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cially admired by artists and connoisseurs for the vigor and beauty of his water-colors. The announcement of his death recalls once more the incalculable debt which the world owes to modern French art.

WILLIAM HAYES WARD

The death last week of Dr. William Hayes Ward, in his eighty-second year, at his home in Maine, ends a long career of usefulness and accomplishment. Dr. Ward was eminent as scholar, as editor, and as a leader of thought. His connection with the "Independent" extended for forty-eight years, and his influence as an editorial writer and controller was always in favor of that which was liberal, progressive, and humane, whether in the realm of religion or social progress. Personally he was a man of marked kindliness and sincerity.

Dr. Ward was graduated from Amherst in 1856, and from the Andover Theological Seminary in 1859. He held several honorary degrees. A short period of work as pastor in Kansas and as a teacher in Beloit College and elsewhere was followed in 1868 by his entrance into editorial work with the "Independent." For the last three years he had been honorary editor.

As a scholar, and especially as an archæologist, Dr. Ward was everywhere recognized as of high rank. His best-known practical work in this field was in connection with the Wolfe Babylonian Expedition of 1884. As a writer on Oriental antiquities and art he put forth many articles and books, and he had the delightful faculty of talking on subjects before an audience with picturesque and almost dramatic effect. He lectured on Assyriology at Yale, was for a time President of the American Oriental Society, had been a trustee of Amherst College, and was active in the American Bible Society and the American Missionary Society.

ARCHBISHOP SPALDING

The death of Archbishop John Lancaster Spalding, of the Roman Catholic Church, will recall to the general public the very great service rendered by Archbishop Spalding as a member of the Anthracite Commission, which brought together the coal-miners and the coal-owners after the great strike of 1902.

Bishop Spalding, as he then was, was selected by President Roosevelt to serve on that Commission, primarily because of his interest in all labor questions and his special

knowledge of such subjects, but probably also because of the great power and influence of his name among those miners who were of his faith. His appointment was accepted as an eminently desirable one by the public at large, and the parties to the dispute welcomed it without exception. There is no question that his efforts and personality had great influence in bringing about a satisfactory solution of that difficult problem.

As priest and prelate Archbishop Spalding was honored and beloved. Pope Pius X, at the time of the Archbishop's retirement from active work because of failing health some eight years ago, said of him: "Few bishops had so great an influence on the life of the people, even outside of religion and outside of the Catholic denomination, as had Bishop Spalding." He was consecrated Bishop of the Diocese of Peoria, Illinois, in 1877, and on his retirement because of ill health thirtyone years later was created titular Archbishop of Scyphopolis. In the earlier part of his career Dr. Spalding was, at his own request, assigned to a parish of Negroes in Louisville, Kentucky, and by his own efforts secured for his colored parishioners a church and parish house. His uplifting work among the Negroes at this period was notable and unusual.

Archbishop Spalding wrote much upon religious, social, and educational topics, and was the author of several books. He died at the age of seventy-seven. It is interesting to read that he was a descendant of one of the English colonists who first came to Maryland, and that his family in England were noted for having preserved their allegiance to the Catholic faith all through the days troublous to Catholics of the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth.

THE SISAL HEMP MONOPOLY

We reported last week the Congressional investigation into the alleged Mexican monopoly of sisal hemp and the somewhat mysterious failure of the Congressional investigating committee, which held its hearings in February and April last, to make any report. The Committee of the Senate which has this matter in charge, and which consists of Senator Ransdell, of Louisiana, Senator Gronna, of North Dakota, and Senator Wadsworth, of New York, has made the following statement:

A report on our investigations of the sisal hemp industry and its principal manufactured product, binder twine, has been delayed by a variety of causes which are unnecessary to

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enumerate. Since our hearings closed about four months ago there has been an increase in the price of sisal of from 7% cents per pound at New York to 10% cents-a rise of 24 cents per pound, or over thirty-six per cent.

This very material and unexpected increase in the price of a commodity which is so essential to the welfare of the American farmer as sisal impresses the Committee with the necessity of having additional information before rendering any decision. We have therefore asked the Federal Trade Commission to ascer tain the facts on several points relating to sisal and its substitutes; and have also asked the Secretary of State to approach the Mexican Government with the request to investigate the situation and see if some relief cannot be obtained for the users of sisal in this country.

We are glad that the Committee has so far taken the public into its confidence. But is it not fair to raise the question whether this brief report may not confirm the feeling which has been expressed by the sisal hemp importers in this country that the Washington Administration desires to hold this whole controversy in abeyance until after election? The Senatorial Committee says that it is confronted "with the necessity of having additional information before rendering any decision." Why could it not have sought this information last April, or have approached the Federal Trade Commission last April, or have asked the Secretary of State to confer with the Mexican Government last April? We think the importers of sisal have a just basis for their criticism that the Administration has been dilatory in this matter. original complaints were laid before the Government in December, 1915.

THE RUSSIAN IMMIGRANT AND HIS SAVINGS

The

The Russian Government has recently established here a virtual extension of the Government savings bank system in Russia in order to permit Russians in this country to make a direct deposit of their savings without resorting to the somewhat tedious and uncertain method of sending their money home through the foreign exchange machinery of private banks.

At the Russian Consulates in New York City, Chicago, and Pittsburgh a Russian may now turn in his savings in return for a temporary receipt, which in turn is followed by a Government savings bank book sent on from Russia.

There is no doubt that one motive of the

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Russian Government in establishing this convenience for its subjects in America has been the desire to attract to Russia more gold to meet the exigencies of the war. This is indicated by the fact that the rate of interest paid by the Government savings banks has been raised as an inducement for Russians in America to send home their savings. Another motive has probably been the hope of increasing the exchange value of the ruble. by the deposit of a large quantity of gold to Russia's credit in this country.

But certainly a third motive has been to benefit the Russian subjects in this country. Such Russians, in attempting to send money home, have often been cheated by unscrupulous bankers who have arbitrarily raised the rate of exchange and used other unfair means to "do" the ignorant immigrant here. The great Mother Russia now proposes to protect her subjects, and incidentally to take to herself the strength which their massed savings constitute.

No fair-minded person ought to object to this. Only the extreme protectionist maintains that it is wrong for foreign laborers to send home what they save from their wages. No one objects because the Russian dealer in furs or minerals here sends home the product of his sales. And the Russian laborer is as much entitled to do as he pleases with the money which is the price of his labor as is the Russian merchant to dispose as he pleases of the money which is the price of his furs or minerals.

THE LOSS of the MEMPHIS

The cruiser Memphis, stationed in the harbor of Santo Domingo City, on August 29 was driven ashore by sudden and unexpected seas. In the first despatch to the Navy Department from Rear-Admiral Pond the loss of this cruiser is thus described :

Memphis driven ashore by heavy sea, Santo Domingo City, west of lighthouse, at 4:30 P.M. She is lying close under bluff, has lines ashore, and is getting crew off. Heavy sea came up suddenly and ship was unable to get up steam in time to save herself. Twenty men of Liberty party drowned on way back to ship. Castine (gunboat) dragged close in, but did not strike, and got out to sea. Memphis will be total loss.

In a later despatch from Admiral Pond further details of the disaster are given. It appears that when the storm struck the cruiser Memphis her main steam line burst,

killing one enlisted man and injuring two officers and seventy-seven members of her crew. Several other members of the crew are reported missing in addition to those lost from the liberty party. The rest of the crew were all taken from the ship, the captain of the Memphis being the last to leave.

The Memphis is better known to the public as the cruiser Tennessee. The Tennessee was the ship which was sent to Europe to bring relief to Americans stranded by the outbreak of the war.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT'S
MAINE SPEECH

Mr. Roosevelt's Maine speech, delivered at Lewiston on August 31, is an appeal to the chivalry and courage of the American people. We hope it will inspire with the wisdom of courage the rather sluggish Republican Campaign Committee. It strikes with characteristic vigor the same note which Mr. Root struck in his speech last February before the New York State Republican Convention, and which Mr. Bacon struck in his statement to the voters of New York State, reported in last week's Outlook. If this campaign for a more courageous public policy is to be won at all, it must be won by the wisdom of courage, not by that of prudence. No campaign in such a crisis as the present can arouse an enthusiasm of support which does not provoke an enthusiasm of hostility.

Mr. Roosevelt indicts the Democratic policies and condemns the Democratic campaign slogans.

"Mr. Wilson has kept us out of war." Has he? "A greater number of Americans have been killed by Mexicans during these years, when we are officially informed that we have been at peace with them, than were killed by the Spaniards during our entire war with Spain. Moreover, when the war with Spain was through, it was through. But peace still continues to rage as furiously as ever in Mexico." Moreover, during these three years of Mr. Wilson's 'peace' the Mexicans themselves have been butchered by their own bandits steadily and without intermission; and Mexican women and children have died by thousands-probably by scores of thousands of starvation, and of the diseases incident to starvation."

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"Safety first." Yes. But whose safety ? That of the protector or that of those whom

he is sworn to protect? Mr. Roosevelt's illustration will appeal to others than seafaring folk:

I can illustrate what I mean about the use and abuse of the word safety by the life-saving service. This is a service especially designed to secure greater safety for ships' crews, and generally for persons whose lives are imperiled on the water. It is a service to secure safety. But the safety is secured only because some brave men are willing to risk their own lives in order to save other lives. They do not put "safety first as far as they themselves are concerned. If they did, no lifeboat would ever be launched from a life-saving station. But the men on a sinking ship who crowd into the lifeboats ahead of the women and children do put

safety first." I will say this for them, however: When they get ashore, they do not wear buttons to commemorate the feat-as some of our opponents in the present campaign do.

Mr. Roosevelt does not outline the future policy of the Republican party; but he suggests what would have been its policy during the last four years. A Hughes Administration would not have recognized in our citizenship any dual allegiance. It would have

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prepared itself with strength so as to guarantee our own safety, and also to treat every foreign nation, in any given crisis, as its conduct in that crisis demands." It would couple universal suffrage with "a system of universal obligatory military training in time of peace, and in time of war universal service in whatever capacity the man or woman shall be judged most fit to serve the commonwealth." It would either have recognized Huerta as the de facto President of Mexico, and held him responsible to protect life and property, or it would have gone into Mexico with whatever force was necessary for their protection. It would not have sent the fleet to Vera Cruz unless its presence was required to protect Americans, and it would not have recalled the fleet until Americans were protected. It would not have allowed munitions of war to be sent into Mexico with which to carry on a wholesale campaign of anarchy and massacre. It would not have recognized Carranza as the head of a de facto government, and at the same time indicted him, as President Wilson's Secretary of State in an official statement indicted him on June 20 last, as responsible for anarchy, plunder, and murder in Mexico and unprovoked raids upon Americans in Texas.

Nor would a Republican administration have stood hesitant and afraid while every

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THE RAILWAY PROBLEM

principle of international law and every right of neutral and non-combatant were violated on land and at sea by the German policy of terrorism. It would have protested against the invasion of Belgium, against the murder of Miss Cavell and Captain Fryatt, against the torpedoing of merchant vessels and the dropping of bombs on unfortified cities and peaceful women and children. It would have done whatever was necessary to emphasize the condemnation of this unwarlike degradation of war. It would have invited the other neutral nations to join it in such condemnation. "America could and should have put itself at the head of all the neutral nations, by its example if not by direct diplomatic agreements, in demanding that the war should be conducted in accordance with the usage of civilized nations, that international law should be observed, that the rights of neutrals and non-combatants should be respected. If this spirit had animated our Administration, there would probably have been no invasion of Belgium, no fears of a like fate to terrorize other smaller nations, no torpedoing of merchant vessels, no bombarding of churches and hospitals, no massacring of women and children, no murder of Miss Cavell and Captain Fryatt, no attempted extermination of the Armenians."

What the Republican party will do next March, if it is in power, of course, Mr. Roosevelt does not say. He cannot say. No one can say.

But we We can respect We can

For no one can tell what will be the world conditions and what the American duties in March, 1917. But he can and does say in what spirit he believes the Nation ought to meet the issues as they arise, and why he believes that Mr. Hughes can meet those issues in that spirit. "We cannot undo what has been done. can repudiate what has been done. regain our own self-respect and the of other nations for this country. put in power an administration which will throughout its term of power protect our own citizens and live up to our National obligations." And he sees in "Mr. Hughes's rugged and uncompromising straightforwardness of character and action in every office he has held" the guarantee of such an administration.

A correspondent in the New York Tribune" the other day quoted a friend of his as saying that he would rather be a living coward than a dead hero. This cynical remark puts before the American people the

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real issue of the day. Do they prefer Belgium or Greece? Do they believe that a life saved by cowardice is worth saving? Do they put safety first or duty first? For ourselves, we think that the man who would rather be a living coward than a dead hero is dead already and does not know it. He is a peripatetic corpse, and the sooner he is buried the better for the world. We do not believe that he represents the spirit of America. We believe there is in this Nation a conscience and a courage which will respond to such words as those of Mr. Roosevelt's Maine speech. If the Republican Campaign Committee will put as clearly and vigorously before the American people as he has done the issue between the courageous fulfillment and the cowardly evasion of the Nation's duty, we cannot doubt what the answer of the people will be. It will be, as Mr. Roosevelt points out, the same which they have always given to the cry, "Safety first ;" the answer which they gave to the Tories in 1776, to the compromisers in 1860, and to the antiimperialists in 1900.

THE RAILWAY PROBLEM

As we go to press Congress is considering the President's plan, recorded on another page, for dealing with the threatened railway strike. Both the railway trade unions and the railway executives are apparently of the opinion that the issue can now be settled only by war. The railway executives assert that the men are acting in the spirit of highwaymen who threaten a "hold-up." Whether it is better for the Nation to endure the humiliation of yielding to a threatened hold-up or to endure the tragical consequences which the abandonment of its great highways for a season would involve is a question I need not here discuss, since that question will have been determined by Congress, the custodian of the Nation's honor and welfare, before this issue of The Outlook can reach its readers. I here simply repeat certain fundamental principles which I believe should govern the Nation in dealing with its railway problem, the principles often affirmed in these pages in times past.

The Outlook has long urged the adoption of eight hours as the standard for a day's work in mines, factories, railways, and all other forms of organized labor. And I

believe that the railway managers might well have accepted the eight-hour day as the standard and trusted to the American people, under the President's lead, to provide for the inevitable expense by permitting an increase in freight and passenger rates. Nevertheless, I believe that the country will hold the labor unions, and especially their four chiefsMessrs. A. B. Garretson, W. S. Stone, W. G. Lee, and W. S. Carter-responsible for the almost tragical results of a general railway strike, if one takes place. The world holds Austria and Germany responsible for the present world war, not because it is convinced that the Servian Government had no responsibility for the assassination of the Austrian Crown Prince, but because Servia proposed to leave the question of her guilt to an impartial tribunal, a proposal urged upon Austria and Germany by Italy, France, England, and Russia, and by Austria and Germany refused. The country will hold the railway unions responsible for the railway strike, if there is one, not because the people are convinced that an eight-hour standard is either unjust or impracticable, but because they deem it is unjust for the railway unions to refuse to submit the justice and practicability of an eight-hour standard to the decision of a disinterested and impartial tribunal. And I hoped that the railway managers would accede to the eight-hour day because I think it is often wiser to submit to an unjust demand than to become the innocent means of inflicting a greater injustice upon others.

Some forty or fifty years ago Senator Booth, of California (the grandfather, I believe, of Booth Tarkington), put the railway problem in a sentence: Formerly the means of transportation were poor, but the highways were public property; now the means of transportation are admirable, but the highways are private property. The railway corporations acted on the assumption that the highways were private property which they could control as they pleased. They determined what wages they would pay and what services they would require, and told the workers to accept the terms or leave the employment. Now the conditions are reversed. The railway employees, apparently, have determined for what hours and wages they are willing to work, and they say to the owners: You can accept our terms or let your property stand idle.

The one attitude is as unjust as the other.

Formerly the owners recognized no right in the employees to be consulted as to hours and wages; now the employees recognize no right in the employers to be consulted; and neither then nor now does either party recognize any right of the public to be consulted.

It is true that both sides have acceded to the President's request and consented to confer with him. But he was not elected to settle such a controversy; he has no other legal power in the premises than any other private citizen, and there is no reason to suppose that he possesses the necessary information or the necessary qualifications to represent the public in such an issue between the owners and the employees.

If the apparently official figures reported in the daily papers can be trusted, the direct owners of the railways are one and a half times as many as the striking employees; those who are indirectly interested in the property are probably at least as many more; and the entire population, with practically not an-exception, are vitally interested in keeping the railways in operation. Under these circumstances, it is evident that it is neither just nor democratic to allow either the 400,000 striking employees or the 600,000 owners to decide the question. It is clear that both justice and democratic principles require that we should find some method by which the question, On what terms and conditions shall the railways be operated? can be determined by a body in which owners, employees, and general public all have a representative.

The Outlook is very much in sympathy with the workers' demand for an eight-hour standard day. It is prepared to advocate making it the standard day by legislative enactment, and providing for whatever additional cost that change makes unavoidable by increased freight and passenger charges. But it is neither just nor democratic for the railway employees, or a portion of them-for only a portion of them are in the four railway unions-to determine how many hours the employees should work, and then say to the Nation, You must accept our decision, or get along without any railways. That is the worst kind of bureaucratic government.

The European war has put an end to all hope of securing international peace by voluntary arbitration. Leading statesmen both in Europe and in this country are seriously considering the organization of an international league to enforce upon any warlike nation the submission of its demands to

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