Chapter X (1)

The voices that had frightened Mrs. March off were those of Sir Nelson and Maxwell Fair, who now came round the corner of the tower, with heads bowed in very earnest talk. The elder man had been the most intimate friend of the younger man’s father, and on the death of the latter Sir Nelson had assumed an informal guardianship of the erratic and wilful son. But while others were disappointed and baffled during the earlier years of Maxwell Fair’s manhood, Sir Nelson Poynter swore by him and predicted that all would be well in time. Fully had Maxwell Fair’s more recent career justified the confidence of his father’s old friend.

It was with the shock of surprise, as well as the natural sorrow of a friend, that Sir Nelson had just been hearing Fair speak in indefinite terms of some impending catastrophe that was to terminate in blight his brilliant and successful life.

“By Jove, my boy,” Sir Nelson was saying as they reached the terrace and began pacing up and down, “it distresses me unspeakably to hear your father’s son talking in this way. Of course, I shall do all I can—whatever you may ask of me—but don’t you think that you should make a clean breast of everything? It is nothing new to see a Fair acting from some high, compelling motive, which strikes us ordinary men as quixotic, but your fathers always did whatever they did in the open. They may have been enthusiasts and unpractical crusaders, but nobody could complain that they fought under a mask. Their object may sometimes have seemed chimerical, but in the struggle to reach it they wore their coat-of-arms where men could see it, and proclaimed their principles with trumpet blasts. Out with it, man! What in God’s name is it all?”

“I thank you, Sir Nelson,” quietly replied Fair, taking up his argument and appeal at the point where Sir Nelson had interrupted him. “You have relieved my mind by consenting to act as my executor. You will, I think, find my affairs in tolerably good order. Everything goes to Miss Mettleby—everything, so there will be little to do in the way of settlement.”

“To Miss Mettleby?” exclaimed Sir Nelson, confronting Fair with perfect consternation and disapproval. “To Miss Mettleby, you say? She is your children’s governess, is she not? My God, boy, there has been no—your wife and children, you know! What will be thought of this?”

“I have settled five hundred thousand pounds on Mrs. Fair and the children—long ago, as I think you know, so I can leave the rest to Miss Mettleby with justice and propriety,” answered Fair calmly.

“What if you have?” cried out Sir Nelson, growing vexed at the fellow’s amazing stubbornness and lack of decency, as he thought. “What if you have settled a considerable sum on your family? Do you suppose you can leave the bulk of your estate to a dependent girl, a young woman in your employ, without causing no end of evil surmises and comment reflecting on your memory—yes, and the young person’s honor? What can you mean by such a mad determination? Come, be reasonable, I beg of you. Make a suitable provision for this girl, if you think it due her for her faithful service in your family, but, for heaven’s sake, don’t leave the poor child a legacy of defamation, as you most certainly will, if you persist in carrying out such a preposterous course.”

“By the time that you come to settle my estate, sir, I shall have become an object too contemptible for even malice to stoop to notice,” replied Fair, poking his stick into the gravel and giving his words the tone that meant that he had thought out all the objections which his old friend had raised.

They walked back and forth once or twice before Sir Nelson responded with a laugh, which he tried to make genuine: “My word, what arrant nonsense we have been talking anyhow! Settling your estate, eh? Why, bless us all, I shall have been under the chancel stones twenty years before you retire from business to begin to enjoy middle age in the country. Come, come, dear fellow, pull yourself together, do!”

“Ah, my best of friends,” answered Fair, with a voice full of sincerest love and respect, but also of firmness and stem determination. “You ought to know my father’s son better than to suppose that anything can swerve me from a purpose once it has become a fixed idea—but,” he added, suddenly turning to the old man with great tenderness, “by all that is rational, I do suppose that it is unfair to keep you in the dark in this way. I think that I should tell you plainly what is in my heart.”

“Depend upon it, Maxwell, it will be best for both of us if you will tell me fully and honestly—everything,” eagerly returned Sir Nelson, slapping Fair on the back in that hearty, old-fashioned way of his. “Come, now, what the devil ails you?”

“Well, then, sir,” said Fair, taking Sir Nelson’s arm and pushing him back toward the seat, “sit down while I tell you—I am too nervous to do so.”

The old man sat as he was requested, and watched his young friend as he walked up and down before him, formulating his ideas in order to present them clearly and consecutively. It was some time before Fair had so far shaped his thoughts as to be willing to speak. But when he had done so he stopped on his next turn in front of Sir Nelson and said very quietly:

“Now I am ready. In carrying out the one compelling and absorbing purpose of my life I have been made the most wretched and most misunderstood of men. I have sternly brushed aside love, hope, joy—everything which means life to a passionate and intense nature like my own. But this is an old story. I had come to think that the dwarfing and cramping restraints of my self-imposed life-work were second nature—more, that the life I was leading was the only life possible to me. I would have died fighting for the triumph of my idea—they would have found my body in the last trench after the battle was done, and nobody had been the wiser, no one would ever have known what a falsely-true life had been mine, had not this last horrible sacrifice been required by the insatiable purpose which has sucked away my life.

“I had asked for nothing from fate, but the right to live and die with my secret unbetrayed. I had begged of God nothing more than that I be suffered to seal with my death the loyalty to poor Janet that I had striven to make of my whole life. But no. Even this beggarly scrap of comfort has been denied to me—and by the most unspeakable irony of fate, I find myself confronted with the damnable necessity of throwing away all these dumb years of denial and self-effacement in order to do Janet and the children the only service which still remains possible for me to do. Is it not horrible, Sir Nelson? I had thought to make my life of some little good by offering it to protect a woman and her children—and now, lest they be buried by my own ruin, I must undo everything that I have done during all these years.”

He paused and looked at his old friend, who showed a growing concern that indicated he began really to believe Fair had lost his reason.

“Sir Nelson, I see that you do not comprehend me—perhaps I am beginning at the wrong end. Yes, I am, of course. Let me give you some concrete facts before asking you to follow me. Well, then, I tell you that I, your old friend’s son, the man whom you have helped and watched over, as if I were your son—I, Sir Nelson, have committed a crime against society, against nature, against life!”

“Crime?” exclaimed the old Baronet, springing to his feet and grasping Fair’s hand, thoroughly convinced that he was acting under some mental and nervous excitement that had proved too much for his reason. “Crime? Good God, boy, you are mad! I can’t believe this—I do not believe it!”

“Wait, wait,” pleaded Fair, again forcing Sir Nelson to the seat, and trying to speak with the utmost composure. “Do not misunderstand me, sir. If I had told you that I had wilfully and deliberately violated my conscience or done some blackguardly thing, I should hope that nothing would induce you to believe me. I have done this awful thing, of which I now confess that I am guilty, with a clean heart—if you can understand me. Society must and assuredly will wreak its sudden and fatal vengeance upon me for my crime, but I want you, sir, to believe that when men are reviling me for my act I shall be flinging that very deed at the feet of my eternal Judge and asking Him to accept it in atonement for my blackest faults—and if God fails to accept this thing that I have done, then am I damned indeed forever. But you do not understand me?”

“On my word, I do not!” answered Sir Nelson, filled with very serious misgivings. “You are ill—dangerously ill.”

“On the contrary,” replied Fair spiritedly, “I was never better in my life. My mind was never so clear as it is at this moment. Listen, Sir Nelson. When this crime is made public—which will be tomorrow in all likelihood—I want you to shield Mrs. Fair and the children by announcing that Janet is not my wife, that I never married her—and that the poor children are not my children at all. Do this—it is the truth—and save innocent beings from the disgrace of being thought to be my flesh and blood.”

In spite of his efforts during this speech, Fair had yielded to the intoxication of his sublime grief, and when he ceased speaking he was holding the old man’s hand and the tears were streaming down his face.

“I sha’n’t put up with this,” declared Sir Nelson with much sternness, rising like a very determined man. “I shall have Sir Porter Hope down by special train at once. You are bad, on my honor, very bad indeed.”

“Spare Sir Porter Hope an unnecessary journey,” answered Fair, having regained control of himself. He went on laughingly: “I tell you, I am perfectly well. Have you a cigar? Thanks.”

He lighted the cigar, which poor old Sir Nelson was only too eager to give him as an evidence that the fellow was not totally mad, and with great deliberation puffed it slowly and carelessly, making rings of the smoke and praising the quality of the tobacco. Not until he had got him back to calmness and some measure of reassurance did he permit Sir Nelson to resume the discussion of the question which both of them felt was the last one they would ever discuss—the final question of Fair’s complex and much agonized life.

“But in heaven’s name,” began Sir Nelson, pulling Fair down on the seat beside himself, “what is the meaning of all this? Think what rubbish you have been asking me to believe. Janet not your wife? The children not your children? You don’t want me to believe this! You don’t ask me to believe that Janet is your——”

“No!” roared Fair, jumping up and with so much warmth that Sir Nelson was frightened; “no!—and don’t say the word either! On my honor as a gentleman, I tell you, sir, that no daughter in her father’s house, no sister under her brother’s roof, was ever safer, purer, more sacredly held than Janet has been under mine. Her children have had more than a father’s care and love from me, and it is only to save them all from the disgrace and odium which will attach henceforth to my name that I now ask you to proclaim the truth—to publish the fact that my polluting blood does not run in their veins.”

“But,” protested the Baronet, with manifest disgust and irritation, “what can be the explanation of this amazing state of affairs? If she is not your wife—and not——”

“Don’t say it!” again commanded Fair. “I tell you, sir, I am not in a mood to be exasperated just now—and the very word would madden me when I think of what that woman has been to me and I to her.”

Sir Nelson always afterward remembered how noble and elated by an almost supernatural uplift Fair had appeared as he stood there, warning him not to profane the tabernacled secret of his life. The old man’s heart went out to the tortured and defiant fellow.

“Never fear, dear boy,” he began with a feeble voice; “I shall not speak or think it of her. But you ought to help me to speak the truth of all this madness by telling me just what it is.”

Fair was deeply moved by his old friend’s sorrow and unwonted display of feeling, so he sat down by him and warmly shook his hand. After a few moments of quiet, he said in low, firm, deliberate tones:

“Sir Nelson, pardon my weakness in showing you my heart just now, but the fact is, sir, that I have been under a strain—and on that one point I have always been naturally sensitive. I owe you an apology also for delaying to advise you fully and without emotion of the exact situation in which I now find myself inextricably placed. Let me tell you the whole story. It will seem incredible to you—until you recollect that I am the son of my father and that my heritage was what you alone know that it was.”

Sir Nelson blew his nose, and finding nothing particular to say, blew it again; and Fair saw something over the terrace wall that took his attention until the dear old chap said with considerable heartiness in his voice again: “All ready, dear boy—forgive an old fellow—who loves you.

“I first met Janet in Rio Janeiro, at which port her father was British Consul, and I was happily able to take the unfortunate gentleman for a long cruise on my yacht when his health broke down. He died on the yacht and we buried him at sea. Janet returned to England, and, although I loved her madly, I did not speak, because that wretched Buda-Pesth escapade of mine was still unsettled. So I completely lost sight of Janet and the years passed.

“Six years ago I was in a small South American seaport acting as consul for Jack Trowbridge, who was down with yellow fever. One day when I was lazily killing time—and big flies—in the dusty, stuffy little consulate, Janet, whom I, of course, thought in England, and whom I had not seen for so long, came in.

“She was a wreck. She had a boy of two or three years clinging to her skirts and a child in her arms. You may imagine, sir, my awful shock on seeing her thus. Her story was short. She had married a Cuban planter of very large fortune in Jamaica, and after two years of suspicion and dread and suffering she had learned that the scoundrel had deceived her, that he had a wife living in Cuba, and that, in consequence, she had no legal or other claim upon him. She was penniless. Hearing that I was cruising in those parts, she learned through the British consuls at different places just where I then was, and she turned to me. I made investigation and found the damnable story told her by her supposed husband only too true. His wife in Cuba was his only lawful wife—and Janet was a nameless and helpless victim of his lust and perfidy. I cabled for my yacht, which was being renovated at New York, and soon had Janet and her two children on their way to England.

“I scarcely saw them during the long and bitterly sad voyage, but at night, as I stood at my trick at the wheel, and in the warm, dull days as I sat smoking in silence on deck, a thought grew and grew upon me. The little boat tossing about on the limitless waste of waters seemed to become the symbol of my aimless, drifting, worthless life. And then, one glorious tropical night, with the great stars burning sublimity and eternity into my heart, the blood of all my fathers seemed to rush hot and quick and insistent through all my being. I had it! I had at last found the Purpose, the Object, the Aim for which my life yearned, the Thing in waiting, for which all the common interests and passions of young men had failed to hold me, the One Thing, which, by absorbing my life, by becoming my way of defying and despising the world, would prove me my father’s son.

“The next day I told Janet. We were standing alone looking out over the sea—and to both of us it seemed that the sea and life and eternity were alike trackless and tending nowhither. I told her, Sir Nelson, that she should not land in England the outcast, nameless victim of a blackguard’s infamy, but as my proclaimed wife. Her children would never know that they were fatherless. I had been away from home so long that I could get myself believed when I returned with a wife and family—and the world would never know that I was a wretched man cut off by a vow like a monk’s vow from the joys and the heart of life. That is all, Sir Nelson; that is all.”

“All! All!” exclaimed Sir Nelson, grasping Fair’s hand and wringing it hotly. “My God, man, I never heard of anything quite so great! My word, sir, if you were not Tom Fair’s son, I could not believe such a sacrifice of one’s life possible!”

“It is never difficult to do what one’s nature demands,” replied Fair quietly, adding with less calmness: “But it is hard to see that all these years of work are to come to naught. My life has been wasted.”

“Not at all,” retorted the old man eagerly. “Crime? Crime, you say. By gad, boy, I’ll make you prove yourself guilty in a court of law—and if you do, then we will all know that you are off your head!”

“The proofs of my guilt will not be far to seek,” answered Fair, with a disheartening coolness and an air of ghoulish certainty.

(_To be continued._)

_Money and Prices_

BY E. L. SMITH

Money is a creation of law.

Money is a measure of valuable things or services.

Money is a measure of constant and ever-varying capacity.

Money is not value in itself.

The divisor measures the dividend by division.

Money measures property by division.

If the divisor increases as fast proportionately as the dividend, the quotient will remain the same.

When the amount of money increases as fast proportionately as the property to be measured or divided, the average of prices will remain on a level; and, although there will be constant fluctuations in price among the different articles to be measured or divided, the average purchasing or measuring power of the measure or the unit of value will remain the same.

When the divisor increases faster proportionately than the dividend, the quotient will become smaller.

When the quantity of money increases faster than the property or things to be measured or divided, the average of prices will rise.

When the average of prices rises, the measuring or purchasing power of the unit of value becomes less.

When the average of prices rises, there is inflation of the money or currency.

When the quantity of property increases faster proportionately than the amount of money, the average of prices will fall.

When the average of prices falls, the money or currency is contracted.

All business interests are either produce interests or moneyed interests.

A produce interest is an interest in which the owner receives his pay for his labor and the use of his capital in produce.

A moneyed interest is an interest in which the owners of the business receive their pay for their labor and the use of their capital in money.

A farm is a produce interest.

A railroad is a moneyed interest.

If the owners of a produce interest wish any money, they sell their produce and buy money.

If the owners of a moneyed interest wish any produce, they sell their money and buy produce.

When prices rise produce interests gain.

When produce interests gain, moneyed interests lose.

When prices fall, moneyed interests gain.

When moneyed interests gain, produce interests lose.

Moneyed interests and produce interests cannot both gain or both lose at the same time.

When prices are falling, money can be hoarded without loss.

When prices are rising, money cannot be hoarded without loss.

A hoarded dollar has never yet paid for a single day’s work.

If produce interests had not first existed, moneyed interests never could have existed.

_An honest dollar is a dollar that is willing to help produce something._

_The Say of Reform Editors_

Until the people who want reform get together in an organization all of whose members are substantially agreed, and with this organization elect a President and Congress, they will never get from under the heel of monopoly. Nothing can be done in a party which contains the monopolists.—_The Missouri World._

* * * * *

The United States produces 319,000,000 metric tons of coal a year, worth at the mines $485,000,000, and costing consumers nearly a billion dollars.—_Exchange._

That little item of 515 millions, absorbed mostly by the big corporations that own the railroads, is the people’s tribute to Our “_Chevaliers d’Industrie_.” When you come to think of it, aren’t we a nation of bloomin’ chumps?—_The American Standard._

* * * * *

_Teacher_—Johnny, how many legs has an octopus?

_Johnny_—Seven.

_Teacher_—Why, Johnny, you ought to know better than that. The meaning of the word shows that it has eight.

_Johnny_—I know it used to have, but that was before dad was elected to the legislature. I heard him say he pulled a leg off the octopus.—_Wetmore’s Weekly._

* * * * *

Under government ownership alone will it be possible to make railroad rates which shall be just to all the people, and this is now being generally recognized.—_The Augusta Tribune._

* * * * *

What means this general onslaught, all along the line of the plutocratic press, upon one William Randolph Hearst, Democratic Congressman and late candidate for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency? Republican and Democratic advocates of plutocracy vie with each other in the work of sticking pins into Mr. Hearst. Have these great newspapers been informed that Mr. Hearst is sincere, is honest, in his fight against the trusts? If so, their spontaneous and unanimous attempt to disarm him can be accounted for. The man who attempts to tear down the screen which is held up, mainly by these great newspapers, between the people and their despoilers, is sure to get the vials of their wrath poured out upon his head.—_The Dalton Herald._

* * * * *

One of these days there will be two Republican Parties: one for government ownership of the Kansas oil refinery and one against it. Which are you going to stay with?—_Smith Center (Kan.) Messenger._

* * * * *

People of similar interests should flock and work together, regardless of party name or of past differences, either fancied or real. The railroad people work together for their own interests; and their party affiliations have been and will be according to railroad interests, regardless of party name. So with corporationists in general, capitalists, etc. Then why do not _the people_ unite according to their interests? The people of New Zealand did, and routed the capitalists.—_The Medical World._

* * * * *

During the big coal strike, when Saint Baer was obdurate, Mr. Roosevelt threatened him with government ownership if he did not give in to the strikers.

The threat was a regular pivot blow to Baer, as good as any Professor Donovan will teach Mr. Roosevelt. Baer cried foul, but he went down and out all the same.

The lesson from America of how to knock out an obstinate coal-mine capitalist was not lost on the German Kaiser. Germany, too, has its coal-mine Baers, and a big coal strike is now on.

The Emperor has not only threatened the owners with government ownership of mines, but has gone to the extent of asking his bankers if Germany would have any trouble in floating the $250,000,000 in bonds to make the purchase.—_Wilshire’s Magazine._

* * * * *

Emancipate the farmer from the thraldom of manipulated markets and the advice of his dear friends who know so much better than he does what he ought to do.—_The Southern Mercury._

* * * * *

Bishop Berkeley’s poem being translated into Japanese, they pondered for awhile on the words: “Westward the course of empire takes its way,” then the little cherry blossom worshipers shouldered their knapsacks and started after the setting sun. At last accounts they had got as far as Tie Pass. None of them showed any intention of stopping there. How much further their empire will take its way nobody knows.—_The Nebraska Independent._

* * * * *

That labor and culture should go together, that sweat and science should walk hand in hand, that art and harvest work should know each other for brothers, or that the sense of beauty and the capacity to dig a ditch should unite in the same personality, seems impossible to all those whose capacities are of the hothouse variety, and who feel “lifted up above common things by reason of their refinement.” But the changing order, which is making or shaping a world of reality to take the place of the world of seeming, is bringing just this thing to pass; and the time is not far distant when the gardener’s shears and apron will be in the possession of the man who writes art criticism, while the man who paints masterpieces will often be seen building fences. The “superior person” will then be chiefly interesting as an exotic, to be studied and duly ticketed as “rare” by those who have blood in their veins. Work is the very soul of life; and the idler, cultivated or other, has not lived in the past, does not live in the present, nor will he live in the future. When art and work are one and indivisible we shall not even ask for philosophers to compensate us for the illusions of life. Then the common, transfigured, will satisfy our every need.—_Tomorrow._

* * * * *

No real battle between public rights and special privileges ever comes on in simple or unmistakable form. The crucial question is always so complicated with other issues as to bewilder men of the best intentions and of good judgment who happen to be interested on the right side of those other issues. It is upon bewilderments like these that conscious advocates of privilege depend for dividing the forces of their enemy when such a division becomes vital to them.—_The Chicago Public._

* * * * *

It was an ill-advised move when Oklahoma joined the crusade against Standard Oil. Mr. Rockefeller may decide not to give her statehood.—_The South McAlester (I. T.) Capital._

* * * * *

Recent reports of big industrial concerns show that they are having a good business year, thirty-seven companies paying dividends in March aggregating $24,000,000, compared with $21,800,000 last year and $19,800,000 the year before.—_From weekly circular letter of Henry Clews, Banker, No. 35 Wall Street, New York, dated March 4, 1905._

Yes, the trusts are doing well. It is easy for anybody to make money if he controls the buying and selling price of an article the people must have. It may be a little surprising, though, to some, to learn that the trusts are faring even better now than heretofore.—_The Missouri World._

* * * * *

We wish well of every public man who resolutely tries to do his duty. It matters not what political party he may affiliate with, if he is a friend of the people, we give him our word of encouragement and Godspeed. Among Democrats we find some notable examples of progressive statesmanship and some advocates of reform. The Republican Party is not without some public men whose works and words give evidence of a desire to stand for the best type of popular government. Yet every reformer in the Republican or Democratic Party has to spend too much time, energy and ammunition in fighting the enemies within the ranks of his own party. Mr. Bryan will wear his life out in trying to overcome his enemies in the so-called Democratic Party just as John P. Altgeld wore his life away. Governor La Follette always has war on his hands with the corporation element in his own party. And now that Mr. Roosevelt has outlined a radical course, he is beset by powerful opposition from high-up Republican politicians who represent special interests. He will not succeed in accomplishing much so long as all his energy is taken up in fighting the enemy at home. The very logic of events will force the radical reformers all into one party, and then the people will have something to hope for.—_The Kansas Commoner._

* * * * *

Politeness is the external part of gentility, but it is often the principal weapon of rascality. A rude rascal is never as dangerous as a polite one.—_The Seattle Patriarch._

* * * * *

Kansas will find it a big job fighting the Standard Oil trust, so long as the trust is in the national banking business and controls the means of transportation. Still, the people of Kansas, co-operating through their state government, can make it hot for the trust. The state can put $20,000,000 into the fight, and with this sum can build railroads, lay pipe lines and establish dozens of oil refineries. Twenty million dollars is a big sum, but is no more than the people of Kansas pay in national taxes every two years.—_The Missouri World._

* * * * *

The magazines and big dailies are doing the country a great service. They have writers of ability; apparently these have long chafed under the galling chains of party manacles and are now glad to be free—glad to try their strength and exercise their taste and talents. Populists should secure every advantage possible, strengthen their organizations, keep these patriots closely in touch, and at every possible point be ready should a reaction come.

Again and again we have seen great waves of reform sweep over the land, and again and again we have seen the monopolists catch a second breath, spit on their hands and tie these good men down with party thongs and convention rules and resolutions.

Once we felt sure of McKinley and Garfield. Tom Ewing, Carlisle, McLean, Voorhees, David Davis, hundreds and hundreds of the brightest men in the land came to the front for a time and then dropped back when a reaction came.

Some of this reaction is due to the lack of true patriotism, to a lack of courage, fortitude; but whatever the cause may be, Populists should be prepared for the back-set and save as much advantage as possible. At the present every man is our friend. Almost without an exception the great statesmen and editors are with us. For the time being party lines are wiped out, Democrat or Republican, North or South.

Populist, put your best foot forward! You have pointed the way, the crowd has taken the road, now be kind, be true, speak carefully—do your level best.—_The Joliet News._

* * * * *

The President does not want to injure the “System”; he only wants it to “tote fair.”

But the “System” does not want to “tote fair.” Its authors did not create it for any such commonplace purpose, and they will resist to the bitter end the endeavor of the President to halt the exploitation of the people by the trusts and combines.

What may grow out of this resistance by the “System”?

A split of the Republican Party into two factions—into the “square deal” Republicans and the “System” Republicans.—_Berlin (Pa.) Record._

* * * * *

As long as boys read every week that John Doe or Richard Roe has made a fortune in one day cornering wheat or corn, or some other commodity, the gambling instinct in the young will hardly subside. Take away Mr. Doe’s profession by law.—_The Smith Center (Kan.) Messenger._

* * * * *

THE MILEAGE ROLL OF DISHONOR

VOTED AYE

MEMBERS TO RETIRE

_Republicans_ _Democrats_ _Union Labor_

Daniels, Cal. Bell, Cal. Livernash, Cal.
Davis, Minn. Breazeale, La. Wynn, Cal.
Hunter, Ky. Dinsmore, Ark.
Kyle, O. Dougherty, Mo.
Morgan, O. Emerich, Ill.
Smith, N. Y. Foster, Ill.
Spalding, N. D. Griffith, Ind.
Van Voorhis, O. Hughes, N. J.
McAndrews, Ill.
Miers, Ind.
Richardson, Tenn.
Rider, N. Y.
Robb, Mo.
Robinson, Ind.
Shober, N. Y.
Shull, Pa.
Snook, O.
Wilson, N. Y.

Total 8 Total 19 Total 2

MEMBERS RETURNED

_Republicans_ _Democrats_

Adams, Wis. Aiken, S. C.
Beidler, O. Broussard, La.
Bishop, Mich. Davey, La.
Brandegee, Conn. Fitzgerald, N. Y.
Brooks, Col. Goulden, N. Y.
Brown, Wis. Hill, Miss.
Brownlow, Tenn. Hunt, Mo.
Burke, S. D. Legare, S. C.
Cromer, Ind. McDermott, N. J.
Crumpacker, Ind. McNary, Mass.
Cushman, Wash. Maynard, Va.
Draper, N. Y. Pujo, La.
Dresser, Pa. Rainey, Ill.
Fordney, Mich. Ryan, N. Y.
Gardner, N. J. Sullivan, Mass.
Gillett, Cal.
Graff, Ill.
Grosvenor, O.
Howell, N. J.
Howell, Utah.
Hull, Iowa.
Humphrey, Wash.
Jones, Wash.
Knopf, Ill.
Lorimer, Ill.
Loudenslager, N. J.
McCleary, Minn.
Mann, Ill.
Marshall, N. D.
Martin, S. D.
Minor, Wis.
Overstreet, Ind.
Patterson, Pa.
Rodenberg, Ill.
Sherman, N. Y.
Smith, Iowa.
Snapp, Ill.
Southard, O.
Southwick, N. Y.
Sterling, Ill.
Sulloway, N. H.
Tawney, Minn.
Wachter, Md.
Weems, O.

Total 44 Total 15

DODGED

_Republicans_ _Democrats_

Harrison, N. Y.
Scudder, N. Y.

Total Total 2

Birdsall, Iowa. Adamson, Ga.
Bonynge, Col. Bankhead, Ala.
Conner, Iowa. Bartlett, Ga.
Dovener, W. Va. Brantley, Ga.
Hamilton, Mich. Gilbert, Ky.
Hemenway, Ind. Goldfogle, N. Y.
Kennedy, O. Hopkins, Ky.
Lafean, Pa. Ruppert, N. Y.
Landis, Ind. Sims, Tenn.
Miller, Kan. Stanley, Ky.
Zenor, Ind. Stephens, Tex.
Wiley, Ala.

Total 11 Total 12

GRAND TOTAL—GRABBERS AND DODGERS

Republicans 63 Democrats 48 Union Labor 2

—_Collier’s Weekly._

* * * * *

The industrial barons pay the same sum for a large as a small cotton crop. Just enough to keep the planters’ help alive.—The _Appeal to Reason._

* * * * *

Alarmists who are forever crying about “the dangers of Socialism” remind one of that Scripture that tells of the fellow who “fleeth when no man pursueth.” There are comparatively few Socialists in the country. And if certain reforms are consummated there will be a less number. And there are mighty few Socialists who are “dangerous.”

In this connection may be noted an incident that occurred during the Cooper Union lecture course at New York City. It was claimed that the audiences, judged by their applause, were Socialistic. So a vote was taken. In one audience of 1,200 people there were less than twenty Socialists. Then this question was put to the audience: “Those who believe the time has come for the community to assert a larger control over the public enterprises, such as the trusts, railroads and public utilities, please rise.” The entire audience arose.

There are no “dangerous classes” in such an audience—a typical, intelligent public gathering. “The people will wobble right.” The people are discovering the wrongs in government and they are finding that they themselves are largely to blame for these wrongs. They find that they have neglected their rights. They have conferred special privileges. They have permitted aggressions. It is largely their own fault. They are beginning to see that. They want to correct their mistakes. They will correct them.

And those who cry “wolf” when the people are trying to get back their own are more dangerous than any others.—_The Buffalo Times._

* * * * *

“Populist” is from the Latin word _populus_, meaning the people. “Populite,” which is used to a considerable extent in the South instead of Populist, is also from the Latin word populus. The original meaning of the words “populist,” “democrat” and “republican” is substantially the same.—_The Missouri World._

* * * * *

Without vision a people perishes. The need for “seers” is greatest in a democracy where autocracy fails and the people must fall back upon broad instincts, intuitive reasoning and average intelligence. The poet-seer is the highest type of the visionary. His message comes in the form of rhythmic speech which has the widest carrying capacity. Poets, however, do not come into the world by accident. The poet comes only after preparation is made and reception is assured. For support he can depend no longer upon an indulgent king or upon patrons. Today the people stand in place of these. But as yet the collective mind has not worked out the problem of protection in spiritual properties. This is one of the main problems America has to meet: to create and sustain a race of poet-seers which will stand in right relation to the people and move in these broad lands as broad as they.—_Tomorrow._

* * * * *

Monett, the Ohio lawyer, began the prosecution of the Standard Oil trust when the Government was fostering the trusts and the courts knocked him out. Now the Government begins to make signs that it is against the trusts and another case has been begun in Ohio. The courts will change their sides. Monett was downed by Rockefeller, beaten by the courts, and kicked out of the Republican Party. A nod from the President changed the whole situation.—_The Nebraska Independent._

* * * * *

Despite the fact that the Czar refused to permit a delegation of workmen to present a petition to him, he, realizing the havoc that had been wreaked upon the people, finally consented to have a delegation call upon him and present their grievances. It may be true that the delegation was not those chosen by the men engaged in the original movement, but it is also true that even for appearance’ sake he had to go through the formality of receiving a delegation of workmen, and, at least to that degree, the new departure has been recognized.

It is also of interest to know that, though the Russian workmen have had no organization, yet their strike has been declared at an end by agreement, and that they are now engaged in the selection of their representatives in a mixed commission to determine the following questions: A shorter workday, an increase in wages, the right to organize, and assemblage and freedom of speech.

Jointly, the people insist that the government shall be based upon justice and the participation of the people therein, regardless of their station in life, equality before the law, inviolability of domicile, the freedom of association, of speech and of the press, and compulsory education.

Thus, after all, out of the strikes of the Russian workmen, though many of their dear ones have been killed and mutilated, their blood has sanctified their cause and will make for the good, the progress and the uplifting of all the people of Russia.—_American Federationist._

* * * * *

A revolution is on, and the attacking party has inscribed the Populist principles upon its banners. The attacking party is not insurgents or rebels. It is in power, the Government, the whole thing. Never before has the prospect seemed at all discouraging for Standard Oil raids, Beef Trust schemes and kindred despoliation of the land and the fulness and the people thereof. Everything worth considering is now consolidated against the robbers. Have good cheer, Populists. The day is breaking. Up and don your armor. Whet your battle-axe.—_The Joliet News._

* * * * *

He alone is great who can suggest a thought in such a way that the other man believes he originated it—_The Philistine._

* * * * *

A Wall Street victim, after squandering his own money and his wife’s, committed suicide, and yet some of the New York clergymen who are so active in denouncing the small gambling houses have not a word to say against the New York Stock Exchange which slays its tens of thousands where the small gambling houses slay their thousands.—_The Commoner._

* * * * *

The spirit of Populism has reasserted itself and taken the Sunflower State by storm.

The shots fired by the Kansas Legislature, forced from it by a determined demand of the people, at the trusts and monopolies have been heard around the world. They sounded the death-knell of plutocracy in America.

Aimed at the Standard Oil octopus, these shots hit every political and commercial scoundrel in the United States. The special privileged class have been dealt a blow which staggers their fabric from centre to circumference.

This is the beginning of the end of corrupt government. The people who do the labor and produce the wealth of the world will be deceived and plundered no longer. The revolution is on and it can’t be checked.—_The Dalton (Ga.) Herald._

News Record

FROM MARCH 7 TO APRIL 7, 1905

_Government and Politics_

March 7.—George B. Cortelyou takes the oath of office as Postmaster-General and announces that he will resign as Chairman of the Republican National Committee.

The special session of the United States Senate considers the
Santo Domingo treaty.

Senator Elkins, Chairman of the Senate Railroad Committee,
announces that hearings on the freight-rate question will be
held during the recess, beginning in April.

Charles H. Treat, of New York, is appointed United States
Treasurer.

March 8.—The Senate confirms the President’s diplomatic and consular appointments, chief of which are those of Whitelaw Reid as Ambassador to Great Britain, Robert S. McCormick to France, George V. L. Meyer to Russia and Edwin H. Conger to Mexico.

President Roosevelt announces his intention of appointing
ex-Representative F. C. Tate, a Georgia Democrat, United States
District Attorney.

Senator Hemenway, former Chairman of the House Appropriations
Committee, figures a national deficit of $18,000,000 for the
coming year; while Representative Livingstone (Dem.) says it
will reach $93,000,000.

March 9.—Commissioner of Commerce James R. Garfield spends the day in the New York offices of the Standard Oil Company, investigating books and reports.

The Rev. Dr. Newman Smyth, of New Haven, Conn., states before a
legislative committee that the sum of $150,000 was expended in
the recent senatorial fight resulting in the election of Morgan
G. Bulkeley.

March 10.—To avoid legislative investigation, the New York Telephone Trust agrees to reduce its tolls 20 per cent.

March 12.—Government agents unearth great coal land frauds in Utah.

March 13.—The United States Supreme Court decides that the peonage laws are constitutional.

March 14.—The President is informed that the treaty with Santo Domingo, which has been radically amended by the special session of the Senate, stands no chance of receiving the two-thirds vote necessary to its approval by that body, as all the Democrats oppose it and some of the Republicans are lukewarm.

The New York State Senate passes resolution directing an
investigation of the Gas Trust.

March 15.—Agreement is reached that the Santo Domingo treaty is to be neither ratified nor rejected at the special session of the Senate, but is to be left over to the next session.

Governor James B. Frazier, of Tennessee, is elected United
States Senator to succeed William B. Bates, deceased.

Harry S. New, of Indiana, is made Vice-Chairman and Acting
Chairman of the Republican National Committee.

March 16.—Secretary Taft states that the Administration policy is indefinite retention of the Philippine Islands and that independence cannot come during this generation.

The Colorado Legislature votes to seat James H. Peabody (Rep.)
as Governor, unseating Alva Adams (Dem.), whose majority on the
face of the returns was over 9,000. Peabody promises to resign
and let the Lieutenant-Governor occupy the office.

A New York legislative committee is appointed to investigate
the Gas Trust.

Senator Morgan, of Alabama, attacks the treaty with Santo
Domingo, charging that it was brought about through an improper
understanding between William Nelson Cromwell, a New York
lawyer, and President Morales of Santo Domingo.

March 17.—Mrs. Ella Knowles Reader, of New York, asserts that the present situation in Santo Domingo is due to the interference of President Roosevelt to prevent her plans for forming a treaty.

Governor Peabody of Colorado resigns and is succeeded by
Lieutenant-Governor Jesse F. Macdonald.

The Attorney-General of Missouri begins proceedings against the
Standard Oil Trust.

Senator Carmack, of Tennessee, predicts war between the United
States and Japan over the Philippines.

March 18.—The Missouri senatorial deadlock is broken by the election of Major William Warner (Rep.) to the United States Senate.

The special session of the United States Senate adjourns
without a vote on the Santo Domingo treaty.

Edwin V. Morgan, of New York, is appointed Minister to Corea.

March 20.—By the order of a special Grand Jury, a Beef Trust investigation is started in Chicago.

March 21.—In John D. Rockefeller’s home, North Tarrytown, N. Y., his candidate for Mayor is overwhelmingly defeated by a butcher.

March 23.—Truman H. Newberry, of Detroit, is appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy.

The Delaware Legislature adjourns without electing a United
States Senator.

The Maryland Supreme Court orders the Governor to submit the
constitutional amendment for negro disfranchisement to popular
vote.

March 25.—The Government declares its intention to prosecute the Santa Fé Railroad for giving rebates.

March 28.—President Roosevelt decides to accede to the request of the Santo Domingo Government to appoint an agent to collect the revenues of that country.

The Federal Grand Jury sitting at Louisville, Ky., indicts that
city on four counts for peonage.

Dr. Washington Gladden, Moderator of the Congregational Church,
enters formal protest against the Board of Missions accepting
the $100,000 gift from John D. Rockefeller. In spite of this
and other objections, the board accepts the donation.

March 29.—The President requests the resignation of all members of the Panama Canal Commission, also of General George W. Davis, Governor of the Canal zone. The request is complied with immediately.

W. E. Gould, of Baltimore, is appointed American agent to
collect customs in Santo Domingo.

The general counsel of the Panama Railroad Company purchases
for the Government all but five of the outstanding shares of
the company.

March 30.—The United States Government sends another warship to Santo Domingo.

President Roosevelt appoints Judge Charles E. Magoon, of
Nebraska, Governor of the Panama Canal zone.

The Federal Grand Jury investigating the Beef Trust at Chicago
indicts T. J. Connors, an Armour director, for tampering with
Government witnesses, and it is reported that other indictments
of prominent trust officials will follow.

March 31.—The investigation of the Gas Trust in New York discloses that the value shown on the books is over $15,000,000 more than that listed for taxation. The secretary of the company says he cannot explain the discrepancy.

April 1.—The Nebraska Legislature passes the Junkin Anti-Trust bill, aimed at the beef packers.

Theodore P. Shonts, President of the Clover Leaf Railroad, is
appointed Chairman of the new Panama Canal Commission.

April 2.—Former Senators Frank J. Cannon and Thomas Kearns, of Utah, declare war on the Mormon Church. Mr. Cannon denounces President Smith as a “traitor.”

April 3.—The President completes the new Panama Canal Commission and designates salaries as follows: Theodore P. Shonts, Chairman, salary, $30,000; Charles E. Magoon, Governor of the Canal zone, salary, $17,500; John F. Wallace, Chief Engineer, salary, $25,000; Rear-Admiral Mordecai F. Endicott, Chief of the Navy Bureau of Yards and Docks, salary, $7,500; Brigadier-General Peter F. Haines, U.S.A., retired, salary, $7,500; Colonel O. M. Ernst, U.S.A., salary, $7,500; Benjamin F. Harrod, of New Orleans, salary, $7,500.

President Roosevelt starts on a two months’ outing, his trip to
include a reunion of his old Rough Rider regiment and hunting
excursions in Texas and Colorado. He states that he leaves
Secretary of War Taft “sitting on the lid.”

Charles H. Moyer, President of the Western Federation of
Miners, sues ex-Governor James H. Peabody and others for
$300,000 for false imprisonment during the Colorado strike.

April 4.—At a municipal election in the city of Chicago Edward F. Dunne (Dem.) is elected Mayor over John M. Harlan (Rep.) by a majority slightly exceeding 24,000, thus reversing the immense majority of over 60,000 by which Theodore Roosevelt carried the city five months ago. The issue in the campaign just closed was that of municipal ownership of the traction lines, Judge Dunne standing for immediate city ownership of these utilities.

Rolla Wells (Dem.) is re-elected Mayor of St. Louis by small
plurality.

President Roosevelt is given an ovation in Louisville and other
cities on his way to Texas.

_General Home News_

March 7.—The strike continues on the New York Subway and Elevated railways. The Subway trains are run intermittently by “strike-breakers,” resulting in one accident, seriously injuring over a score of people.

March 8.—The Mayor of New York offers to arbitrate the Subway strike. The workingmen accept the offer, but the company declines.

The Standard Oil Company, in retaliation for adverse
legislative action in Kansas, refuses to admit low-grade oil
from that state to its pipe lines, thus shutting off from the
market three-fourths of the output.

March 9.—After a conference of national labor leaders, Warren E. Stone, national head of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, declares the New York Subway and “L” strike unauthorized, and advises the men to return to work. He is supported in this by National Chief Mahon, of the Amalgamated Street Railway workers. This practically ends the strike, though the local unions still hold out.

For the first time in the history of medicine New York surgeons
succeed in grafting a finger cut from the hand of one person
onto the hand of another.

March 10.—The will of William F. Milton, of New York, gives to Harvard University the sum of $1,000,000. James C. Carter’s will gives $2,000,000 to the same institution.

Whitelaw Reid announces his retirement as editor of the New
York Tribune.

March 11.—The New York Subway and “L” strike is officially declared ended. The company announces that it will take back no motormen over forty years of age.

Mrs. Cassie L. Chadwick, the notorious “frenzied financier,”
who raised millions on forged notes bearing the signature
of Andrew Carnegie, is found guilty after a short trial in
Cleveland, O.

March 13.—Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, says that he will investigate the charge that the New York Subway and “L” strike was sold out.

President Roosevelt addresses the National Congress of Mothers
at Washington and denounces race suicide.

The defection of one of the large mills threatens to dissolve
the Paper Trust.

The independent packing companies, with Schwarzschild &
Sulzberger, of Chicago, in the lead, organize to expose and
fight the Beef Trust.

Justice Kelly, of the New York Supreme Court, orders trial of
the suit brought by Hon. W. R. Hearst against the Gas Trust.

March 14.—Nineteen persons are killed in a New York tenement house fire.

The war in the Equitable Life Assurance Society is settled by
the factions agreeing on a plan to mutualize the company.

The Mormon Church excommunicates ex-United States Senator Frank
J. Cannon, of Utah, because of editorials in the Salt Lake
Tribune, of which Mr. Cannon is editor.

March 15.—A bull market in cotton is started by Daniel J. Sully, one day after he is released from bankruptcy.

Andrew Carnegie declares that a Pan-American railroad would
be more effective for defense than all the battleships we can
build.

March 17.—Secretary of State John Hay sails on a European trip in an impaired state of health.

President Roosevelt addresses the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick
in New York, after the largest St. Patrick’s Day parade in the
history of the city.

March 19.—Twenty-four men are killed in a mine explosion near Thurmond, W. Va.

The Panama Canal Commission issues a long statement denying
charges made against the body relating to the sanitation of the
Isthmus.

Senator Thomas H. Carter, head of the Government commission,
reports charges of wholesale bribery in connection with the
giving out of awards by the St. Louis World’s Fair officials.

John D. Rockefeller, George J. Gould and other prominent men
are reported to be implicated in the Utah coal land frauds.

March 20.—Over one hundred workmen are killed and wounded by a boiler explosion in a shoe factory at Brockton, Mass.

Three thousand men are thrown out of work by the shut-down of
one of the Havemeyer sugar refineries at Brooklyn, N. Y.

March 21.—Twenty-seven New England Congregational clergymen enter vigorous protest against the acceptance of a $100,000 gift from John D. Rockefeller to the Board of Missions of that church.

March 22.—It is given out at Denver that the strike and contest over the governorship have cost the state of Colorado $2,000,000.

More than 11,000 immigrants land at Ellis Island, New York, in
two days, thus breaking all former records.

March 23.—The Wyoming court decides against granting a decree of divorce to Colonel William F. Cody (“Buffalo Bill”).

The ship with which Lieutenant Robert E. Peary will make
another attempt to reach the North Pole is launched at
Bucksport, Me., and is christened the _Roosevelt_.