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The Week.

The award of th e Nobel prize of $40,

000 to Theodore Roosevelt is a prope

recognition of his success in bringin{

about peace between Russi a and Japan

This s he finest

of

President

Roose

velts achievements, andhe one f o

which he should be longest remembered

In

every and thisaward will be ap

plauded, nowhere, however, more warm

ly than in this country, which is a shar

er in the honor to its Chief Magistrate

With admirable public spirit and tact

hl

has decided t o devote the money to

cause of industria l peace. The prizc

will also, we trust, modify his own con

ventional deasabout the necessity

being armed o t h e teeth, and will sei

his

thoughts more strongly hanhere

tofore

in

the direction of amity be

tween nations. A t the coming Haguc

Conference he has a unique opportunity

to start le he world by humanitar ian

proposals for isarmament; e

is p e

culiarly in a position t o lead in somc

long step oward relie ving- the poor of

Europe from hecrushing burdens of

militarism.

President Roosevelt oftenspeaks and

acts as if in his conception an efficient

government is that

of

a benevolent auto-

crat-not amere executive, checked by

a legislature and

a

judiciary, and hem

med in by rigid laws When routine ad-

ministration under law allows perpetra-

tlon of a wrong, he would step in,

deus

erc machana and make the cause of vir.

tue rmmph his

notlon

of hishas

never been displayed more clearly than

in hi s special message to Congress ask-

ingauthority o dismiss navalpfficers

whenever he sees

fit.

The cas6 which

has lncltedhim to his xtraordinary

step is that of a paymaster who, becom-

ing drunkat a dinner in a Yokohama

hotel,

on

May 9, 1905, behaved indecent-

ly

inhe presence

of

aumber of

Indles. When th is officer was tried in

Janu ary, 1906, the .court-martial plaibly

came short of duty, for, nstead

of

dis-

missing him, it merely reduced him to

the foot of the ist of paymasters and

prescribed a public reprimand. In hu-

man nstitutlons such failures re in-

evitable. I thinkhereis~ no dan-

ger that his power would be abused,

says

Mr.

Roosevelt, inmaking his

request for absolute authority.is

consciousness of his own rectitude is

thus only surpassed by his comidence in

his unlinown successors. Moreover, he

wrote this message at he very mo-

ment when thousands

of

Americans were

warmly protesting because he had ended

the milit ary careers of 150.innocent

601

die% because he could not get hold of

from nine

to

twenty guilty men. This

was so grave a n err or tha t it may fit1

be characterized as an abuse of powel

The President, too, has plainly neg

lected the naval officers point of v ie s

The aw t o whichhe objects was de

manded by thearmyand navg. jointl:

as

security that officers should bede

prived of life commissions only dul

process of aw. And why not the Arm:

if the Navy? the Revenue Marine

If executive dismissal will exti rpat e a1

evil growths, why limit it to the Navy

The Secretary of the Navy recant;

this year his ast years belief that wc

havewarships enough, and he hin k

it well to have womorebattleships

Hishange of mind

is

due

t o

thc

failure of certain expectations tha

foreign nations would limit thei;

fleets, and o nother mysterious rea

son,

no

reference

t o

which shall slil

from his pen. The rest of

his

armua.

report

is

of interest because it endorse:

highly the recommendation of the Per,

sonnel Board, which has been s itting al:

summer with a view to regulating thf

flow of promotion; and because it favor:

also a radical reorganization of th e Na n

Department.

A

more sweeping changf

in the corps

of

officers has never been

proposed at any one time, unless it be

theamalgamation of the ineand thc

engineers. In urging a reorganization

o the Navy Department, Bonapartc

fayors placing all hebureauswhkh

have t o

do

with under one head

and those relating to the personnel

un-

der another. The first will com-

prise thebureau of sard sand docks,

squipment, construction and repair,

heam engineering, and ordnance.

In

;he other will be the office .of the Chief

if

the Navigation Bureau, the Surgeon-

2enera1, Paymaster-General, Command-

mt of the Marine Corps, and the Super-

.d en de nt of the Naval Academy. From

;he point of view of business method

tnd fighting efficiency, much is to be

;aid in.favor of the suggestedchange

3ut the heads of these two sections will

lavenormous power-much greater

,han that of the present Chief of the

3ureau of Navigation, who, in th e eyes

,f many officers, has had far too much

:ontrol

over the destinies of individ-

ials.

The annual eports of the Secretary

the Treasury have long been largely

;iven up to dl-cussion of th e currency

.nd

exposition of projects of reform.

Jothing, in fact, could better prove the

lodge-podge character of past finan-

Y

Y

e

Y

?

1

?

S

3

t

r

5 .

r

L

1

I

1

f

t

J

1

t

I

t

c

t

cia1 legislation, as a whole, than the fact

that, for nearly half a century, the

an-

Treasury reports have almost with-

out exception advocated a change in ex-

isting law. Secretary Shaw, in his first

report,

-1902,

argued f o r a banknote cur-

rency based on general assets, remarking

tha t he did not believe it necessary to

make the currency thus issued a first lien

on

assets, and that the new plan would

not preclude the continuance

of

the

present na tional bank currency. A year

ago, he psoposed additional issues of

banknotes, to

50

per cent. of out-

standing bond-secured circulation, but

subject to a tax

of

5 or 6 per cent., with

a view t o early redemption when n o

longer needed. Since Secretary Shaws

report of

1905,

committees of the New

York Chamber of Commerce an dhe

American Bankers Association, have, as

we noted

on

November

22,

joined in

formulating

a

plan which includes the

main principles of these Treasury prop-

ositions. But now. the Secretary seems

t o have abandoned his currency re

form plan of a year ago, a nd the modifi-

cation of it proposed by the bankers, in

behalf of a plan of sh eer paternalism in

the money market. He revives the ideas

which he has enunciated irom ime t o

time regarding bank reserves, and their

regulation inhe discretion of the

Treasury. In t h s vlew he is, we think,

governed by wholly erroneousnotions

of th e money market, which ead him

t o a mischievous inference as t o the

properunctions

of

theTreasury

His

fundamental argument seems

. to

be that

Wall

Street call money rates of 25

or

50 per cent. are evils

per

se and

necessary evils at ha t; therefore, the

banks ought to combine t o suppress

them, and if thebanks willnot do

so,

the Treasury ought

t o

intervene. For

ourselves, thisstrikes us assitting on

a

safety valve.

Mr.

Shavsdeas

on

oaternalism in . .finance are summariz-

?d in this extrapdinary paragraph from

his report, whjchwe reprint without

further comment-

If

theSecretary

of

theTreasurywcre

:men

100,000,000 t o

lje deposlted with the

,

or withdrawn as be mlght deem ex-

ledlent.

if

m

addltion

he mere clothed

n t h authority over the reserves

of

the sevr

?rsl banks. wlth power t o contract the na-

:ional-bankcirculation at pleasure, 111 my

ludgrnent

no

panic dlstingulshed

ndustrial stagnatloncould hreaten either

.he

United

or Europe

that

he could

lot avert

The United States Civil Service Com-

nission, in tsann ual report, confirms

he press dispatches rega rdin g he diffi-

:ulties of the Government in Elling its

rompetitive positions People stil l ake

heexaminations, it appears, but rom

7/23/2019 December 10, 1905

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9s

40

to

60

per cent. of the highest eligi-

bles

on

the various lists decline appoint-

ments. The Government cannot hope

to compete withrivate employers,

say s he Commission, unless it pays

salaries hat measure

up

fairly well t o

the tandard 6f private business. In

order

t o

make Government posltions

more attractive, a bill has been introduc-

ed increasing thesal ari es of civil em-

.

ployeesy 1 0 per cent. heomplaint

of

thls class does not, however, come

alone. Congress i s coming t o the point

of raising the salaries of its own mem-

bers.

A

Cabinet officer has embodied

in isnnualeport

an

allusion

t o

the inadequacy of hispay Generally

speaking, ther e s not a man n public

position, hlgh

o r

low,who oes

I

no t

make a convincing demonstration that,

on

a

basis of the.private demand for

like services, he ought to receive more

thanhe does. Logically, we should ex-

pect the announcement t ha t th e Govern-

ment machinery is inadequatelymanned.

yet he speciqcations in regard t o the

present abor famine are not alarmlng

T o say hat Government salaries have

not been adjusted t o meet the present

cost of living, is merely stating one

of

their shortcomings. They have not

prop-

erly been adjusted a t all. Most of them

Just growed.And theman really

t o

be pitied is not the ambitious outsider,

whether he be a candidate for a Cabinet

post o r a rural free delivery route, but

the sheltered clerk who entered the ser-

vice in he days when the salary look-

ed larger,and to-day can neither have

It enlarged

nor

summon the nitiative

1

go

elsewhere.

Th,e Isthmian Canal Commission an-

nounced on Saturday postponement

till anuary 1 2 of th e openlng of bids

f o r the completion of thePanama Ca-

This is the officially optimistic way

of confessing

that

no blds had been re-

ceived, andha t none would bo re-

celved by thedat e originally fixed,De-

cember

12.

Moreover, it is sbated that

certa in changes in he form ocon-

tract are to be made. These ape due,

I t

IS explained, to the suggestlons

of

a

number

of

contractors. This

again is

thepolite way of saylng hat th,e old

form of contract was impracticable.

Among the sweeping alterations now to

be made in thls contract, which last

hummer wasWwless and would be

changed to uit no one, 1) Re-

ductlon in theamount of the bond re-

quired;

(2)

rellef of the contractor from

liability

f o r

defective material, throw-

ing upon the Government the expense

of peplacing an y th at may be discover-

ed; (3) aGovernmentuazantee to

cover fluctuations in the wage smle on

tbe Isthmus,and 4 ) a atlpulation

by

the Government that

no

contractor shall

be held in loss on account of faulty en-

gne erin g data. Thls ast point is ,crit-

T h e N a t i o n

ical

and

ominous. Prospkctlve bidders,

i t is admltted,,havebeen so disturbed

byhle engineering uncerta inty-of he

plans adopted by the Government, that

they would not ndertakehe work

without. a g&ran tee that the Treasury

should stand he loss, if any resulted

from that cause. It is understood that

these technical doubts relate mainly to

the borings for he great Gatun dam,

and to he constructton of three locks

In

flight at hat point. How serious s

the latt er difficulty,may be seen by run-

ning over the testimony of various en-

gineers before the Senabe Committee

last spring.

A standpat Congress refused 1 s t

year to allow the reeentry of Canad-

ian lumber for the rebuilding

of

San

Francisco. Therefore, Oregon andwash-

ingtonhave been drawn

upon f o r

the

exceptional demand Rut he American

ton nag ewh ich alone can carry freight

from one American port t o another-As

so

inadequate that ate s have already

risen fram $5

o r

less to 9 per thousand

feet, with a prospect of 10 Meanwhile,

there lies idle a n abundance of first-

classoreignhipping.Theseoreign

ships cannot carry lumber

t o

San Fran-

cisco under heir present egister, nor

can .American capital buy them and ap-

gly them in this vitally necessary work

The only practicable plan is explained

by thePortland Oregonian in he case

of theBritish steamship Duneric. This

vessel has been chartered by Portland

capital, and will be sent o British

Co-

lumbia, there o load with lumber fo r

San Francisco, at freight ates of $6

per tliousand feet, whlch, plus the duty

of

$2,

will still be iess than he charge

forcarryingnative lumber rom Port-

land o San Francisco under the Amer-

ican flag. If it werea case

of

foreign-

owned freight-car

or

wngon or wheelbar-

ro.w, Americans would simply buy and

use it But as it is a ship, tmust be

sent first round Robin Hoods barn, and,

after all,eliverumberotut in

American mills.

The promotion of John

W.

Riddle,

now Minister to Rumania and Servia,

t o be Ambassador to Russia,

is

thor-

oughly deserved

He

never gave large

sums to the Republican campalgh chest,

o r

owned a newjspaper, or wielded great

political and social influence; hence he

will be, among

our

Ambassadors, almost

in a class by himself. Because he rep-

resents the simple life, is one reason

now given foris appointment. A

farbetter one is that he has worked

his way

up

from a secretaryship by

sheermerit. A remarkable linguist, de-

voted

t o

the diplomatic s_ervice n which

he has

now

been

a

round dozenYears,

he has shown conclusively t ha the

United States can get men of- the righ t

type

t o fill

the e ntire diplomatic service

\

[Vel. 83,

No.

2163

as

soon

as ,it ofPers

a

permanent

career a nd pays suitable salaries.

The Popes seeming reJectlon of

compromise with theFrench Govern-

ment on the question of Separatioq has

undoubtedly precipitated

as

grave a

crisis as any Ministry has been compell-

ed to face slnce th e establishment of the

Third Republic. Should the deadlock

turnout to be as obstinate as would

appear from the declarations of both

the Vaticanand he Cabinet, the coun-

try would be confronted by c iv ~ l issen-

sion at a time when external-relations

are enough of themselves to cause the

Government much anxiety. Yet it is th e

very necessity of maintain ing the coun-

trys position in he presentdelicately

adjusted balance

of

European politics

that

may

impel the French Government

to find means for avoiding actual

war

with the Church, while maintaining the

Separation Law in

its

substance.

Nor

is he Churchbent on actual violence.

So

far

as

may be gathered from con-

flicting dispatches, the resistance of the

French Catholics is t o be passive in na-

ture

It

is said thatparish priests,

vicars, etc,must emain passive, and

may not codperate in any act of seques-

tratlon; but i f the bishop considers that

the refusal of the reasurers t o surren-

der the keys may cause-grave conse-

quences, he can permit hem

t o

do so.

And, again: Bishops mayuthorize

Catholic officials t o participate n se-

questers, if the refus al would endanger

positions necessary

for

the maintenance

of thei r families. Neither side, webe-

lieve, should be desirous t o provoke a

collision-the Government, because

crisesoften mean ministeria l changes,

and th e Vatican, because religious

war, in the present temper

of

the coun-

try,

would

not edound to he perma-

nent interests of the Catholic Church.

It is significant that th e Popes decision

shouId have been withheld till the, new

French law was on the point of going

into effect Such highignitariess

Archbishop Lecot of Bordeaux an d Car-

8ina.l Richard were allowed t o put

wardeasures of compromise which

they are now compelled

to

repudiate.

The Gokernment may find

this

summary

overriding of he peaceful effort s Of

French ecclesiastics by the Curia pow-

erful weapon in he campaign against

foreign dominance in Frenc h affairs.

One Rllnistrp after anothef falling on

the anti-clerical issue, th e King alarmed,

and the^ people on the verge

of

riotous

outbrea1tssuch is the news from Cath-

olic Spain. Yet signs of a political .

movement against he privileges of th e

Church have long been vlsible. It is not

only the Republican or anarchistic ele-

ment, a s in Catalonia, @at has now to

be reckoned with ; here-i s evidently a

deep and widespread feeling t ha t he

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Dec. 13, 19061 T h e

N a t i o n 499

civil power mustassert itself against

the ecclesiasticar. The intellectual alien-

ation from the Church has long been

evident in Spain, aqd, of late, th e an-

tagonism h1a.s seemed to be striking

down. One recalls the popular exc ite

ment which GaldBss mildly anti-cleri-

c,al

play, Electra, provoked. The large

sale and vogue

of

a tirade against the

Church which itsauthor, Ibafiez, call.

ed a novel and published under the

title La Catedral, had a similar omi-

nous significance. That he political re-

sul t will be some form of legislation di-

rected at the prerogatives of the Church,

along the lines of the French law,

though probably not so extreme, now

appears to be certain.

Sharp differences of opinion at the

congress

of

Itqlian Socialists lately held

Rome were taken by many as a sign

of weakness and break-up. Buta writ-

er n he ouvelle Revue asserts hat

the result was really a trlumph for the

moderatesThere s

a

party of reform

which constitutes. the Right. It preaches

the emancipation of theproletariat by

means of education and instruction. It

does not advocate any particular politi-

caI r6g1me, but opposes clerical influ-

ence, urges the reduction of the mlli-

tary establishment, and favorsuniver-

sal suffrage. The Syndicalists com-

pose the Left. They seek to propagate

revolutionary collectmism; they advo-

cate th e general strike, and demand the

substitution of an armed nation or

the present standing army.The Cen-

tre

is

represented by the Integral-

ists.who seek t o compose the diEer-

ew es between the extremes At the

congress, however, the Syndlcalists were

defeated by a coalition of the two other

parties. The programme upon whlch

these gree puts social refqrm above

political agita tion, and thi s distlnguishes

them from the earlier Republicans, who

believed that a change in the form of

government was of the

first

importance.

Dunng the last twenty years there has

been a rapid development

of

Socialism

in Italy, due, according to the writer in

the Nouvel le Revue to the wretched

condition^ of th e working people, espe-

cially in he south and

in

the agricul-

turaldistrictsBut t happens to be In

the north that Sociallsm has been most.

successful.

As

was pointed out fifteen

years ago by Leroy-Beaulieu, the so-

cialistic unrestntaly really arlses

from the fact that there has been great

improvement in the condition of the

working classes, and the reforms al-

ready accomplished make them eager

to achieve larger results.

aspect

of

socialistic experiments,

often overlooked. is brought forward by

F

T. Bulien

in

the London

Spectator

The common notion is that public relief

works, old-age pensions, support for

I

.

1

I

1

1

E

I

1

I

C

I

t

f

C

I

t

C

t

f.

1

I t

peoplewho are out

of

employment, anc

similar socialisticenterprises, take ma

ney from the rich and give it

t o

thr

poor-a blessed levelling of inequalities

Not so, says Mr. Bullen. The ich arl

not the chief sufferers rom hese

tempts at equalizing, but theargf

and almost unconsidered class of

ers, ju st kept on the weather lde o

want by incessant work. These

an

the people who feel the pinch of increas

ec

taxes, an increase that isdistribut.

through he community in a rise

:

rents, as well as in the price of all thc

necessaries of life. I haveheard Lad]

Warwick assert at a banquet, adds

Mr

Eullen, that it was theduty of thr

state t o feed and clothe as well as edu

czte every chlld of th e poor,. and

I

long

ed to askher whatshe understood bJ

the tate.Sheevidently had in minc

the people of wealth; but

Mr.

Buller

argues that in London the state meanr

the humble workers who are willing

andndustrlous, and who dread the

pauperization of themselves

o r

theil

children more than death,yet whoarc

gradually crushed down into hat bot.

tcrmless pit by the ever-growing burden

of rates expended by utterly irresponsi,

ble men of th e type of Mr. Will Crook

sud

Mr

George Lansbury, and women

like Lady Warwick. In this country

we have no t gone so far; but many per-

Eons of fine humanitarian impulses, wha

3ympathixe deeply with themiseries of

:he poor urge us to follow the example

~

New Zealand, Australia, Germany,

tndEngland. But before .casting heir

cotes for such policies, they should e x

imine the problem more deeply and dls-

:over theltimate incidence of the

.axes f o r their well-meant projects

German colonial affalrs have inevita-

) y taken much of theime of th e

ieichstags present session, and the re.

:ent

six.

days debate put the Govern-

nent to.its trumps. Fortunate ly f o r its

)restige, it had already begun to clean

louse; and th e new Director of th e Co-

onial Bureau, Bernllard Dernburg, was

lble to present his plans and achieve-

nents so vigorously as t o demblish many

)f

the criticisms directed agalnst him

ma his office.

Von

Bulow stood by his

lew subordinate w ith all possible loyal-

y, and the

result

is distinctly

a

triumph

or the Government. The gravest ac-

,usations of cruelty and mismanage-

nent were made by Bebel and by Herr

toerens, one of the leaders of the Cen-

re The lat ter produced, as prooff

tarbarity,

a

h e a v cane which in one

:olony had been used i n beating t he na-

ives.Oyer thi s aspect of the colonial

ailure Herr Dernburg was fain

t o

glide

?asily; nor would it be just

t o

hold

him responsible for the misconduct of

nen appointed by his predecessors. Yet

,he need

of

reform in the treatment O

;he natlves. neither Herr Dernburg nor

any one else can deny; in

this

respect

the German colonial record

is

black, an d

Debels assertions are no t t o be brushed

asidewith a merecharge of exaggera-

tion.

The most significant passage in Jacob

H Schlbs plea at the Zionist mass-

meeting, in this cit y Sunday night, was

addressed

to

the secret gents of the

Russian Government, of whose pres-

ence in he meeting the speaker felt

convlnced:

I say t o YOU, is

it

any wonder that he

in become revolutionists?

It

s

not himself that has made the a

ment.

revolutlonlst; it is the Russlan

Govern-

This is a clear admission tha t th e Jews

in Russlahave become revolutionary.

Therehas always been a pronounced

tendency to slur over thepart played

by Jews in he present Russian disor-

ders, withhe benevolent object,

no

doubt. of representing th em as th e n-

nocent vlctims of sa murderous autocra-

Especially afterhe different

p o -

g roms , the sympatheticpress has been

at p a l m to refuteall stories as t o the

responsibllity of Je ms h revolutionaries

for

th e outbreak of massacre. It is true

that he victlms are

for

the most

part

innooent and inoffensive, but it, is no

service to their cause to evade the fact

that the Russian Jews are the mam

sup-

port of the revolution, and he most

dangerousenemies of th e existing re-

gime. This onlyerves to ring ut

in a clearer light he iniquities of a

system that has driven an entire people

to desperate resistawe,not only

ish sociallsts nd agnostics, b u t even

that large part of the race which

1s

capable

of

cherishing so idealistic

Iream as Zionism.

Increase in he consumption of ab-

sinthe 1s causing some uneasiness i n

Europe In Belgium, a law has lately

been passed forbiddmg its manufacture,

importation, transportation, or sale. A

similarmeasurewas adopted in the

Canton of Vaud, by a popular vote. The

Cathollc Congress of Fribourg passed

resolutions approving this Swiss initia-

tive

In

the des Ddbats. Dr.

Daremberg states that in 1884 France

2onsumed absinthe

t o

the amount of ~

19,335 hectolitres, in 1894, 125,078, and

,n 1904,

207,929. It is said hat he ab-

jinthe habit prevails especially among

;he younger llteraryolk; but

it is

spreading rapidly among business men.

Ihe hab lt increases the liability

t o

tu-

Jerculosis, for most patients in the con-

jumptive hospitals in France have been

tbsinthe-drinkersThesubject is one of

nterest in the United Statesalso; f o r

.uring the ast twenty-five years here

.as been a considerable iqcrease

in

ab-

inthe drinking here; it

is

usually ak-

n

in

the form of vermouth, which

is

an

ofusion of-absinthe in white wine.

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