Chapter I: Part 1

THE SCRAP BOOK.

Vol. I. AUGUST, 1906. No. 6.

THE TOMB OF NAPOLEON.

BY ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.

A little while ago I stood by the grave of the old Napoleon--a magnificent tomb of gilt and gold, fit almost for a deity dead--and gazed upon the sarcophagus of rare and nameless marble, where rest at last the ashes of that restless man. I leaned over the balustrade and thought about the career of the greatest soldier of the modern world.

I saw him walking upon the banks of the Seine contemplating suicide. I saw him at Toulon. I saw him putting down the mob in the streets of Paris. I saw him at the head of the army in Italy. I saw him crossing the bridge at Lodi with the tricolor in his hand. I saw him in Egypt, in the shadow of the Pyramids. I saw him conquer the Alps and mingle the eagles of France with the eagles of the crags. I saw him at Marengo, at Ulm, and at Austerlitz. I saw him in Russia, when the infantry of the snow and the cavalry of the wild blast scattered his legions like winter's withered leaves. I saw him at Leipsic in defeat and disaster--driven by a million bayonets back upon Paris--clutched like a wild beast--banished to Elba. I saw him escape and retake an empire by the force of his genius. I saw him upon the frightful field of Waterloo, where chance and fate combined to wreck the fortunes of their former king. And I saw him at St. Helena, with his hands crossed behind him, gazing out upon the sad and solemn sea.

I thought of the widows and orphans he had made, of the tears that had been shed for his glory, and of the only woman who ever loved him, pushed from his heart by the cold hand of ambition. And I said I would rather have been a French peasant and worn wooden shoes; I would rather have lived in a hut with a vine growing over the door, and the grapes growing purple in the amorous kisses of the autumn sun; I would rather have been that poor peasant, with my wife by my side knitting as the day died out of the sky, with my children upon my knees and their arms about me; I would rather have been this man and gone down to the tongueless silence of the dreamless dust, than to have been that imperial personation of force and murder known as Napoleon the Great.

The Latest Viewpoints of Men Worth While

President Roosevelt Calls Our Supreme Bench the Most
Dignified and Powerful Court in the World--Professor Peabody
Describes the German Kaiser as a Man of Peace--Chancellor
MacCracken Discusses Teaching as a Profession for College
Graduates--Ex-Secretary Herbert Denies that the Confederate
Soldiers Were Rebels--With Other Notable Expressions of
Opinion from Speakers Entitled to a Hearing.

_Compiled and edited for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.

WHAT THE SUPREME COURT STANDS FOR.

The Members of Our Highest Tribunal
Have to Be Not Only Jurists but
Constructive Statesmen.

Justice Brown, of the Supreme Court of the United States, has retired from active service. Before he laid aside the robes of his office a dinner was given in his honor by the bar of the District of Columbia, and on this occasion short speeches were delivered by several prominent men, including President Roosevelt, who said:

In all the world--and I think, gentlemen, you will acquit me
of any disposition to needless flattery--there is no body of
men of equal numbers that possesses the dignity and power
combined that inhere in that court over which, Mr. Chief
Justice, you preside. Owing to the peculiar construction of
our government, the man who does his full duty on that court
must of necessity be not only a great jurist, but a great
constructive statesman.

The Men and the Tradition.

It has been our supreme good fortune as a nation that we
have had on that court, from the beginning to the present
day, men who have been able to carry on in worthy fashion
the tradition which has thus made it incumbent upon the
members of the court to combine in such fashion the
qualities of the great jurist and of the constructive
statesman.

Mr. Justice, we Americans are sometimes accused of paying
too much heed to mere material success, the success which is
measured only by the acquisition of wealth. I do not think
that the accusation is well founded.

A great deal of notoriety attaches, and must attach, to any
man who acquires a great fortune. If he acquires it well and
uses it well, he is entitled to and should receive the same
meed of credit that attaches to any other man who uses his
talents for the public good.

The Nation Sound at Bottom.

But if you will turn to see those whom in the past the
nation has delighted to honor, and those in the present whom
it delights to honor, I think that you will all agree that
this nation is sound at bottom in the bestowal of its
admiration in the relative estimate it puts upon the
different qualities of the men who achieve prominence by
rendering service to the public.

The names that stand out in our history in the past are the
names of the men who have done good work for the body
politic, and in the present the names of those whom this
people really hold in highest honor are the names of the men
who have done all that was in them in the best and most
worthy fashion.

In no way is it possible to deserve better of the republic
than by rendering sane, honest, clear-sighted service on the
bench, and, above all, on the highest bench of this
country.

Men who fear for our democratic institutions too often forget the Supreme Court. Macaulay evidently forgot it when he described our Constitution as "all sail and no anchor."

THE GERMAN KAISER'S CAMPAIGN FOR AMITY.

In His Farewell Audience to Professor
Peabody, of Harvard, He Said:
"We Must Stand Together."

Back from Berlin, where he occupied for a time a chair at the University, under the existing arrangement for exchanges, Professor Peabody, of Harvard, is aiming to straighten the American conceptions of Germany. The Kaiser, he declares, is not a war-lord, but a man of peace, working in the interest of civilization--a peace-lord, so to speak.

Speaking to a German audience in New York a few weeks ago, Professor Peabody said:

There seems to be a general idea abroad that the German
Emperor is constantly looking about for somebody to fight.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. Germany, by virtue
of the commercial expansion it now is working for, is
pledged to maintain the peace of the world, so far as her
own honor will allow.

The German Emperor, speaking at the opening of the
Reichstag, said:

"I consider it the most sacred duty imposed upon me by an
all-wise Providence to preserve peace."

The German Emperor has been misjudged as few characters have
been in history when he has been described as a careless,
heartless intriguer, always ready to strike a blow.

I do not think I am betraying any confidence if I repeat to
you a phrase which fell from the lips of the emperor at the
very last audience with which his imperial majesty honored
me. I was about to return to America. The emperor was
speaking not as a statesman or a diplomatist, but as an
idealist discussing the ideals of his life. At parting he
said:

"We must stand together."

What could we do better here to-night than to repeat that
phrase? I bring to you the confident assurance that in
anything you do here to-night to bring about the negotiation
of a stable treaty of arbitration with your old country you
will have with you the solid common sense of the American
people.

We must stand together, and we must find a safe, solid, and
ample ground on which to stand together. That ground is a
program in which the deliberations of reason must supplant
the folly of force.

We should have reciprocity in the fullest meaning of the
word. Not only commercial reciprocity, but a fair exchange
of truth, of trade, and of treaties. We must have the open
door, the open mind, and the open hand.

Truly, from Baron von Steuben, who lent his sword to Washington, to Carl Schurz, who lately died after a life of patriotic devotion to his adopted country, Germans have done much for America.

THE GENIAL SPORT OF GENEALOGISTS.

Clambering Among the Branches of the
Family Tree, One May Find
Royal Ancestors.

A little harmless fun with the people who are engaged in a hunt for ancestors is indulged in by that playful journal, the New York _Evening Post_.

The point arises in connection with the expose of a man who professes to be able to link every American with royalty, by the chain of a common ancestry, asserting that thus "you and your family, relatives, or friends will have rare facilities in securing business contracts from European governments." The reflections aroused in the _Post_ by this offer of unearned greatness are in part as follows:

A fortune awaits the person who will thus bring genealogy
home to the hearts of the common people and make the
contemplation of a pedigree a source of daily happiness.

We fear that J. Henry Lea, who has just published a
hand-book entitled "Genealogical Research in England,
Scotland, and Ireland," misses the point of view. He is a
dryasdust, who is concerned about long, dull tables of the
probate courts, lists of marriage licenses, and parish
registers. He talks as if genealogy were a science--a notion
that also troubles a recent writer in the London
_Spectator_.

But if genealogy is to appeal to the masses, it must be an
art. Now, the strength of an art is not its grasp of facts,
but its flight of imagination. In a science the rule is,
abundant data and meager results; in an art, meager data and
abundant results.

Tell a scientific genealogist that your grandfather, a Welsh
cobbler, arrived in the steerage in 1860, and what do you
get? After three years and numerous fees for expenses, you
learn that for two centuries the heads of the family had
been mechanics or small tradesmen--a disgusting outcome.

Tell an artistic genealogist the same thing, and in three
weeks, for a stipulated sum, you have a neat picture of a
tree, proving that you are a Tudor, and that the English
Tudors got their start by marrying into your family. This is
why we set art above groveling science.

TEACHING IS A VERY POPULAR PROFESSION.

College Graduates in Increasing Proportion
Are Taking It Up Instead
of the Law and the Ministry.

College graduates in these times are found in all walks of life; but, of course, there are more in the professions than in business--and more in some professions than in others. Also there has been a change, during the last twenty years, in the relative proportions of college men going into different kinds of work.

Chancellor MacCracken, speaking at a commencement of New York University, said:

What change, if any, has there been in the choice of
professions by college graduates in the last twenty years? I
was recently asked this question by a New York editor, and
was unable to answer him. I have since obtained this
information from the advance sheets of the new alumni
catalogue, issued to mark the seventy-fifth anniversary of
the university.

I have studied the record of ten classes of the College of
Arts, from 1885 until 1894, inclusive; also, of the ten
succeeding classes, from 1895 until 1904, inclusive. I find
most satisfactory reports have been obtained respecting the
occupation of these graduates. The chief results are as
follows:

Changes in Occupation.

There are two kinds of occupation which enlisted graduates
for the first decade and for the second in practically the
same proportions.

One is journalism, which enlisted two per cent in the first
decade and two and a half per cent in the second, an
increase of only one-half of one per cent.

The other is business in varied forms, which enlisted
sixteen and a half per cent of the college graduates in the
former decade and sixteen per cent in the latter decade.

On the other hand, three occupations show a decided falling
off. The graduates who have become clergymen numbered twenty
per cent in the first decade, but only seventeen per cent in
the second, a decrease of three per cent.

Those who entered the law were thirty-three per cent in the
first decade and twenty-six per cent in the second, a
decrease of seven per cent.

Those who became physicians were sixteen and a half per cent
in the first decade and fifteen and a half per cent in the
second, a decrease of one per cent; being a total decrease
in the recruits of these professions of eleven per cent.

Teaching Monopolizes the Increase.

Then comes the surprising fact that a single profession has
monopolized the entire increase. The profession of teaching,
which has twelve per cent in the ten classes first named,
has increased to no less than twenty-three per cent in the
ten classes down to the year before last.

The striking fact respecting college graduates is that
eleven per cent fewer of them go into law, medicine, and
divinity, and this entire eleven per cent have gone into
teaching.

What is the explanation? I answer, first, the teaching
profession has increased in dignity and reputation, and in
no part of the world more than in the region where New York
University finds its students.

A second reason is that philanthropic spirits find in
teaching to-day, compared with other professions, larger
scope than ever before. Law is less altruistic as a
profession and more commercial than a generation ago.
Theology is waiting for new statements of what to teach and
how to teach. Therefore, men who are inclined to teach turn
to the common school, the high school, and the college to
find scope for influencing others for good.

As further explanation of the vast increase in the number of
the teachers required for the higher positions, I can give
exact figures for only the year 1905, compared with the year
1900. In 1900 there were enrolled in the high schools of New
York City 11,706 students; last year there were enrolled
20,770 students; in other words, they have almost doubled in
the space of five years.

Can sordid covetousness long be charged against a people whose youth increasingly seek entrance into "the poorest-paid profession"?

MEN OF THE SOUTH WERE NEVER REBELS.

Confederates and Federals Were Patriots
Settling a Constitutional Question,
Says Ex-Secretary Herbert.

In an oration over the graves of the Confederate dead in Arlington Cemetery a few weeks ago, Hilary A. Herbert, former Secretary of the Navy, gave force to the opinion that General Robert E. Lee, and those who fought with him during the Civil War, though secessionists, were not "rebels." He said:

Was Robert E. Lee and were these dead comrades of ours
traitors? With the great war in which they fought far away
in the dim past, what we have a right to ask is, Were they,
the history and Constitution of the United States
considered, either technically or legally traitors?

This may be purely an academic question. In one sense it is,
because all admit that practically the union of these States
is indissoluble; but in another sense it is not, because
there are those in the North who are fond of repeating, even
to this day, "The North was eternally right, and the South
eternally wrong."

This is declamation with which history will have nothing to
do.

Then, again, there are those in the South who say that if
the South ever had the right to secede, it has, though it
will never exercise it, that right to-day, because war
never settles a principle. This too is declamation; it loses
sight of history.

War Has Settled Great Questions.

Every international dispute about rights, about principles,
that could not be adjusted by diplomacy, has been settled by
war. Allegiances of people, forms of government, boundaries
of kingdoms and republics, all these time out of mind have
been submitted to the arbitrament of the sword, and the
results--treaties, not voluntary, but enforced at the
cannon's mouth--have been upheld by diplomats and
parliaments and courts, by every tribunal that has authority
to speak for law and order and the peace of the world.

It does not lie in the mouth of him who believed in the
right of a State in 1861 to secede, to deny now that the
question was settled by the war, and no formal treaty was
necessary as evidence of what all the world could see. We
had the right as sovereign States to submit to the
arbitrament of war. We did it, and, like others who have
gone to war, we must abide the issue. So that now if a State
should attempt to secede those who should cast their
fortunes with it would be rebels.

But not so in 1861. Then the right of a State to withdraw
from the Union was an open question. Nothing better
illustrates the situation at that time than this incident in
the life of General Lee:

General Lee's Rebuke.

When the great war was over and defeat had come to the
armies Lee had led, he was visiting the house of a friend in
Richmond. With that love of children that always
characterized him, the old hero took upon his knee a
fair-haired boy. The proud mother, to please her guest,
asked the child, "Who is General Lee?" Parrot-like the
expected answer came, "The great Virginian who was a
patriot, true to his native State." And then came the
question, "Who is General Scott?" and the reply, "A
Virginian who was a traitor to his country."

Putting down the child and turning to the mother, the
general said:

"Madam, you should not teach your child such lessons. I will
not listen to such talk. General Scott is not a traitor. He
was true to his convictions of duty, as I was to mine."

What General Lee here said and what even when the fires of
the late war were still smoldering he would have the mothers
of the South teach to their children was that he and
General Scott were both right, because each believed himself
to be right.

And that is precisely what that noble son of New England,
Charles Francis Adams, himself a gallant Union soldier, has
more recently said in a public address--that the North and
the South were both right, because each believed itself
right. And such is to be the verdict of history. We were all
patriots settling on the field of battle a constitutional
question that could be settled in no other way. Public
opinion is already moving, and moving rapidly, to the mark
of that final verdict.

With the interment of Confederate dead at Arlington much bitterness disappears. The comradeship of death is unassailable by the arguments of the living.

PLACE IN PUBLIC LIFE ONLY FOR PICKED MEN.

The Self-Made Have a Hard Time,
Those Born Rich Are Mostly Useless,
Says Speaker Cannon.

Somebody asked Speaker Cannon this question: "What would you say if a young man of intelligence, education, and force, undecided as to what he should adopt as a life career, should come to you for advice?"

Of his reply, as printed in the New York _World_, we quote the salient passages, answering the further query as to the advisability of going into politics:

I should say yes to the young man of intelligence, culture,
and efficiency, if these things were crossed with
patriotism. In the main those who go into public life are
picked men, and by just so much as they are picked men they
are ahead of the average. This is a fact in spite of the
oft-repeated assertion that the representatives of the
people are only of average grade.

If among a dozen young men, each of whom should decide to
devote his life to the public service and should qualify and
work hard and conscientiously for it, one--just one--should
get himself into public life and sustain himself with credit
to himself and benefit to the country, I should consider it
a great return for the effort put forth.

The man who has to make his own way, who is without a
competency to start with, and who enters public life these
days before he has saved enough to live independently of his
income as a public man, has a hard time before him.

Hard Time for the Poor Man.

The young man who has never earned his living for himself,
no matter what his advantages of circumstances or training,
is sure to make many mistakes through ignorance of hard,
practical life. Not personally having the same needs as the
man of the people, he doesn't know what to do or how to do
it.

Young men who enjoy the advantages of special training and
the opportunities that wealth gives may become especially
qualified for public life; such opportunities and training
are necessary to complete qualifications, but often they are
not equal to them. That which may be had without effort is
not often highly prized.

But all young men of ability, whether favored by fortunes or
not, owe it both to themselves and to the nation to give
attention to public affairs, to keep themselves in touch
with things, to be in constant preparation for public life
if the opportunity or necessity comes to them.

Everybody knows there is a large number of such young men in
the great business and industrial centers who give no
attention, or very little, to public affairs. The
manufacturing, the commercial or financial operations, the
contracting or transportation enterprises which they take up
give them so much better financial returns than public life
would yield that they lose sight altogether of the
government, upon whose proper conduct their success in their
various callings and enterprises depends--upon which, in
fact, the very chance to enter these callings and carry on
those enterprises rests, and whose demoralization would wipe
out everybody's chances in life.

Now, we can't prevent the evolution of such conditions in
this or any other civilized country. But these people, thus
completely absorbed in their callings and enterprises, whose
standpoint of self-interest now prevents them from giving
attention to public affairs, will surely be forced more and
more to broaden their culture--thorough knowledge of public
affairs is as necessary to truly broad culture as any other
sort of knowledge--as well as their patriotism.

Must Give More Than Money.

I don't say that these people should give, give, give--it
won't do for them to try to meet the situation merely by
being charitable with their money. Giving only gratifies
the giver. As a general rule, it pauperizes the people who
receive. The multimillionaire of to-day must give more than
his money. He must give some of his time, his attention, and
his thought to other and more important things than personal
money-getting.

The human animal accomplishes only as he works under the
pressure of necessity. The extensive development of the
United States in the last half century has kept the people
so busy in various industries, speculations, and
enterprises, in order to do their part in this development,
that many of them have neglected their duties as citizens,
or perhaps I should say as co-sovereigns in the government
of the great empire that has been built up by their efforts,
in which all men are equal at the ballot-box.

I myself am acquainted with many men who, merely because of
lucky location, though only of respectable ability, have sat
on the gateway of commerce, and, by simply levying toll,
have accumulated great fortunes.

In all their lives they have never got into touch with
public life; they know little about public questions, and
they give them no attention. These men, when pinched by the
unwise action of the majority of their fellows, are able to
do little except cover the latter with abuse.

Sometimes, however, such men try to enter public life
themselves. But then the people do not always acknowledge
their fitness for public position. Sometimes they seek
protection for their interests by improper methods instead
of trying to contribute their share in building up a wise
public sentiment.

The Most Dangerous Men.

It goes without saying that the most dangerous men in the
republic are those who, by inheritance or otherwise, have
vast fortunes, yielding great incomes, which enable them to
command the services of those who have ability, but not
conscience, and thus seek to control the average man--the
man who lives by the sweat of his face--by playing upon his
prejudices, his hopes, and his fears.

Is there a remedy for this? An offset to such evil
influences? Yes. A most efficient remedy. In the fulness of
time the multitude will find out from some actual and
painful experience that they have been misled. When, through
being misled, they begin to suffer; when they begin to be
oppressed they will seek to find new leadership and will
apply the proper remedies through the ballot-box.

Fortunately, in this republic there are plenty of men of
culture, ability, and wisdom--themselves of the people--who
cannot be bought or controlled by material considerations,
and who are daily performing the duties of citizenship, from
whom to select the required leaders not only among the rich
and well-to-do, but also among those who live by their daily
labor.

THEY WOULD KEEP THE PEACE-DOVE HOVERING.

Plans to Establish an International Parliament
for the Prevention of Conflicts
in the Future.

The year after a great war is naturally a period for talk of permanent peace. The dove still coos, the ravages of conflict are still apparent, the folly of an appeal to arms is evident in economic conditions. And so, this summer, there has been more than the usual attention to plans for the prevention of war in the future. Indeed, the time does seem ripe for the establishment of an international parliament.

Among the addresses at the recent session of the Lake Mohonk Conference was one by Judge W.L. Penfield, who said concerning the plan upon which peace advocates are now agreed:

The institution of a parliament competent to legislate in
the international sphere, as the United States Congress is
within the Federal sphere, would undoubtedly present some
most difficult political problems, yet it would hardly be
more difficult for a body of jurists and statesmen to define
the bounds of authority of the international parliament than
it was for the framers of the Federal constitution to define
and distribute the powers of the Federal government.

Under existing political conditions the creation of an
international parliament clothed with the power of direct
legislation does not appear to be presently feasible. But it
is the unexpected that happens, as, for example, who would
have dared foretell five years ago the convocation of the
Russian Duma?

The Hague Conference as a Basis.

The call of an international parliament cannot be set down
as wholly improbable, and the way to that goal lies through
the more frequent calls and assemblages of The Hague
conference and by committing to it the task of codifying in
the form of treaties the leading branches of international
law. One of the subjects of its deliberations will be the
reciprocal rights and duties of neutrals and belligerents.

A more serious difficulty will arise in agreeing upon some
criterion to determine when articles of dual utility, for
war or peace, may be treated by a belligerent as absolutely
contraband of war.

There is the further question of the prize courts and of the
arrest and seizure by a belligerent's cruisers of neutral
ships and cargoes.

We may expect that another and kindred question will come
before the conference--the question of the immunity from
capture at sea of all non-contraband private property,
whether owned by the citizens or subjects of neutral or
belligerent states.

The Limits of Hospitality.

Another important subject which is likely to attract the
attention of the conference is the question of the
privileges and the limits of hospitality, of temporary
anchorage and asylum, and of the supply and repair of
belligerent war-ships in neutral ports.

It is understood that the subject which has been suggested
for the consideration of the conference is the question of
opening hostilities without previous declaration of war. It
is extremely doubtful whether the conference will attempt to
formulate any rule on so difficult a subject, and one so
intimately connected with the necessities of strategy.

There will be little objection, I imagine, to the view that
no government ought to use force to compel another
government to pay its public securities, its bonds, or other
national obligations which foreigners have voluntarily
purchased or subscribed to and taken.

But it is nearly certain that there will be a division of
opinion on the question whether any inflexible rule should
be laid down with respect to cases of individual foreigners
who have invested large sums of money in the development of
the natural resources of a country, under contract with its
government to do so, if the latter should then flagrantly
violate the contract and despoil them of the fruits of their
enterprises.

The experience had with the practical workings of The Hague
Tribunal suggests the desirability of certain amendments of
the convention of July 29, 1899, such as that only
disinterested arbitrators shall be eligible to seats on the
tribunal; that the arbitration of questions of a judicial
nature and of those concerning the interpretation and
execution of treaties shall be compulsory; that the medieval
idea that a sense of national honor, aside from the rights
of self-defense, can justify resort to war in any case shall
be abandoned, and, workable and in every way admirable as it
now is--when we consider its substance and the circumstances
of its formation--that the time is now ripe for the revision
and recasting of the convention of July 29, 1899.

Whether an international parliament can prevent war without the assistance of an international police is another story.

LIQUOR DEALERS COME OUT FOR TEMPERANCE.

Rum-Sellers in Convention at Louisville
Praise the Work of the Societies that
Fight King Alcohol.

The National Liquor Dealers' Association, in annual convention at Louisville, Kentucky, early in June, issued a startling address to the public. These men, who are frequently thought to have no stronger desire than that every person drink more than is good for him, actually commend the work of the various temperance societies and urge that intoxication should be considered a crime. They say:

From time to time during the past seventy-five or one
hundred years waves of public sentiment antagonistic to the
manufacture and sale of wine and spirits and other alcoholic
beverages have passed over this country, leaving in their
train State, county, and municipal legislation of a more or
less drastic character--legislation entirely out of sympathy
with the spirit of American institutions; legislation that
was bound to fail in its purpose in practically every
instance, and this because the sentiment that compelled it
was a sentiment engendered by agitation, and totally unripe
for its enforcement.

Prohibitory Laws Evaded.

That prohibitory laws are all evaded is clearly shown by the
fact that notwithstanding the adoption of prohibition by a
number of States, and by innumerable counties, until at the
present time it is unlawful to sell wines or spirits in more
than one-half of the geographical limits of the United
States, the demand for such beverages has increased in
almost the same proportion as our population, from the
legitimate trade, and in an enormously greater proportion
from illicit distillers and retailers.

We shall not be so uncharitable as to contend that the
agitation from which this public sentiment originates owes
its persistent recurrence to mercenary motives on the part
of men who make merchandise of aroused emotions, because it
gives a pleasurable excitement to the women who tire of the
monotony of home; but, on the contrary, we shall be candid
in the admission that there is good and sufficient reason
for an arousing of public sentiment in this country, and we
confess a feeling of sympathy with the movements for the
uplifting of mankind and for the purification of society.

Favor White Ribbon Movement.

The White Ribbon movement, the Blue Ribbon movement, the
Prohibition movement, and the Anti-Saloon League movement
were, or are, protests upon the part of good men and women
against two of the greatest evils connected with our
civilization, and, unfortunately for us, connected with our
trade--we refer to drunkenness and to those saloons which
are conducted in a disreputable manner, or in such a way as
to demoralize rather than to elevate those who patronize
them--and we, the delegates to this convention of the wine
and spirit trade, desire to express in no uncertain tones
our entire sympathy with the efforts that have been or may
be put forth to exterminate the evils, and our willingness
to lend cooperation and assistance by every means in our
power.

We do not desire to deceive or to mislead, nor to be
misunderstood, and in all candor we declare our views to be
as follows:

We believe that wines and spirits are blessings _per se_,
intended by an All-wise Providence to bring health and
happiness to mankind.

We believe that the legitimate manufacture and sale of wines
and spirits is an honorable trade, and one that should be
respected by society and by the laws.

We believe that the saloon and cafe can, and should be, so
conducted that men would not hesitate to visit them
accompanied by their wives and children, and that the
atmosphere of such places should be beneficial to both mind
and body.

Intoxication Should Be Crime.

We believe that it should be made a crime for a man to
become intoxicated. We hold that no man has a right to
deliberately overthrow his reason and render himself a
dangerous factor in society, and, therefore, we would gladly
welcome the passage of laws providing severe penalties for
such offenses and a firm, rigid enforcement without regard
to wealth or influence of the offender.

For the evils to which we have referred prohibitory laws
have proved no remedy, and, even if they should be enforced,
we believe they are dangerous to liberty, but the
suggestions that we have offered are practicable, and have
proven to be remedies in most of the countries of
Continental Europe, where drunkenness is seldom in evidence,
and furthermore, we can apply such laws without giving
offense save to those who by common consent are deserving of
condemnation as having done that which mankind recognizes to
be wrong, and having thereby placed themselves without the
pale.

That the liquor dealers should take this position is not so surprising as at first thought it seems. Economically, the best condition for the liquor business is temperance.

MACAULAY'S PROPHECY OF DEMOCRACY'S DOOM.

Fifty Years Ago the Great English Historian
Saw Dangers Ahead for the
American Ship of State.

Macaulay, the historian, wrote a striking letter in 1857 to H.S. Randall, of New York, who had sent to the author of the "History of England" a "Life of Jefferson."

The occasion seemed to Macaulay suitable for an expression of his opinion of American institutions. Accordingly he wrote at length. The Boston _Transcript_ recently published the letter, which, in its essential parts, is as follows:

I have long been convinced that institutions purely
democratic must, sooner or later, destroy liberty or
civilization, or both. In Europe, where the population is
dense, the effect of such institutions would be almost
instantaneous.

What happened lately in France is an example. In 1848 a pure
democracy was established there. During a short time there
was reason to expect a general spoliation, a national
bankruptcy, a new partition of the soil, a maximum of
prices, a ruinous load of taxation laid on the rich for the
purpose of supporting the poor in idleness.

Such a system would, in twenty years, have made France as
poor and barbarous as the France of the Carlovingians.
Happily, the danger was averted; and now there is a
despotism, a silent tribune, an enslaved press. Liberty is
gone, but civilization has been saved. You may think that
your country enjoys an exemption from these evils; I will
frankly own to you that I am of a very different opinion.

Your fate I believe to be certain, though it is deferred by
a physical cause. As long as you have a boundless extent of
fertile and unoccupied land, your laboring population will
be far more at ease than the laboring population of the Old
World; and while that is the case the Jefferson politics may
continue to exist without causing any fatal calamity.

An Early Victorian Mother Shipton.

But the time will come when New England will be as thickly
settled as Old England. Wages will be as low, and will
fluctuate as much with you as with us. You will have your
Manchesters and Birminghams; and in those Manchesters and
Birminghams hundreds and thousands of artisans will
sometimes be out of work.

Then your institutions will be fairly brought to the test.
Distress everywhere makes the laborer mutinous and
discontented, and inclines him to listen with eagerness to
agitators, who tell him that it is a monstrous iniquity that
one man should have a million while another cannot get a
full meal.

In bad years there is plenty of grumbling here, and
sometimes a little rioting; but it matters little, for here
the sufferers are not the rulers. The supreme power is in
the hands of a class, numerous indeed, but select--of an
educated class--of a class which is, and knows itself to be,
deeply interested in the security of property and the
maintenance of order.

Restraining the Discontented Majority.

Accordingly the malcontents are gently but firmly
restrained. The bad time is got over without robbing the
wealthy to relieve the indigent. The springs of national
prosperity soon begin to flow again; work is plentiful,
wages rise, and all is tranquillity and cheerfulness.

I have seen England pass, three or four times, through such
critical seasons as I have described. Through such seasons
the United States will have to pass in the course of the
next century, if not of this. How will you pass through
them? I heartily wish you good deliverance; but my reason
and my wishes are at war, and I cannot help foreboding the
worst.

It is quite plain that your government will never be able to
restrain a distressed and discontented majority. For, with
you, the majority is the government, and has the rich, who
are always in the minority, absolutely at its mercy.

The day will come when, in the State of New York, a
multitude of people, none of whom has had more than half a
breakfast, or expects to have more than half a dinner, will
choose a Legislature. Is it possible to doubt what sort of a
Legislature will be chosen?

Statesman and Demagogue.

On one side is a statesman preaching patience, respect for
vested rights, strict observance of public faith; on the
other is a demagogue, ranting about the tyranny of the
capitalists and usurers, and asking why anybody should be
permitted to drink champagne and to ride in a carriage while
thousands of honest folk are in want of necessaries.

Which of the two candidates is likely to be preferred by a
workman who hears his children cry for bread?

I seriously apprehend you will, in some such season of
adversity as I have described, do things that will prevent
prosperity from returning; that you will act like people who
should, in a season of scarcity, devour all the seed-corn,
and thus make the next year not one of scarcity, but of
absolute famine.

There will be, I fear, spoliation. The spoliation will
increase the distress. The distress will produce fresh
spoliation. There is nothing to stop you. Your Constitution
is all sail and no anchor. As I said before, when a society
has entered on its downward progress, either civilization or
liberty must perish. Either some Caesar or Napoleon will
seize the reins of government with a strong hand or your
republic will be as fearfully plundered and laid waste by
barbarians in the twentieth century as the Roman Empire was
in the fifth.

Curious that Macaulay's fears for America should not have been felt by Americans themselves until now. Even to-day, when in some degree the symptoms he described a half century ago are making their appearance, the American people is more interested in the situation than alarmed by it; for the Americans, like the English, rely with confidence upon the Anglo-Saxon genius for working things out.

AN OPEN ATTITUDE IN STUDYING THE OCCULT.

What Shall the Man of Scientific Mind
Say in the Presence of Apparently
Supernatural Phenomena?

Sir Oliver Lodge, writing in the _Fortnightly Review_ a short time ago, asserted that every man of science who has seriously undertaken to investigate the "occult" has ended by believing in it.

This statement, as the Portland _Oregonian_ suggests, may not be so important as might appear, for comparatively few trained scientists have ventured into the vague problems of the threshold. The _Oregonian_, however, proceeds to answer some of the objections commonly made to belief in spirit communications, and also to define limitations of investigation of occult phenomena:

People of well-balanced judgment, whether learned or not,
are inclined to look askance upon those who have dealings
with the spirit world. Some believe that communication
between the living and dead is possible, but wicked.

Others, while their faith is firm that life continues after
death, hold, nevertheless, that the gulf between the two
worlds can never be recrossed by those who have once passed
over, and that no message can traverse its dark immensity.

Still others believe that death ends our existence utterly;
there is no future life, no world of spirits, and therefore
all phenomena purporting to be caused by the disembodied
dead necessarily originate in some other way.

None of these opinions is held by the sternly scientific
mind, like Dr. Osler's, for example. In his well-known
Ingersoll lecture that distinguished physician and graceful
man of letters comes to the conclusion that we do not and
never can know whether there is a future life or not.

There is absolutely no evidence looking either way, and
there never can be any such evidence. To his view and to all
the others one may easily find objections.

The belief that communication with disembodied souls is
wicked is a mere superstition derived from the ancient
Jewish laws against witchcraft. With them, as with all
primitive peoples, a witch was one who, like Glendower,
could call spirits from the vasty deep, and the reason for
discouraging the practise is obvious; it set up a dangerous
competition with the regular priesthood, and cut off their
revenues.

The Jewish priests had a prescribed orthodox method of
consulting spirits, which contributed handsomely to their
income, and it was scarcely to be expected that they would
tolerate the piratical competition of hideous old women like
the Witch of Endor.

Hence that command in the law of Moses, "Thou shalt not
suffer a witch to live," which has been the cause of so much
cruelty and bloodshed.

Science and Experience.

When science says a thing cannot be done, experience proves
that she speaks prematurely almost always. We may as yet
have no evidence of the reality of a future life, but that
by no means demonstrates that we never shall have such
evidence.

A century ago we had no evidence of the X-rays, of the
telephone, of the new theory of non-atomic matter. That men
have been trying from the beginning of time to demonstrate
another existence and have always failed is of no
significance. Perhaps they have not tried in the right way.

The objection that most of the things purporting to be said
and done by spirits are absurd or trivial has no weight. The
only way to find out how a spirit will act under given
conditions is to place him under those conditions and watch
the results.

What seems absurd to us may not seem so to him. If he exists
at all, his norms of worth may be, and probably are, very
different from ours. According to the valuations of the
spirit world, rapping on a table may be as exalted a
function as heading an army is with us.

How silly it was for Galvani to make a frog's leg twitch
with his bits of zinc and copper! Yet something has come of
it. How trifling a thing was the fall of Newton's apple! Yet
he could see in it the revolutions of the stars.

Perhaps some day another Newton will appear who can discern
some law of universal import in those occult trifles which
now merely puzzle without edifying us.

As the course of the falling apple involves the trajectory
of Arcturus, so the foolish raps upon a kitchen table which
mystify a superstitious circle of devotees may imply the
immortality of the soul.

Let us wait and see.

The _Oregonian_ appears to argue simply for an open mind--which is the right attitude for investigators.

THAT GREAT MYSTERY, THE COMMON TABBY.

There Must Be Something Esoteric About
the Cat, to Judge from Her
Astounding Performances.

However cozily she may sleep upon the rug, however certain her knowledge of the quickest route to the milkpans on the closet shelf, the cat is ever but a guest in the house. Though occasionally she permits herself to be stroked, it is only when a stroking accords with her own desires. She never makes concessions as the dog does; she is selfish and independent; so canny in her policies as to be almost uncanny; aloof, full of indirections.

The late Professor Shaler spoke of "the almost human dog"; and surely we are able to trace the associational processes of mind by which Fido has drawn close to his master. We are convinced that Fido does not know that he is a dog. He does what his master pleases. But Tabby does what she herself pleases.

If any animal approximates human consciousness, it is the common Tabby. Perhaps she embodies some force unknown to, or misunderstood by, mankind. The Chicago _Inter-Ocean_ argues that she does, for we read:

There is never any telling what a cat will do. Everybody who
has kept house, or who is keeping house, or who is an inmate
of a house that is kept, as all well-regulated houses are,
for the partial convenience of the cat, will agree to this
proposition.

The cat, to all appearances, as far as any member of the
family is able to see, has been put out for the night, and
yet she is found to be in at 4 A.M. as usual, pleading with
all the inmates, individually and collectively, to have the
door opened for her so that she may go out.

On the other hand, she is safely locked in, as far as
anybody can see. Witnesses are always willing to testify
that they have seen her locked in. Nevertheless, at about
4.30 A.M., she is heard outside under the bedroom windows,
pleading as usual to be let in.

Again, the cat has been taken to the river in a flour-sack,
and comfortably drowned. The small boy of the family,
accompanied by one of the boarders, who has given the small
boy a quarter, has seen the bag, with the cat inside of it,
sink below the surface.

The news is somehow rumored about the house, and all the
boarders go to bed early that night, feeling that there is
really more in life than they had any right to hope for. Yet
in the morning the voice of that cat is heard on the front
door-step, and the cat herself comes in when Mr. Johnson
reaches out for his morning paper.

And, again, a terrible noise is heard in the dining-room. It
sounds as if the contents of the sideboard had been emptied
on the floor. When sufficient time is given for the burglars
to escape, the procession comes down-stairs, headed by Mrs.
Johnson.

There is not a single thing disturbed in the dining-room or
elsewhere, and the cat is sleeping snugly on the best rug.
It is always a mystery how the cat makes that kind of noise.

The days of superstition are long since passed. Few are
superstitious now, and these are generally the ignorant. But
there are very many people in every community who do not
understand many things about the cat.

It is not going too far to say that many millions of people
who pass for intelligent believe that every cat has two
personalities--one that is just an ordinary cat and the
other an intangible something that can penetrate solid
matter like the X-ray.

This theory would account for the fact that a cat which you
have seen run down by an automobile will be found next
morning chasing squirrels across the lawn, and for the fact
that the cat which you expressed, charges prepaid, to your
brother's wife in Trenton, New Jersey, is heard running over
the piano-keys in your own house a few nights later.

We are far from knowing everything that is worth while about
the cat, much as we may boast of our advancement in general
education.

DEFINITIONS OF "HOME."

The golden setting in which the brightest jewel is "mother."

* * * * *

A world of strife shut out, a world of love shut in.

* * * * *

An arbor which shades when the sunshine of prosperity becomes too dazzling; a harbor where the human bark finds shelter in time of storm.

* * * * *

Home is the blossom of which heaven is the fruit.

* * * * *

Home is a person's estate obtained without injustice, kept without disquietude; a place where time is spent without repentance, and which is ruled by justice, mercy, and love.

* * * * *

A hive in which, like the industrious bee, youth garners the sweets and memories of life for age to meditate and feed upon.

* * * * *

The best place for a married man after business hours.

* * * * *

Home is the coziest, kindliest, sweetest place in all the world, the scene of our purest earthly joys and deepest sorrows.

* * * * *

The place where the great are sometimes small, and the small often great.

* * * * *

The father's kingdom, the children's paradise, the mother's world.

* * * * *

The jewel casket containing the most precious of all jewels--domestic happiness.

* * * * *

Where you are treated best and grumble most.

* * * * *

The center of our affections, around which our heart's best wishes twine.

* * * * *

A popular but paradoxical institution, in which woman works in the absence of man, and man rests in the presence of woman.

* * * * *

A working model of heaven, with real angels in the form of mothers and wives.

* * * * *

Having offered a prize for the best definition of "Home," London _Tit-Bits_ recently received more than five thousand answers.

Among those which were adjudged the best were the definitions printed above.

RECESSIONAL.

In 1897 the British Empire celebrated the Diamond Jubilee, as it was called, of Victoria's accession to the throne. She had been queen for sixty years, and in that time the dominion of the flag of Britain had been extended over lands which, at her coronation, were scarcely known except by name. The celebration culminated in a splendid and stately ceremonial which made London appear to be the capital city of the entire world. From out all the length and breadth of the empire came princes, chiefs, nobles, and statesmen of every race, all united under British rule, and vying with each other in homage to their sovereign. So overwhelming were this display and the significance of its splendor that it roused in many minds a feeling of awe bordering almost upon apprehension. Was this greatness not too great? Might it not breed that overweening pride of power which goes before destruction?

This thought sank deep into the impressionable mind of Rudyard Kipling. His genius sought to express in words the idea which came to him--the wish to deprecate that divine disfavor which men have always feared as the punishment of too great prosperity. It was the feeling which made the Greeks and Romans dread the power of Nemesis, the jealousy of the gods. Kipling wrote five stanzas which he entitled "Recessional."