pines alike we are confronted by most difficult problems. It is cowardly to shrink from solving them in the proper way; for solved they must be, if not by us, then by some stronger and more manful race. If we are too weak, too selfish, or too foolish to solve them, some bolder and abler people must undertake the solution. Personally, I am far too firm a believer in the greatness of my country and 10 the power of my countrymen to admit for one moment that we shall ever be driven to the ignoble alternative. The problems are different for the different islands. Porto Rico is not large 15 enough to stand alone. We must govern it wisely and well, primarily in the interest of its own people. Cuba is, in my judgment, entitled ultimately to settle for itself whether it shall be an independent 20 state or an integral portion of the mightiest of republics. But until order and stable liberty are secured, we must remain in the island to insure them, and infinite tact, judgment, moderation, and courage 25 must be shown by our military and civil representatives in keeping the island pacified, in relentlessly stamping out brigandage, in protecting all alike, and yet in showing proper recognition to the men 30 who have fought for Cuban liberty. The Philippines offer a yet graver problem. Their population includes half-caste and native Christians, warlike Moslems, and wild pagans. Many of their people are 35 utterly unfit for self-government and show no signs of becoming fit. Others may in time become fit but at present can only take part in self-government under a wise supervision, at once firm and beneficent. 4° We have driven Spanish tyranny from the islands. If we now let it be replaced by savage anarchy, our work has been for harm and not for good. I have scant patience with those who fear to undertake 45 the task of governing the Philippines, and who openly avow that they do fear to undertake it, or that they shrink from it because of the expense and trouble; but I have even scantier patience with those 50 who make a pretense of humanitarianism to hide and cover their timidity, and who cant about liberty' and the consent of the governed,' in order to excuse themselves for their unwillingness to play the 55 part of men. Their doctrines, if carried out, would make it incumbent upon us to 5 leave the Apaches of Arizona to work out their own salvation, and to decline to interfere in a single Indian reservation. Their doctrines condemn your forefathers and mine for ever having settled in these United States. England's rule in India and Egypt has been of great benefit to England, for it has trained up generations of men accustomed to look at the larger and loftier side of public life. It has been of even greater benefit to India and Egypt. And finally, and most of all, it has advanced the cause of civilization. So, if we do our duty aright in the Philippines, we will add to that national renown which is the highest and finest part of national life, will greatly benefit the people of the Philippine Islands, and, above all, we will play our part well in the great work of uplifting mankind. But to do this work, keep ever in mind that we must show in a very high degree the qualities of courage, of honesty, and of good judgment. Resistance must be stamped out. The first and allimportant work to be done is to establish the supremacy of our flag. We must pu down armed resistance before we can accomplish anything else, and there should be no parleying, no faltering, in dealing with our foe. As for those in our own country who encourage the foe, we can afford contemptuously to disregard them. but it must be remembered that their utterances are not saved from being treasonable merely by the fact that they are despicable. When once we have put down armed resistance, when once our rule is acknowledged, then an even more difficult task will begin, for then we must see to it that the islands are administered with absolute honesty and with good judgment. If we let the public service of the islands he turned into the prey of the spoils politician, we shall have begun to tread the path which Spain trod to her own destruction. We must send out there only good and able men, chosen for their fitness, and not because of their partizan service, and these men must not only administer impartial justice to the natives and serve their own government with honesty and fidelity, but must show the utmost tact and firmness, remembering that, with such people as those with whom we are to deal, weakness is the greatest of crimes, and that next to weakness comes lack of consideration for their principles and prejudices. I preach to you, then, my countrymen, that our country calls not for the life of ease but for the life of strenuous endeavor. The twentieth century looms before us big with the fate of many nations. If we stand idly by, if we seek merely domination of the world. Let us therefore boldly face the life of strife, resolute to do our duty well and manfully; resolute to uphold righteousness by deed and by 5 word; resolute to be both honest and brave, to serve high ideals, yet to use practical methods. Above all, let us shrink from no strife, moral or physical, within or without the nation, provided we swollen, slothful ease and ignoble peace, 10 are certain that the strife is justified, for if we shrink from the hard contests where it is only through strife, through hard and dangerous endeavor, that we shall ultimately win the goal of true national great ness. Delivered at Chicago, April 10, 1899. MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN (1862- > The realism of the later years of the century, the depressed 'veritism' or 'naturalism' of the French school and of Thomas Hardy found its New England representative in Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. She was born in a New England village, Randolph, not far from Boston, and later she lived in a Vermont town where her father kept a country store. She received her education in small schools, and, then, after the death of her parents, at Mt. Holyoke Seminary. Her short stories, which began to appear in the eighties, seem to have been influenced little by the fiction of the period. They came from her experience of the more somber side of New England life, and they were spontaneous and artless. In her earlier volumes, like A Humble Romance, 1887, A New England Nun, 1891, and Pembroke, 1894, she painted pictures bare of ornament, severe, and cold. She dealt with repressed lives, with surroundings bare of joy,—the sad after-crop of Puritanism. She is at her best with the short story: her unit of measure is short. She can tell with convincing power the story of the culminating climax of a repressed life, but she is unable to trace convincingly the gradual development of a soul. In her later fiction she has become more and more a conscious artist, more finished, more ornate in style, but what she has gained in finish she has lost in convincingness and biting power. She will hold her place in American literature on account of her earlier tales, rather than the more conscious art of her later period. THE REVOLT OF MOTHER'1 'Father!' 'What is it?' 'What are them men diggin' over there in the field for?' There was a sudden dropping and enlarging of the lower part of the old man's face, as if some heavy weight had settled therein; he shut his mouth tight, and went 10 on harnessing the great bay mare. He hustled the collar on to her neck with a jerk. 'Father!' like a child in her brown cotton gown. Her forehead was mild and benevolent between the smooth curves of gray hair; there were meek downward lines about 5 her nose and mouth; but her eyes, fixed upon the old man, looked as if the meekness had been the result of her own will, never of the will of another. They were in the barn, standing before the wide open doors. The spring air, full of the smell of growing grass and unseen blossoms, came in their faces. The deep yard in front was littered with farm wagons and piles of wood; on the edges, close The old man slapped the saddle upon 15 to the fence and the house, the grass was the mare's back. But the woman understood; it was her 25 most native tongue. I ain't goin' into the house till you tell me what them men are doin' over there in the field,' said she. Then she stood waiting. She was a small woman, short and straight-waisted 30 1 Published by arrangement with Harper & Brothers, owners of the copyright. a vivid green, and there were some dandelions. The old man glanced doggedly at his wife as he tightened the last buckles on the harness. She looked as immovable to him as one of the rocks in his pastureland, bound to the earth with generations of blackberry vines. He slapped the reins over the horse, and started forth from the barn. 'Father!' said she. The old man pulled up. 'What is it?' 'I want to know what them men are diggin' over there in that field for.' They're diggin' a cellar, I s'pose, if you've got to know.' A cellar for what?' d "A barn.' 'A barn? You ain't goin' to build a barn over there where we was goin' to have a house, father?" The old man said not another word. He hurried the horse into the farm wagon, and clattered out of the yard, jouncing as sturdily on his seat as a boy. 5 her soft curves did not look as if they covered muscles. Her mother looked sternly at the boy. 'Is he goin' to buy more cows?' said she. The boy did not reply; he was tying his shoes. 'Sammy, I want you to tell me if he's goin' to buy more cows.' 'I s'pose he is.' 'How many?'. 'Four, I guess." The woman stood a moment looking after him, then she went out of the barn across a corner of the yard to the house. The house, standing at right angles with the great barn and a long reach of sheds and out-buildings, was infinitesimal compared with them. It was scarcely as com- 15 from a nail behind the door, took an old modious for people as the little boxes under the barn eaves were for doves.. A pretty girl's face, pink and delicaté as a flower, was looking out of one of the house windows. She was watching three 20 men who were digging over in the field which bounded the yard near the road line. She turned quietly when the woman entered. What are they digging for, mother?' 25 said she. Did he tell you?" " His mother said nothing more. She went into the pantry, and there was a clatter of dishes. The boy got his cap arithmetic from the shelf, and started for school. He was lightly built, but clumsy. He went out of the yard with a curious spring in the hips, that made his loose home-made jacket tilt up in the rear. The girl went to the sink, and began to wash the dishes that were piled up there. Her mother came promptly out of the pantry, and shoved her aside. You wipe 'em,' said she; 'I'll wash There's a good many this mornin'.' The mother plunged her hands vigorously into the water, the girl wiped the plates slowly and dreamily. 'Mother,' 30 said she, don't you think it's too bad father's going to build that new barn, much as we need a decent house to live in ?" A boy stood before the kitchen glass combing his hair. He combed slowly and painstakingly, arranging his brown hair. in a smooth hillock over his forehead. 35 He did not seem to pay any attention to the conversation: Her mother scrubbed a dish fiercely. You ain't found out yet we 're womenfolks, Nanny Penn,' said she. You ain't seen enough of men-folks yet to. One of these days you'll find it out, an' then you'll know that we know only what men40 folks think we do, so far as any use of it goes, an' how we'd ought to reckon menfolks in with Providence, an' not complain of what they do any more than we do of the weather.' He turned, and showed a face like his father's under his smooth crest of hair. Yes, I s'pose I did,' he said, reluctantly. 'How long have you known it?' asked 45 his mother. ''Bout three months, I guess.' "Why didn't you tell of it?' "Didn't think 't would do no good.' 'I don't see what father wants another 50 barn for,' said the girl, in her sweet, słow voice. She turned again to the window, and stared out at the digging men in the field: Her tender, sweet face was full of gentle distress. Her forehead was as 55 bald and innocent as a baby's, with the light hair strained back from it in a row of curl-papers. She was quite large, but 'I don't care; I don't believe George is anything like that, anyhow,' said Nanny. Her delicate face flushed pink, her lips pouted softly, as if she were going to cry. You wait an' see. I guess George Eastman ain't no better than other men. You had n't ought to judge father, though. He can't help it, 'cause he don't look at things jest the way we do. An' we've been pretty comfortable here, after all. The roof don't leak - ain't never but once - that's one thing. Father's kept it shingled right up.' 'I do wish we had a parlor.'^ the Penn family. Adoniram asked a blessing, and they ate promptly, then rose up and went about their work. Sammy went back to school, taking soft sly lopes out of the yard like a rabbit. He wanted a game of marbles before school, and feared his father would give him some chores to do. Adoniram hastened to the door and called after him, but he was out of sight. · side of it as faithfully as the inside. She 15 never much conversation at the table in was a masterly keeper of her box of a house. Her one living-room never seemed to have in it any of the dust which the friction of life with inanimate matter produces. She swept, and there 20 seemed to be no dirt, to go before the broom; she cleaned, and one could see no difference. She was like an artist so perfect that he has apparently no art. To-day she got out a mixing bowl and a 25 board, and rolled some pies, and there was no more flour upon her than upon her daughter who was doing finer work. Nanny was to be married in the fall, and she was sewing on some white cambric 30 and embroidery. She sewed industriously while her mother cooked, her soft milkwhite hands and wrists showed whiter than her delicate work. 'We must have the stove moved out 35 in the shed before long,' said Mrs. Penn. Talk about not havin' things, it's been a real blessin' to be able to put a stove up in that shed in hot weather. Father did one good thing when he fixed 40 that stove-pipe out there.' 'I don't see what you let him go for, mother,' said he. I wanted him to help me unload that wood.' Adoniram went to work out in the yard unloading wood from the wagon. Sarah put away the dinner dishes, while Nanny took down her curl-papers and changed her dress. She was going down to the store to buy some more embroidery and thread. When Nanny was gone, Mrs. Penn went to the door. Father!' she called. 'Well, what is it!! I've 'I want to see you jest a minute, father.' 'I can't leave this wood nohow. got to git it unloaded an' go for a load of gravel afore two o'clock. Sammy had ought to helped me. You had n't ought to let him go to school so early.' 'I want to see you jest a minute.' 'I tell ye I can't, nohow, mother.' 'Father, you come here.' Sarah Penn stood in the door like a queen; she held her head as if it bore a crown; there was that patience which makes authority royal in her voice. Adoniram went, Sarah Penn's face as she rolled her pies had that expression of meek vigor which might have characterized one of the New Testament saints. She was making mince- 45 pies. Her husband, Adoniram Penn, liked them better than any other kind. She baked twice a week. Adoniram often liked a piece of pie between meals. She hurried this morning. It had been later 50 than usual when she began, and she wanted to have a pie baked for dinner. However deep a resentment she might be forced to hold against her husband, she would never fail in sedulous attention to 55 to say to you.' his wants. Nobility of character manifests itself at loop-holes when it is not provided with Mrs. Penn led the way into the kitchen, and pointed to a chair. Sit down, father," said she; I've got somethin' I want He sat down heavily; his face was quite stolid, but he looked at her with restive eyes. Well, what is it, mother?' |