Alexander II or III; but he soon finds out his mistake. The recent massacre of students and working people in front of the Kasan Cathedral, St. Petersburg, is a case in point. Private letters of eye-witnesses describe how Cossacks, intoxicated by a lust of blood, similar to that which secured for their "brothers in whips" unenviable fame in Manchuria, "knocked the heads of student-girls against the walls of the church, slashing their faces with their nagaikas (whips of braided leather with lumps of lead at the end of them), trampling upon them. . . . Several men and women who saw their relatives and friends thus butchered went insane on the spot." The storm of open indignation which this slaughter of innocent people aroused throughout the land did not, however, fall upon deaf ears. The chief of police was immediately replaced by a less brutal officer; and some of the measures which had called forth the illfated demonstration were practically repealed.

The Government has always treated the college students as enemies of the existing order of things; but never did the public take such a bold interest in such matters as it did in the case here referred to. The universities are regarded by the authorities as so many schools of revolution. The Government of the Czar is a government of the tenth century, while the colleges represent European culture of the twentieth; so the conservative powers behind the throne look upon the latter as institutions inimical to the interests of the Crown. As a consequence, conflicts between college boys and the police are quite a common occurrence in Russia. In 1879 the students of the University of Kharkoff were brutally attacked by a detachment of Cossacks acting under orders from Prince Kropotkin, the Governor of the province, a cousin of the wellknown scientist and humanitarian who has just completed a lecturing tour in this country. The revolutionists condemned the Governor to death. The fact that his relative was one of the heroes of "underground Russia" did not save him. He was shot dead by a man named Goldenburg, on his way from the theatre. Similar conflicts have taken place almost annually. In a majority of instances the trouble originates in some students getting up a petition asking for some changes in the management of the college; whereupon the signers of the document are usually expelled from the university, or even exiled to Siberia. The sending of educated young men to the army by way of punishment is quite an unusual measure. Under Russian conditions it amounts to hard labor in a penal institution, and has not been practised since the stern days of Nicholas II. ABRAHAM CAHAN.

THE PLACE OF THE SENATE IN OUR GOVERNMENT.

ACCORDING to a tradition, more or less authenticated, it was George Washington who remarked that the Senate of the United States was the saucer into which the hot tea of the House of Representatives was poured to cool. Some idea of this kind was certainly in the minds of the framers of the Constitution. Madison suggested that the Senate ought to be so constituted as to protect the opulent minority against the changing, irresponsible, and turbulent majority. Hamilton, who did not believe that the voice of the people was the voice of God, would have had Senators appointed for life. More than one of the Constitution-makers referred to the Senate as the Privy Council of the President; and, almost without exception, they regarded it as the brake of conservatism upon the wheels of national legislation. They found its model in the confederation of Grecian States, "where each city, however different in wealth, strength, or other circumstances, had the same number of deputies and an equal voice in everything that related to the concerns of Greece." The States of the United Netherlands, the Confederated Cantons of Switzerland, and, in some degree at least, the British House of Lords were all replete with suggestion for the constructive statesmen who created the American Senate. And yet, while this is true, the fact remains, as Fisher points out in his "Evolution of the Constitution," that the Senate is really the outgrowth of our own experience. It is the gradual development from the Governor's Council of colonial times. As early as 1769 the members of the Council of Massachusetts were chosen to represent certain localities or great districts, a function still preserved in the representation of each State by two Senators, irrespective of area, wealth, or population.

Within the last few years the Senate of the United States has assumed so dominant a part in national legislation that it becomes interesting and instructive to consider how far the original idea of its establishment has been maintained in the evolution of our government. Washington's quaint and expressive phrase still has some meaning and significance. The Senate is still the conservative branch of the Congress. Its members, elected for six years by State Legislatures, decide national

questions with minds less perturbed by fear of popular clamor than the Representatives, whose reelection, after a brief term of two years, is dependent upon the suffrage of a proverbially fickle public. The Senatorial view is of a wider horizon. It is less subservient to prevailing sentiment, but, it is worth while to note, the register of its judgment has generally been accurate.

Take, for instance, the famous struggle over the so-called Force Bill, a measure passed by a partisan House of Representatives in the first flush of political victory. The contest waged by a skilfully led and determined minority in the Senate resulted in the defeat of the proposed law. The wisdom of that outcome will not, I take it, be seriously questioned today. The enactment of the Force Bill would have solidified the South politically, and would have retarded for several decades the material development which has blessed that section. The pouring and cooling process which resulted in its defeat was undoubtedly for the country's good.

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Not content, however, with merely refusing to coöperate with the House in the enactment of proposed legislation, or with revising and editing, so to speak, the bills which come to it from the lower body, the Senate of the United States has been responsible, in late years, for numerous measures of great importance. The Wilson Tariff Bill, framed in the House of Representatives, was discarded by the Senate and a new measure substituted; the latter being accepted by the House with scarcely a whisper of opposition. Identically the same experience befell the resolutions passed by the House declaring that Spain's rule in Cuba was intolerable and not to be endured; while, still more recently, we have seen the Senate originate two of the most important measures ever enacted by Congress the amendments to the Army Appropriation Bill, one of which bestowed upon the President absolute authority to govern the Philippines, while the other outlined the conditions precedent to the withdrawal of the American troops from Cuba. These amendments, fraught with consequences of the most far-reaching character, were adopted bodily by the House of Representatives after the briefest possible consideration. From the moment that the Senate engrafted these amendments upon the Army Bill, it was a foregone conclusion that the House would swallow them without the dotting of an "i" or the crossing of a "t."

It must not be supposed that the Representatives themselves are either ignorant of or indifferent to this condition of affairs. On the contrary, one of the most emphatic, not to say passionate, speeches in the closing hours of the last Congress was a protest by Representative Cannon, Chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, against the

arrogance of the Senate in assuming to dictate to the House in the matter of legislation. And yet the House is, in itself, largely responsible for the very situation against which it rebels. When under Mr. Reed rules were enacted which made the Speaker of the House the autocrat of Congress the decadence of the House began. The members, individually and collectively, surrendered themselves into the keeping of one man, who wields a despotism as complete as that of the proverbial Czar. It is the Speaker who appoints the committees, arranging their personnel so as to secure harmony with his own views; it is the Speaker who, as the deciding member of the Committee on Rules, determines whether the House shall or shall not consider certain measures; and, finally, it is the Speaker to whom each Representative must appeal for recognition upon the floor of the House. The individual member, unless he be the favored appointee to some prominent committee chairmanship, is rarely a factor in the proceedings of the House. The concentration of power in the Speaker's hands has practically destroyed all personality. Indignant constituencies have sent back to private life for apparent inefficiency members who were never accorded an opportunity to prove their worth. Their political existence has been crushed out beneath the Juggernaut of despotic rules. The Washington correspondents, who are trained to observe the trend of national events, fully realize the change which has come over the House. There was a time, years ago, when every newspaper representative in the National Capital appreciated the necessity of acquainting himself with the temper of the House upon every important proposition. To-day the labor is unnecessary. If the correspondent knows the attitude of the Speaker the problem is at once solved.

It is worth while to understand this situation thoroughly, because, it seems to me, it explains the loss of prestige which the House has sustained and the importance which the Senate has assumed. In the Senate the individual is supreme. Any Senator may address the presiding officer and secure recognition at any time when the floor is not occupied by a colleague. He can offer a resolution upon any subject, and, through admirable rules, can place the Senate upon record as to its disposition. If the majority of the Senate desires to send the resolution to some committee crypt, where it shall remain buried until the campaign, for instance, is safely over, the reference is secured only after a yea-andnay vote. If the resolution goes upon the calendar, any Senator can at any time move that the Senate proceed to its consideration-a question which must be determined without debate. This again places the Senate

upon record, and is a proceeding absolutely unknown in the House. Thus, in the closing hours of the last Congress, Senator Jones, of Arkansas, the leader of the Democratic minority, proved a thorn in the side of the Republican party by demanding consideration of his resolution discharging the Committee on the Judiciary from further consideration of the Anti-Trust Bill. The effort was not successful, the Republican majority voting solidly in the negative; but Senator Jones had placed the responsibility where it belonged. Almost every day the record is made up in the Senate upon some test question, because the right of the individual is not abridged or restricted.

This preeminence of the individual in the Senate of the United States goes to a remarkable and much-criticised extent. As long as any Senator desires to speak upon any bill under consideration, just so long must hearing be accorded and a vote postponed. This is what is popularly known as unlimited debate. It is the one thing which makes the Senate absolutely unique in legislative bodies. Only recently the River and Harbor Appropriation Bill failed to reach a final vote, because a Senator occupied the floor during the last thirteen hours of the session, ostensibly criticising the measure, but, in reality, talking against time, with the knowledge that when the hands of the clock reached the hour of noon, Congress would expire by limitation, and the bill would die. This performance, extremely irritating to Senators who were interested in the generous appropriations of the bill, has led to a renewal of previous efforts to amend the rules of the Senate, so as to provide for closure, under certain conditions.

These endeavors have failed in the past, and there is no reason to anticipate success in the future. They ought to fail. Under no circumstances ought there to be limitation of debate in the Senate of the United States. It is the only forum where great and grave public questions can be thoroughly and exhaustively discussed. This high position, once held by the House, has been abdicated by that body. We have seen a bill which proposed a complete revision of the tariff, considered in the House for a few days and then passed, when only a score of pages, out of two or three hundred, had received attention. Crude, ill-digested, and lacking all sense of proportion, the measure has been hastily sent to the Senate, with all its imperfections upon its head. Provisions which were of questionable propriety escaped criticism, because they were buried in the pages which were not reached; and, for the same reason, important amendments, upon which the House was anxious to vote, remained unoffered upon the members' desks.