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THE REVIEW OF REVIEWS.

VOL. V.

NEW YORK, MARCH, 1892.

No. 26.

THIS

THE PROGRESS OF THE WORLD.

HIS being a political year, let us make the most of it as such. It ought to be a year of fruitful discussion, of progress in wise reforms, and of much popular growth in sound political knowledge. Intelligent American citizens whose views and interests are broad enough to make them glad to profit by the experience of other countries will not object to a timely reminder of the disadvantage at which we appear when our methods in practical politics are compared with English methods. England still maintains privileged classes, an established church, and a hundred mediæval anomalies in her laws and government that do violence to our American theories of individual equality, local selfrule, and modern institutional and political symmetry. And these survivals that contravene the modern spirit furnish the fighting-ground for Liberals and Conservatives. The kinds of questions that divide parties in England were practically all settled by our American forefathers fully a hundred years ago, and their settlement is accepted by everybody. But in England there are certain principles and rules governing the conduct of a political fight that all parties are agreed in respecting and any political leader who should be found guilty of abetting their violation would be ostracized by his own party. Those rules require electoral fairness and honor. They condemn corruption and technical tricks intended to defeat the popular will.

Honest Poli

In this country to-day we are hearing the tics the Main suggestion of novel methods of choosing Issue. presidential electors for possible party advantage; the air is full of gerrymandering devices for defeating essential justice and violating honor and decency; in the pursuance of party ends party majorities in the legislatures.decide contested seats without pretence of regard for fairness; if ballot-boxes are less frequently stuffed or stolen than a decade ago, there is little abatement of the villanous trickery by which partisan returning boards juggle in the counting; fraudulent naturalizations continue to be made under party auspices; caucuses

are manipulated and conventions are packed; local, State, and national offices are bartered by the tens of thousands in return for personal political services; enormous sums of money are mysteriously expended to procure desired political results. There was a time when many, if not all, of these abuses flourished in England; but they are a thing of the past. It is time for a political revolution in the United States against chicanery, The Republican or the Democratic politician who will attempt to gerrymander the districts of his State should be hissed into obscurity. There are no political issues at stake in this country which are to be compared in importance with the broad issue between decent and honest methods on the one hand and the indecent methods of rascals and tricksters on the other. Every good citizen has a special mission this year; it is his business to stand firmly in his own sphere of influence for honesty and fair play in politics. THE REVIEW OF REVIEWS adheres to no party and lends itself to no faction; but it will always endeavor, without timidity or apology, to promote all that may make for the elevation of the standard of our public life. It is for civil service reform. It is for electoral reform. It is against the tricks and devices of machine politics.

Last month THE REVIEW gave its readers two pen pictures of the politician who had become so conspicuous as an aspirant for the presidency through his mastery, by machine methods, of the Democratic party in New York. The climax of Mr. Hill's audacity seems to have been reached when he fixed February 22 as the date for holding the State convention to choose delegates to the presidential convention which will assemble late in June at Chicago. He counted upon securing a solid Hill delegation from New York, with a view to its influence upon the subsequent action of other State conventions.

Mr. Hill could not have anticipated the strength of the protest in his party against a convention three months earlier than usual, planned to surprise the Cleveland men and the anti-Hill elements generally and to forestall their organization. Unques

tionably in Democratic circles Mr. Cleveland is regarded as the man who stands for principles and policies of statesmanship and for honesty and honor in political methods, while Mr. Hill is regarded as the very prince of caucus-workers and "machine" manipulators. Mr. Hill's success in tactics that give the Democrats a majority in the present State

HON. GROVER CLEVELAND.

(From a recent photograph by Wilhelm, New York.)

Senate in face of the indisputed fact that the Republicans actually elected a majority, appears to be reacting against him in the estimation of his own party throughout the country. The Cleveland men are outspoken, and it would now seem very probable that they can prevent Mr. Hill's nomination at Chicago, while on the other hand Mr. Hill's following will probably block the renomination of Mr. Cleveland. The situation renders the selection of a Western man altogether likely. Quite apart from the personality of candidates, there ought to be such a formidable demand on the part of good citizens for honesty and fair dealing that in the campaigning of the current year the tricksters

and their impudent practices shall be at a heavy discount.

Mr. Blaine

Mr. Harrison.

The Washington correspondents have and been much exercised through February over the reports of impending Cabinet changes. The most interesting of authentic politiIcal events was Mr. Blaine's letter to Chairman Clarkson, of the National Republican Committee, declaring that he was not a candidate for the presidency, and that his name would not be presented before the convention at Minneapolis in June. It is supposed, as a matter of course, that the precarious state of Mr. Blaine's health affords the primary reason for this letter. An additional reason would seem to be the constant dissemination of gossip to the effect that serious personal differences had arisen between the President and Mr. Blaine, growing out of rivalry for the nomination; and Mr. Blaine must have hoped to put an end to these mischievous slanders, for which no basis of fact has been discoverable. It is unanimously admitted that Mr. Blaine could have the Minneapolis nomination if he desired it. His letter does not say that he would absolutely refuse a nomination if tendered to him. But it was evidently written in good faith, and he has put aside all thought of seeking the honor that was once his laudable ambition. The politicians have accepted the letter as Mr. Blaine intended that they should do, and no movement is on foot to make him President. Mr. Harrison's renomination is deemed probable. If Americans could but forget their fierce party prejudices long enough to make a calm comparison of Mr. Harrison's administration with that of any other contemporary executive government in either hemisphere, they would have no cause to be ashamed of their country. The departments have been manned with great efficiency, and Mr. Harrison himself has shown a rare versatility and an unexpected grasp of difficult problems. He is not only a skilled speech-maker and a writer of able state papers, but he is a practical statesman.

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parties who would be glad to see the tradition of a second term pass away to the limbo where all attempts to create the precedent of a third term have been relegated. President Grant's record is clouded by the unwisdom of his consent to be a candidate for a third term. President Hayes acted from beginning to end like a man who had no thought of a renewal of power; and the fact will be forever recorded to his credit. President Garfield died too soon to give evidence of any desire for re-election, and Mr. Arthur acceded to the White House too unexpectedly and too little known to conceive of it as even possible that he should develop within two or three years into an active aspirant for an added four years of power. Yet the political history of his last year in office is that of a very formidable candidate. Mr. Cleveland began his term with the most conspicuous characterization any man has ever made of the demoralizing effects that inevitably flow from the insidious desire that creeps over a President once installed in power to renew that power for a further lease; and Mr. Cleveland announced himself as a one-term man. He had unwittingly described his own case in advance, for he soon gave point to his moral. The political history of the last half of his term was that of a President who was employing his great power and authority with a very considerable reference to the control of his party in the nominating convention of 1888. So far as we are aware, Mr. Harrison has never expressed himself as adverse to a second term, either in theory or in practice. That he is a candidate for renomination is assumed on all hands. But that his really creditable administration would have gained much higher prestige if the glittering possibility of a second term had not existed, seems to us too obvious for difference of opinion. What magnificent service Mr. Cleveland might have rendered the country if he had stood firm by his original intention declined a second term as Washington declined a third, and fixed a one-term precedent which the country would surely have honored, and which successors would not have ventured the attempt to override! He allowed himself to be persuaded to seek a renomination, and was defeated. It is just possible that the country itself will break down the two-term tradition by treating future candidates for re-election in this same fashion. Up to date the presidential chair has been occupied by Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland, and Harrison since Grant completed a second term. If the list of reelected Presidents is to close finally, Lincoln and Grant might fittingly be the last names, as Washington and Jefferson were the first. Second terms too commonly mean patronage and spoils.

The Cabinet,

Wanamaker.

Mr. Blaine indignantly denied the report Especially Mr.persistently sent out by the newspaper correspondents just after his letter to Mr. Clarkson, that he was on the point of retiring from the Cabinet. The country has been prepared, however, for nearly a year to hear at any time that the Secretary's health had made the further retention of his portfolio impossible. The report that Secretary Noble would resign from the Department of the Interior and would be appointed to the bench has also been current. Mr. Wanamaker's early retirement is, moreover, one of the articles of faith of those mystery-mongers, the Washington correspondents. Of all the members of this Cabinet, 'Mr. Wanamaker

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PRESIDENT BENJAMIN HARRISON.

has been subjected to the most immoderate personal criticisms. These animadversions have to do, however, not so much with his conduct in office as with his activity in collecting campaign funds in 1888, his mercantile business in Philadelphia, and his zeal in Sunday-school work. Mr. Wanamaker deserves the praise of all good citizens for the business ability and the great energy he has infused into the administration of his department. It is his laudable ambition to transform the incomplete and fossilized postal service of the United States into a modern system, using the best scientific appliances of the times. He has the splendid audacity to make

The country has suffered loss in the death Greatness of the Supreme of Justice Bradley, who for nearly twenty Court. years, with ability and fidelity, had occupied a place upon the Supreme bench at Washington. Several occurrences of note have within a few weeks illustrated the commanding influence our highest tribunal exerts and the confidence in which the whole world holds it. One such instance has been the offer of the Chilian Government to refer to this court for final arbitrament all differences between that Government and our own. The recent action of the British Government in carrying before the Supreme Court a test case involving the mooted questions of jurisdiction in the Behring Sea may also be mentioned. The more recent judicial history of the Itata's seizure and pursuit

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HON. JAMES G. BLAINE.

official reports which advocate "one-cent letter postage, three-cent telephone messages, and ten-cent telegraph messages, as near possibilities under an enlightened and compact postal system." He argues strenuously for postal savings banks, is extending the free-delivery system everywhere, is increasing the money-order offices by many thousands, and is working with might and main for a score of great postal reforms which, taken together, would be of immeasurable benefit to the people, especially in the rural districts, and which, when fairly presented and understood, must arouse a popular enthusiasm that no opposition can withstand. Whatever irrelevant things may be alleged against Mr. Wanamaker, he is earning the right to be called a great Postmaster-General. If his ardor for modern improvements and for a great service worthy the inventive and organizing ability of this nation should at times seem to overbalance his practical judgment, the fault lies chiefly in the apathy or misinformation of the public. The American postal service might be made the wonder and envy of the whole world. Mr. Wanamaker is upheld in his proposals by exPostmaster-General James and other experts, and the average citizen ought to be his stout supporter. The one-cent letter-rate is not advocated by Mr. Wanamaker as an innovation to be introduced at once; but the other reforms that he urges would lead up to it within five years. Business men are preferable to politicians in the Postmaster-General's office.

POSTMASTER-GENERAL WANAMAKER.

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