voodooism and anarchy? And what likelihood is there that Cuba, if left to itself, would become other than, if not a second Hayti, at least a nation in no way superior to, or more orderly than the most turbulent lands of South America? Moreover, is there any other way of leaving the Filipinos to achieve their own future than for us to stand aside and let them fight it out among themselves until the strongest race of the lot subdues the others?

In

In both Cuba and the Philippines the outcome of leaving them to themselves could be no other than the unfailing South American consequence-the establishment of chronic disorder. Cuba and the Philippines, as in Ecuador and Venezuela, in in Guatemala and Nicaragua, the political leaders are of identically the same schooling, the same ambitions, the same motives, the same proclivities-all alike disposed to get affairs into their own hands for their own aggrandizement. The great masses would simply divide factionally according to the contentions of their leaders. There would be no lack of ostensible issues, framed with flaming eloquence, but these issues would all resolve themselves down to a matter of public plunder.

In the really heroic struggle for independence on the part of the various Spanish-American countries many of the leaders were unquestionably devoted to the cause of liberty. Like Bolivar, they were often men of cultivation, educated in Europe and fired with enthusiasm for the abstract ideals set forth in the writings of the French apostles of free government and free thought. But they were backed by no popular aspirations -at the most the negative aim to be rid of existing oppression, with no thought of remedy beyond that of a change of masters-and their rival ambitions sur

passed their patriotic devotion. Incessant civil strife has been the consequence. The familiar ring of the manifestos and the proclamas, already plentiful in the islands now in our charge, indicates that, given the opportunity, events there would take like

courses.

We are asked to look at Mexico as an instance of a country once the very example of misrule, but now, by merely being let alone, growing up into power and prosperity; and at Japan, which also we perhaps might have seized, as compared with India under British rule. Cuba, it is argued, might go the way of Mexico if left to herself, while the Filipinos might stand where the Japanese now do. But Mexico had to endure more than a half century of turmoil before a strong hand arose to compel tranquillity. And it was an impulse from without, the impulse of commercial development, together with the moral pressure exerted by the immediate neighborhood of our own powerful country, that aroused in that rich land a sense of self-interest so strong as to override the tendencies towards internal disorder. In the case of Japan. the comparison is hardly felicitous. For centuries Japan has been a great empire and has borne within herself all the seeds of self-development. British India has always been a collection of discordant states; whatever England may yet have failed to accomplish there, she has certainly put an end to internal strife and has done much for the betterment of the land. The Philippines, likewise, comprise no single nationality in one great people, as does Japan. There is no example of how the heterogeneous races that inhabit that archipelago could ever unify themselves into one independent state.

Having assumed the responsibilities

that we have, it would be nothing short of a national crime to permit such rash experiments to be tried. The loss of life attendant upon the processes of pacification is small in comparison with the perpetual bloodshed that would follow giving the islands over to the contentions of races and of factions. We cannot avoid grave mistakes at first. But the tendencies must steadily be for the better; our administration can hardly fail to assure a government immensely superior to anything possible under independent auspices.

Social disorder, with insecurity of life and property, is something just as calamitous in its relation to human welfare when it occurs without our borders as it would be in our own land. Therefore when it comes within our power to bring it to an end it is clearly our province and our duty to do it. The higher civilizations, under the community of interests that now embraces the whole world, have the responsibilities of a trusteeship for the weaker peoples. It is true that various recent events give a somewhat sinister, not to say ironical, cast to the conceptions of this function entertained by certain great powers. But it is only lately, that these duties have been recognized as such; it is natural that their exercise should be complicated with the ambitions of States, with international jealousies, with commercial greed, and with the various other motives that have long impelled men and peoples to play the meaner part. As time goes on these duties must stand out clearer, and will be pursued with increasing singleness of purpose.

Why should we take upon ourselves. this new burden in the task of training foreign and inferior peoples in the ways of orderly self-government when we are already loaded down with vexed problems that proceed from our own de

ficient progress along the same path? Indeed, it may well be asked: To what extent have we ourselves really achieved self-government? We have made the principle the cornerstone of our political institutions; we have a very elaborate apparatus for carrying it into effect. In certain limited ways it really is effective, as in the town-meeting governments of New England; and also as expressed in the general elections of perhaps many States, so far as the popular will can therein find utterance. But, on the other hand, look at our city governments, corrupt and boss-ridden, as a rule, throughout the land; the worst in the civilized world, taken all in all, and wastefully extravagant the best of them! Look at our legislative bodies from the lowest to the highest, irresponsible to the public they were intended to represent, except under an overwhelming expression of sentiment upon exciting issues, but chronically pliable to the will of great corporations and powerful moneyed interests! Look at several of the greatest States of the Union, subjected to dictatorships as completely as any, South American country ever was-and one of these, at least, no more of a democratic republic than they; having no pretense of a fair ballot and with voting-lists that include the names of dogs and of dead men! Look at the manipulation of the ballot in various other States, notably in certain ones where at times the number of votes reported cast exceeds that of the entire voting population of the preceding census! Look at yet another group of States with suffrage provisions so framed as to disfranchise an ignorant class of one race-which is well-and enfranchise a correspondingly ignorant class of the dominant race, which certainly is not well! Look at the upper branch of the Congress, so constituted,

according to an inequitable theory of government, as to make it possible for a combination of sparsely settled States of the Union to exert their will superior to that of other States comprising a total population many times in excess. Look at the elections in which the ruler of the nation has been chosen by a minority of the people! And look at our subjection to the will of men long dead as embodied in organic law shaped for the requirements of an age when economic and social conditions were quite other than those of today! All this is certainly not democratic self-government.

We manifestly have our full share of wrongs to right at home, and in that respect have no call to go abroad to employ our reformative impulses. But the teacher learns in teaching. And somehow the logic of events has a way of manifesting itself quite different from that which the logic of sentiment might urge us to follow in taking up one question after another in orderly sequence. While we are all dutifully engaged in promoting our pet reforms with quiet ardor, a strange lot of new issues is thrust upon us without warning, bringing confusion into the midst of sedate groups, redistributing men in their affiliations and making much marvel at strange political bedfellows newly brought together. But though many patriotic citizens stand aghast at the departure from long established traditions and from politics that seemed to have become part and parcel with the national fabric, there are others equally patriotic, and perhaps more comprehensive of vision, who, while realizing the greater strain to which our institutions must be put under the new tests, nevertheless feel no regret that we have exceeded the bounds of a comfortable continental isolation, and are even disposed to rejoice that conditions have

arisen to make us feel how closely we are a part of the whole world, our interests more definitely identified with those of humanity at large. With the greater energies demanded for dealing with greater problems may we not hope to be better equipped for meeting those that have long baffled us?

If we do not rightly cope with the new conditions we must fail alike both with them and with the old. In wide diffusion of popular intelligence we stand high among the nations. But we have applied that intelligence too little to the conduct of public concerns. Now, however, we see our national authority energetically and, on the whole, successfully exerted in the summary reform of long accumulations from medieval methods in administration; letting daylight into dark places, applying the principles of modern hygiene, of engineering science and of advanced civic economy to the conversion of diseasebreeding and fever-ridden cities into model municipalities-clean, well-paved, admirably administered, and brought under conditions of sanitation that not only enormously diminish their own mortality but protect our own land against a long-standing danger which has often inflicted upon us untold harm. This result alone is well worth many times the cost of the war with Spain and that in the Philippines. Must not such achievements make us more keenly alive to the practicability and the value of handling our own civic problems, of reforming our own misgoverned cities, by measures of like common sense? Will not the spectacle of a competent civil service giving excellent administration to the affairs of our colonies make us alive to the desirability of looking after home affairs with corresponding efficiency?

It is in this broader fashion that the

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

T

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 hand. 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 are 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