housing problem. Third, that this battle for better tenement conditions is not ended by any means, for it has to do with establishing tenements that will remain when the character of the population shall have changed and all space shall have been built upon as thickly as the law now allows. It will require continuous vigilance to prevent the reproach that has fallen upon this generation from falling upon the generation to come-the reproach well voiced by the workingman whom Mr. De Forest reported as saying to him: Why didn't you give the East Side a chance before?"

Civic Esthetics

At

Years ago the community of Springfield, Mass., allowed the New York, New Haven, and Hudson River Railroad to encroach upon its beautiful Connecticut River front. that time the enthusiasm of the citizens of the town was all for the railroad and not for the river. The river promised no possibilities of growth; the railroad did. Hence a lovely, almost majestic waterfront was allowed to become unlovely and even hideous through the mistaken idea of the people that a priceless gift of nature could be bartered away for a material gain. In recent years, however, the citi zens of Springfield have realized their mistake. Led by the initiative of their great daily paper, the Springfield" Republican," and by its steady, long-continued appeal and pushing, not only did æsthetically inclined citizens regret the blunder that had been made, but the community as a whole became influenced by the propaganda of the "Republican." The plan to retrieve the mistake was as follows: Bordering the principal street of the town was a large open space called Court Square; it was proposed to continue this square to the river and there to build a viaduct over the railroad tracks. expense of acquiring and improving the necessary property, however—$200,000— seemed prohibitive, but it was thought that if half this sum could be raised by a public subscription, the town could afford to bear the expense of the rest. Impetus was given to the project by the bequest to it of $10,000 by the late Tilly Haynes and by the offer of another $10,000 from Mr. E. H. Barney. The campaign was energetically managed, haste in contributions

The

being urged because the ground would inevitably and very soon become dearer. The conviction grew also among all classes of people that a centrally located park was a necessity in a town like Springfield, and that it should be located on this very site, since the existing City Hall, Police Building, Grand Army Hall, and CourtHouse (the latter a Richardson structure) would border the proposed park. The sanitary and the aesthetic values of the project seemed equally evident to every one, and the contributions came in with increasing frequency until they more than reached the sum proposed. The remarkable thing about them was their number; there were only fifty contributors of more than a hundred dollars each, while many gave less than one dollar apiece. Thus this civic improvement is not only something done for the long future and well done, but done by the whole community.

The Paramount Issue

Con

It cannot be doubted that the course of the Administration in respect to Delaware has chilled the popular enthusiasm for Mr. Roosevelt as a heroic leader in the National battle against corruption. fidence in his statesmanship and his statecraft-his grasp of great principles and his practical skill in dealing with conflicting factions-has been steadily increas ing; but faith in his political heroism has received a shock. His first appointment of Mr. Byrne was a perplexity to his friends, but they explained it as a sudden impulse; his second appointment of Mr. Byrne is to them inexplicable. It seems like a public notification from the President of the United States of a no le prosequi for the men who have practiced wholesale bribery in Delaware. And yet, though we cannot doubt that this is the effect of Mr. Roosevelt's action, we cannot believe that it is Mr. Roosevelt's intention. If any are inclined, as some are, to think that he is ready to take advantage for his party of Mr. Addicks's frauds, and to condone the offense because it is politically profitable to the Republicans, we remind them that a man whose loyalty to principle has been attested by a life of heroic devotion is not to be summarily convicted of disloyalty because of one act, however inconsistent it may seem to be with his

previous record. We still hope that there will be enough Republicans in the Senate ready to join with the Democrats to defeat the appointment. We can conceive no ground on which it can be justified. Not on the ground of Mr. Byrne's distinguished ability, for his legal record is not of the best; not on the ground of political regularity, for he resigned his office to defeat the regular Republican nominee for Congress; not on the ground that he is the best possible man to prosecute the rascals who have been corrupting the elections in Delaware, for he has joined his fortunes to theirs.

We understand perfectly well that politics makes strange bedfellows; that in politics one must often work with men whom one would not choose as his associates; that in politics, when one cannot do what he would, he must fain do what he can; that in politics one must often sacrifice a subordinate issue to win a paramount one. We understand perfectly well that, in order to get the Cuban treaty and the Panama treaty and the anti-trust legislation through the Senate, it was important to have two Republican Senators from Delaware. But these are not the paramount issues; honesty is the paramount issue—that is second to none other; all other issues are second to that. We mean exactly this. It would be better to sail away from the Philippines and leave them to themselves, whatever ruin might befall them, better to refuse reciprocity with Cuba and leave her to fight her own commercial battles, better to postpone the building of an interoceanic canal another fifty years or leave it unbuilt forever, or let France, England, or Germany build it, better to leave the trusts to be dealt with by industrial forces and State governments, than to compromise with the corruption which buys a State in the open market, confesses the deed, and justifies the bribery by the cynical declaration that nothing succeeds like success.

It would be better, because it is better to be an honest nation than a big nation; better because single-hearted integrity is better in a people, as in an individual, than commercial prosperity; better because to profess humanity and essay human policies toward the rest of mankind and condone corruption at home is national Pharisaism, and Pharisaism is the worst of all

sins in a nation as in an individual; better because in fact the fatal foe to dealing honestly with other peoples is popular leniency toward dishonest men at home. We need only to read the history of the past few months for evidence that the worst foes to honorable politics are dishonorable men. In vain has Mr. Roosevelt eloquently pleaded for generous treatment of the Cubans; in vain has he pleaded for fair treatment of the Filipinos. There is a Republican majority in Congress; Cuban reciprocity and Philippine tariff reduction are distinctly party policies; there is no shadow of a question that they would be overwhelmingly supported at the polls by the Republican party in a general election. But the appeals of the President and the opinions of the people are unheeded by men to whom the supposed pecuniary interest of a few beetsugar growers and a few tobacco-growers overbalance all other considerations. It may take time and patience to convince an honest man of the truth; but even invincible ignorance will yield at last to argument, if the ignorance is honest and the argument enlightening. But time and patience are wasted on men who are corrupt and corrupters of their fellows. The only argument that weighs with a bribetaker is a bigger bribe. Allow public corruption to go on unhalted, uncondemned, unpunished, and elections will cease to be discussions of principles: they will become auction sales, in which a minority, holding the balance of power, will sell the power which they wield to the highest bidder.

He has read to little purpose the histories of Greece, and Rome, and Venice, and Bourbon France, and England, who does not see that the issue of honest government is the paramount issue, whenever and however it presents itself. For it was because corruption conquered in Greece, and Rome, and Venice, and Bourbon France that they all died; and because the corruption of England under the Georges was conquered by the Puritan conscience of her people that England lives. He has read to little purpose the history of the past decade who does not see that this plague of the nations is in our blood. The corruption revealed in New York City, in Minneapolis, in St. Louis, in Chicago, the corruption in Mon

tana and in Delaware, is patent, obvious, unconcealed; but these cases are not sporadic. How long must we wait before we begin our fight in dead earnest against the blood-poisoning which is more fatal than the most fatuous of public policiesbe they what they may? Jethro's counsel to Moses, old as it is, the world has not outgrown; it is timely now: "Thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating coveteousness." Not merely men who are honest, but men who are aggressively honest; who hate coveteousness; who dare risk, not their own political fortunes merely, but those of their party, rather than fight their battles with hired Hessians. Men who will strike with a strong hate and pierce with a fine scorn the bribe-taker and the bribe-giver, whether the bribe be a commercial advantage in the market, an official emolument in politics, or a roll of National bank-notes at the polls.

To get such men as this to act for us in our public life, city, State, and Nation, this is the paramount issue. It is because the American people believed that they had in Mr. Roosevelt such a man that he has aroused an enthusiasm greater than that aroused by any President since Abraham Lincoln. Any act of his that casts a shadow of suspicion on his recognition of the principle that public honesty is the paramount issue chills that enthusiasm and robs him of his power. Those who love and honor him the most feel most deeply any acts which makes possible such a suspicion. "Hating covetousness" is a spirit hard to maintain in the malarial atmosphere of Washington; but the life of the Nation depends upon maintaining it. Principles, not men" is the devil's motto. Principles are absolutely useless except as they are incarnate in men. Men are worse than useless except as they incarnate principles. Principles in men, men of principles- this is the absolute condition, not only of National strength and National prosperity, but of National existence. It were better to adopt free trade and shut down half our factories, and free silver and close half our banks, provided we still kept honest, than to purchase a short-lived commercial prosperity by condoning or ignoring or being indifferent to the crimes

against the State of a Croker in New York, an Ames in Minneapolis, a Butler in St. Louis, a Clark in Montana, or an Addicks in Delaware.

The Czar's Decree

We publish in full on another page the edict of the Czar respecting religious liberty and political reform in Russia. His successful project for the establishment of the Hague Tribunal will lead Americans to regard this edict with favorable predisposition. They will be inclined to hope from it an end to religious persecution, an initiation of some measure of local self-government, and a further enfranchisement of the serfs. We wish very much that a careful reading of the edict justi fied any such interpretation. We are compelled to conclude that it does not, that the decree is important rather for what it indicates than for what it promises. As a symptom of political and social unrest it is significant; as an earnest of religious or political reform it is unimportant. It does not order anything that is of real value, nor mark the beginning of a new era, nor indicate any important change in the policy pursued by the Russian Government since the death of Alexander II. What genuineness of desire for reform it may indicate in the Czar we do not undertake to determine; but measured by its actual or prospective effects it is little more than a bureaucratic attempt to placate, by means of vague promises and trivial concessions, a fully aroused public sentiment in favor of liberal reforms.

The clause in the decree which has attracted the most attention is that appar ently proclaiming religious liberty. In it the Czar says: We . . . have deemed it expedient to strengthen and decree the undeviating observance of the principles of tolerance laid down by the fundamental laws of the Russian Empire, which, recognizing the Orthodox Church as the ruling one, grant to all of our subjects of other religions, and to all foreign persuasions, freedom of creed and worship, in accordance with their rites." This paragraph does not change in any respect the existing law, or add anything whatever to the religious privileges of the

Russian people. Mohammedans have had their mosques, Jews their synagogues, and Roman Catholics and Lutherans their churches in Russia for many years, and have worshiped in them, according to their respective creeds and rites, without let or hindrance. The thing that is denied in Russia is the right of an Orthodox Christian to think for himself in religious matters, and, as the result of such thinking, to change the form of his religious faith and leave the Orthodox Church. The denial of that right is not affected in the slightest degr.e by the Czar's proclamation of religious liberty. The law, as it now stands, is as follows:

All persons who leave the Orthodox Church for the Church of any other Christian denomination shall be turned over to the spiritual authorities for admonition and instruction, and shall then be dealt with in accordance with ecclesiastical rules. Until they shall return to Orthodoxy, their minor children shall be taken in charge by the Government, in order that they may not become perverted, and their lands, if occupied by Orthodox Christians, shall be put under guardianship and they shall not be permitted to live thereupon. (Penal Code, Revised Edition, Section 458.)

The punishment for inducing or persuading another person to leave the Orthodox Church is much more severe. The Code says:

For inducing an Orthodox Christian to become a member of any other Christian Church, the guilty one shall be deprived of all special, personal, and acquired rights, and shall be exiled to Siberia, or imprisoned at hard labor, for a period of from one year to a year and a half. (Penal Code, Section 187.)

For persuading or inducing an Orthodox Christian to adopt the Jewish or any other non-Christian faith, the guilty one shall be deprived of all civil rights and sent into penal servitude for a period of from eight to ten years. (Penal Code, Section 184.)

If a man or woman who is a member of the Orthodox Church marries a woman or man who is a Lutheran or a Roman Catholic, the children must be trained up in the Orthodox faith. If parents disobey this law, they are to be punished with imprisonment for a period of from eight to sixteen months. (Penal Code, Section 190.) These laws, and many others which limit freedom of conscience, freedom of teaching, and freedom of speech in religious matters, as well as freedom to criticise and discuss the Bible and the Church, remain untouched by the Czar's

decree. He merely says, in effect: "You shall continue to have as much religious freedom as you have enjoyed, under the provisions of the Penal Code, during the past half-century;" but he says it in such a solemn and impressive way as to make the outside world think that he is conferring a great favor and inaugurating a momentous religious reform.

The next statement in the document is scarcely more significant. It is as follows: "We are further resolved to continue the active carrying out of measures for the improvement of the material position of the Orthodox rural clergy, while enabling them to take a larger share in public life." In point of fact, the rural clergy form, numerically, a small part of the Russian population; they have never made any particular complaint with regard to their "material position;" they are generally men of limited education, and the "share" that they have hitherto taken "in public life" has been to discourage the liberal movement, oppose secular schools, and serve as an instrument of the reactionary party.

The Czar next says that measures are "impending" "for the consolidation of the national economy "-whatever that may mean-and that, in accordance with these measures, the banks should 'strengthen and develop the welfare and fundamental pillars of Russian village life, and that of the local nobility and peasantry." This may have some meaning in the original Russian, but it is very vague and obscure in the English translation. From the next sentence it appears that the "laws of the rural population" are to be "revised," and, when formulated, are to be "referred to the provincial government councils" for further development and adaptation. It is this clause which is supposed to imply some measure of local self-government, but this implication is not justified by the text. If the words "provincial government councils" are a translation of “gubernskoe pravlenie," the revised laws are to be submitted to boards of bureaucratic officials from whom the Russian people have already suffered much, and from whom no adequate measures of relief are to be expected. But even if the words mean the provincial assemblies or "zemstvos,” there is no assurance that these bodies

are to have anything more than an advisory voice, and their advice, when it has conflicted with the views or the interests of the bureaucracy, has always been disregarded.

The clauses which are supposed to enlarge the freedom of the serfs are not much more significant. The order that "means are to be found to render it easier for the individual to sever connections with the community" (the vil lage commune) "to which he belongs' is very good as far as it goes, but as a measure of relief it is trivial. The assurance that measures shall be taken without delay "to release the peasants from the present burdensome liability of forced labor" has little importance. The only "forced labor" to which the peasants are now liable is the mending of roads at certain seasons of the year, and the carrying of officials from place to place, off railroads, when such officials are traveling on Government business. This is a desirable reform, but it is insignificant. The promise that "thorough reform shall be effected in the provincial governments and district administrations by the local representatives" has a hopeful sound, but, inasmuch as it does not specify what the reforms shall be, nor indicate whether they are to be brought about by the "local representatives" of the people or the "local representatives" of the Minister of the Interior, it is vague and unsatisfactory.

In short, there is little in this decree to indicate any purpose on the part of those who have prepared it to furnish any real relief for the evils from which the Russian people are suffering. For a clear and definite statement of those evils we need only turn to the reports of the district and provincial committees appointed a little more than a year ago to consider the needs of the Russian peasantry and ascertain the reasons for the steady and progressive decline in their economic condition. Some of those evils, briefly stated, are as follows: (1) Insufficient land; (2) high and inequitable taxation; (3) deprivation of legal rights enjoyed by the higher classes; (4) inadequate educational facilities; (5) too much bureaucratic interference and control; (6) a tariff which favors manufactures at the expense of agriculture; (7) restrictions upon the right to assemble for

discussion and joint action; (8) lack of a free press; (9) the passport system, and restriction, in general, of personal movement and individual initiative. The district committee of Sudja, in the province. of Kursk, sets forth specifications of removable evils to the number of twentythree; but the nine above stated are contained in a more or less definite form in the reports of nearly all the local committees. Not one of them is touched or alluded to in the Czar's decree. The Imperial proclamation amounts to little more than a vague general statement of benevolent intentions, and, however well meant by the Czar, was probably intended by the Czar's advisers to placate the educated liberal class and quiet the public feeling aroused by the widespread agrarian disturbances and student disorders of last year, the great labor strike on the Don, and the bold and frank reports of many of the agricultural-inquiry committees. It is a hopeful sign chiefly be cause it indicates that the Russian discontent has reached such proportions that the bureaucracy has at least been compelled to recognize that such discontent exists.

The Dead Soul

The old man had come a long way, and was burdened not only with years and sorrows, but with the knowledge of good and evil. As he looked back and retraced the road he had traveled over, the weariness of the journey gathered upon his spirit until it seemed to him as if the spring of life had been choked at its source, and nothing remained save the dry and dusty channel through which the stream had once run shining in the sun. He was so worn with labor and grief and unfulfilled hope that he thought of little save rest; the soul in him had fallen into a sleep so deep that he had lost the sense of life which is keen and quick when a man feels his immortality. He cared for nothing but forgetfulness; so far had the iron of the futility of thought and knowł edge and effort entered into his soul.

The irony of life never seemed so poignant and piercing as when he caught the faint echoes of the old songs of his youth, the ghostly cheers that had rung around his early achievements and had become