volunteers last month and appointed governor of the whole island to succeed General Brooke, who returns to the United States. Whether agreed upon in writing or not, the future republic of Cuba will have to accept a certain moral protectorate on the part of the United States, and will further have to allow this country some right of guidance in the completion of needful sanitary reforms, in Havana and elsewhere, that will tend to exempt the United States in the future from the frequent epidemics that in times past have visited us from Cuban ports. Undoubtedly there will be a great party in Cuba favorable to the plan of seeking admittance to the American Union as a State after the island has entered fairly upon its home-rule career. trade of China and other problems of the far East. Since his return Mr. Beveridge has kept his own counsel so far as the public is concerned, but it is reasonable to suppose that his special preparation will be valuable to the country not only in the committee-room, but also on the floor of the Senate chamber. Senator Lodge announces that while the committee will be diligent in the study of Philippine questions and the collection of information, its more active functions will not begin until the war in the islands is at an end. on the Mr. McKinley President McKinley reviews the hisPhilippine tory of the struggle with the FiliQuestion. pinos at great length and with the utmcst frankness. His presentation of facts forms a highly impressive defense of the essential justice and humanity of the policy that his administration has pursued. The President's views concerning the governmental future of the Philippines are clearly set forth. He recognizes the fact that there is no present unity of race, language, or other interests, and that the problem of governmental progress for the archipelago is to be solved in very much the same way that the old man in the fable taught his sons how to break the bundle of fagots. Externally the Philippines may be regarded as an entity; internally there are many entities of far greater diversity of race, language, religion, and civiliza. tion than the various entities that make up the West Indies, for example. We must analyze the Philippine situation, therefore, and deal patiently one by one with its component factors. through most of our history it has not been considered possible to interfere with the tribal organization or customs of the Indian population of the great Indian territory or the frontier reservations. In like manner, our relations, to the Sulu Islands would not justify us in the attempt to suppress polygamy, for example, by immediate measures of a drastic nature. Per Contra. Our possession of the island of Guam, Guam, on the other hand, which lies in the Ladrone archipelago, is of a different nature, and renders it feasible to attempt without delay to enforce civilized standards of conduct such as exist in many of the small Malayan isl ands which have been transformed under missionary influence. Governor Leary reports good progress, everybody having been set at work and polygary and concubinage having been effectively prohibited. Slavery continues to exist in the Sulu group, and it will, doubtless, be the policy of the President and Congress to get rid of it as rapidly as possible. Our representatives have already persuaded the Sultan of the Sulus to agree that all slaves may be allowed to buy their freedom. Further steps toward emancipation should be taken as rapidly as possible, and undoubtedly will be taken. Luzon and the thing to score points in warfare without the useless sacrifice of life. At best, war is bloody work. On December 4, at Vigan, 200 Americans, most of whom were ill from hard marching, held their position with small loss against an attack of about 1,000 insurgents, who after several hours of fighting were completely routed. The specific attempt to capture Aguinaldo had not succeeded as this number of the REVIEW went to press, but most of his immediate party had been taken in hand, and it was known that Aguinaldo in the middle of December was hiding in disguise in the rough and remote province of North Ilocos, in the extreme northwest corner of Luzon. Our officers, meanwhile, had been making use of the good season to clear central Luzon of all important bodies of insurgent troops, and to penetrate at almost every point the provinces skirting the long stretch of coast-line on the west side of Luzon north of Manila Bay. The president of the last Filipino Congress, members of Aguinaldo's cabinet, important generals as well as civilians-and, in short, almost all the ablest of the insurgents except Aguinaldo himself-have been gradually falling into the hands of the American troops. In a word, the war seems to be drawing near a conclusion. On the 19th there came the sad news that General Lawton had been shot and killed. He was a soldier whose praises were in all mouths and whose services to his country had been great. The reconstruction of government in Progress of the great island of Luzon must of the War. course await the conclusion of the war. The active campaign that we described last month resulted in the almost complete disintegration of the armed insurgents. Our soldiers marched and fought with prodigious energy, under hardships uncomplainingly borne and with a skill in the adaptation of their means to the exact conditions that the brave Englishmen fighting in South Africa so pitiably lack. The American officers have not only shown themselves swift and daring campaigners, but their keen wits have seldom failed them, and the cunning strategy of men trained in Indian fighting seems to have so fastened its traditions, upon the American army that even the younger offi cers can be trusted to avoid pitfalls. Thus on November 28, fifty troopers under Lieutenant Munro, of the Fourth Cavalry, received the surrender of Bayombong, making prisoners of 800 armed men, with their weapons, stores, and supplies; and this was done without the firing of a shot, through a harmless ruse that created the impression in Bayombong that the Americans were coming with a large force. It is all very brave and fine, perhaps, to fight openly in the English fashion, without the faintest conception of strategy, but it is a much more desirable Copyright, 1899, by Bilbrough, Dubuque. Full Power. HON. DAVID B. HENDERSON, OF IOWA. The new Congress, as we remarked Republicans in last month, has a working Republican majority in both houses. The Repub lican forces both in the Senate and in the House of Representatives are in very cordial relations with the President, and recent experiences in caucus would indicate on the part both of Representatives and Senators an unusual degree of harmony among themselves as to Republican policy and the work to be done in the present session. It is a good while since either of the great parties has had as clear and unobstructed a chance as the Republicans now have at Washington to carry out a given line of party policy. Heretofore, whatever the predominant Republican views on the money question have been, as reflected in the House of Representatives and in the administration, the Senate has had opinions of its own for which it has stood like a rock. Gradual changes in the personnel of the Senate have, for the first time in a great many years, resulted in what appears to be a clear majority of men who believe in the frank avowal and future maintenance of the actual existing gold standard of the country. This means a great change. promptly ratified when Congress assembled in the first week of December. The caucus of Democratice members resulted in the selection of the Hon. James D. Richardson, of Tennessee, as their candidate for Speaker, which merely signified that Mr. Richardson would be recognized as the leader of the Democratic minority in the House. Mr. Bailey, of Texas, who was the leader of the Democrats in the last House, with Mr. De Armond, of Missouri, actively supports the new leader. Mr. Richardson has served in Congress for fourteen years. His views as to silver, trusts, "expansion," 'expansion," and the foreign policy of the country are in general those of Mr. Bryan. Mr. Henderson's term as Speaker was begun auspiciously, and Congress was gratified to learn that committee appointments would be ready for announcement before the holiday adjournment. Old leaders in Congress have disappeared rapidly of late years, and the Demoeratic party in particular has lost the well-known figures in the House of a period so recent as that of the Wilson tariff bill. Speaker Crisp has passed away, Mr. Wilson has retired from politics, Mr. Bland is dead. Mr. Bailey's prominence in the last House was an evidence of the rise of new men, as was also the candidacy of Mr. William Sulzer, of New York, last month, for the position that Mr. Richardson secured. The Roberts Case. The first incident of importance in the opening history of the new Con gress, after the installation of the new Speaker, was the successful protest against the swearing in of Mr. Brigham Roberts, the member-elect from Utah. The leadership in the opposition to Mr. Roberts was taken by the Hon. Robert W. Tayler, of Ohio, who presented with great force the grounds upon which he believed Mr. Roberts to be legally disqualified for membership. A petition against the seating of Roberts on the ground that he was a polygamist had been signed by several million persons in pursuance of a crusade actively managed by the New York Journal. Mr. Roberts was allowed to speak in his own behalf, and his case was referred for prompt consideration to a special committee, of which Mr. Tayler was made chairman. It is expected that the committee will report that Mr. Roberts is ineligible on the ground that, having lost his political rights as a convicted polygamist in territorial days, under the Edmunds law, his failure to comply with the conditions upon which amnesty and restoration were subsequently offered leaves him under the old Through the long recess the Senate Monetary Bills to the had had a committee framing a money Front. bill, and leading Republicans of the House had been working on that question, while the outside organization of business men whose views have been represented by a standing committee of the Indianapolis monetary conference had also for many months past been quietly but incessantly at work. The President dealt with the subject in his message, recognizing expressly the fact that our monetary standard is gold, and advising legislation to confirm that standard and to enable the Secretary of the Treasury to maintain it when necessary by a sale of gold bonds. Measures were promptly introduced in both branches of Congress, differing in various details, but not fundamentally opposed to one another. It was thought likely that these bills would be passed, after a reasonable amount of debate, very much as introduced, and then sent to a joint conference committee to be fused into final form. Since, for a long time, the United States has maintained gold payments, the proposed legislation will not so much change the conditions that have existed heretofore as it will serve to make change more difficult in the near future. The pending measures provide for the maintenance of an ample reserve fund and the protection at par of the various kinds of money now in circulation. It is proposed to change the national banking law in ways that will facilitate the establishment of national banks in small places, and also to make the issue of bank notes more easy and profitable, in order to improve the elasticity of the volume of the circulating medium. The Gold Republican The Republicans went into the last Standard as national campaign on the ground of Doctrine. opposing the full and free use of silver as a money metal by the United States, except as a result of agreement on the part of leading European nations to do the same thing. It is evidently the intention of the Republicans to go into the Presidential campaign of the present year with the statement that it has been found impossible at present to induce European nations to unite in the remonetization of silver, and that the prosperity of the United States absolutely demands that there be no further uncertainty as to the intrinsic significance of the word "dollar." The Republicans will maintain that henceforth, both in public and in private transactions, the final meaning of the word "dollar" should be 25.8 grains of gold of a certain fineness-namely, 90 per cent. Our adoption for practical purposes of the same standard of value as that which all the principal nations of the commercial world now use has nothing necessarily to do with an ideal solution of one of the greatest and most difficult of problems. extent of what is to be said of such a measure is that to the majority of people who have given close thought to the question this seems to be the best thing that can be done in the closing year of the nineteenth century. Metallic The Before we have completed the twenVersus Ideal tieth century we may have lived quite Money. beyond the need of using a metal or any combination of metals for intermediary service in the exchange of products. Present standards, when tested in the light of ideal conditions and possibilities, seem crude, arbitrary, variable, and inefficient. It is not necessary to renounce one's ideals, nor yet to give up efforts to bring about their realization, even though one accepts for the present the best working solution that offers itself. The principal argument against the gold standard, as advanced a few years ago, was based upon an apparent average decline in the prices of staple commodities, as measured by gold bullion, this being taken to indicate that gold was becoming scarcer and more costly. The evidence to support this contention is by no means conclusive, nor has it been strengthened very much by the course of prices within the past few years. It is perhaps true to say that the greater part of the people who, a few years ago, felt themselves to be personally the losers by virtue of the maintenance of the gold standard, have now so adjusted their affairs that any radical change would probably hurt them more than it could help them. Speaking in general, the farmers are in a position far more favorable than that which they occupied in 1896; and perhaps no class of legitimate producers and business men can better afford to take their chances on the future effects of the firm maintenance of the single gold basis in this country than those who own and cultivate the land. HON. JESSE OVERSTREET, OF INDIANA. (In charge of House currency bill.) The House Bill A special rule of the House of Repre Passed on sentatives called for the closing of the December 18. debate on the currency bill on Monday, December 18. Mr. Overstreet, of Indiana, who was in charge of the bill, accordingly on that date called for the ayes and noes, and the roll-call resulted in its passage by a vote of 190 to 150. Eleven Democrats, six of whom were from New York, voted in its favor. No Republicans voted against it. Evidently there has come about a very striking change in Republican sentiment, as shown in this mere fact that every Republican member of the House has deliberately placed himself upon an uncompromising gold standard platform. The Senate will debate the bill at considerable length, and will doubtless pass it in a form different enough so that a week or two of conference will be required to give the measure its matured form. It is probable that President McKinley's signature will not be attached to the bill much before March 1. The details of those parts of the measure that relate to banking and to the interchangeability and redemption of the various parts of our circulating medium are naturally open to much discussion. The House On the same day the Speaker announced his arrangement of the Committees. House committees. It was the common verdict that he had managed a difficult and delicate business with tact and skill. In so far as possible, Mr. Henderson fulfilled reasonable expectations, observing the claims of seniority with the utmost strictness. Mr.. Payne, of New York, who had succeeded the late Mr. Dingley, remains at the head of the Ways and Means Committee; Mr. Cannon, of Illinois, is chairman of the Committee on Appropriations; Mr. Ray, of New York, of the Judiciary; Mr. Brosius, of Pennsylvania, of Banking and Currency; Mr. Hepburn, of Iowa, of Interstate and Foreign Commerce; Mr. Southard, of Ohio, of Coinage, Weights, and Measures; Mr. Burton, of Ohio, of Rivers and Harbors; Mr. Grosvenor, of Ohio, of Merchant Marine and Fisheries; Mr. Hitt, of Illinois, of Foreign Affairs; Mr. Boutelle, of Maine, of Naval Affairs; Mr. Loud, of California, of Post-Offices; Mr. Lacy, of Iowa, of Public Lands; and Mr. Sherman, of New York, of Indian Affairs. The civil-service reformers have reason to be pleased with the ap. pointment of Mr. Gillett, of Massachusetts, at the head of the committee on that subject. The Treasury Statement. Mr. Gage's annual report to Congress as Secretary of the Treasury shows that the income of the Government from all sources for the fiscal year that ended June 30 was $610,982,004. The total expenditures for the same period were $700,093,564, leaving a deficit of $89,111,560. Apart from revenue, the Treasury had received from the sale of 3-per-cent. war bonds almost $200,000,000. As compared with the previous fiscal year, the Government's income had increased almost $117,000,000, while its expenditures had increased almost $162,000,000. Mr. Gage estimates that for the fiscal year which is now half |