennial election frauds can be offered, and granted. But if policy, and the public good demands a sifted electorate, should not proper laws be enacted that will be lived up to, and the stigma and reproach of this evil be removed? besides being immoral and destructive of a high regard for law and human rights, there is also the hardship that intelligent and independent-minded men are bound to suffer in being unable to register a vote that shall be effective. In the prevailing custom of "allowing" a