people as his greatest legacy, stand as the soberest, the most practical, the wisest and at the same time, as, in the highest sense, the most idealistic utterance that ever came from an American statesman.

And now, to close the proceedings of the evening, for which I cannot thank you too much, and which, so long as I live, will be one of my proudest and most cherished memories, raise your glasses and drink to the sentiment I offer you:

Our country, the great Republic of the United States of America. May it ever prosper and flourish as the government of, for and by the people; as the home of free and happy generations, and as an example and guiding star to all mankind!

TO CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, JR.

NEW YORK, March 11, 1899.

I should have thanked you for your letter of the 5th more promptly had I not all these days been literally pursued by kindness. It was exceedingly gratifying to me personally, but it interfered very much with my regular occupations, and especially with my correspondence.

What you say of the character and spirit of the banquet of March 2d is undoubtedly true. It was indeed a demonstration of the unrepresented. The only power to counteract the faults and evil tendencies of political organization in our political concerns consists in the influence which the unrepresented may still exercise upon public opinion; and that influence counts after all for a great deal.

I am, for instance, not at all without hope that persevering discussion may at last defeat the imperialistic policy. That policy would certainly be defeated if the

Democratic party could get rid of the silver nonsense. But even if that should not happen, the agitation in favor of a conservative policy may be made so strong as to frighten the Republican leaders out of their present conceits. At least, we should try. There is at any rate a fighting chance.

Of course, this does not touch the fundamental trouble so well pointed out by you in your banquet speech. But the influence upon public opinion which the unrepresented possess, may serve to prevent the worst results of that trouble.

Let me thank you once more for the kindness which prompted you to take so prominent and impressive a part in the demonstration of March 2d.

FROM JAMES BRYCE

Mar. 17, 1899.

I have just heard that you have been the recipient of an imposing mass of congratulations, good wishes and grateful acknowledgments for public service rendered; and that these manifestations of respect and indebtedness have proceeded both from your German brethren and from many of the most weighty and worthy native born American citizens. Will you let me have the pleasure of adding my congratulations on your birthday, and expressing to you my sincere admiration for the consistent courage, rectitude and dignity of your public You have been one of the few who have in politics thought always first of truth and of duty, who have never sacrificed your principles to your interests, who have always pointed out high ideals to your fellow-citizens while following them yourself.

career.

Commending myself to your friendly recollection, and trusting that your brilliant gifts may long be available for the public good, I am always faithfully yours.

MILITARISM AND DEMOCRACY

The subject of "Militarism and Democracy," which has been assigned to me for discussion, is at the present moment of peculiar interest. We are apt to speak boastfully of the progressive civilization characterizing this age. While the very foundation of all civilization consists in the dispensation of justice by peaceable methods between nations as well as individuals, instead of the rule of brute force, it is a singular fact that at the close of this much-vaunted nineteenth century we behold the nations of the world vying with each other in increasing their armaments on land and sea, exhausting all the resources of inventive genius and spending the treasure produced by human labor with unprecedented lavishness to develop means of destruction for the defense of their possessions, or the satisfaction of national ambitions, or the settlement of international differences, on a scale never before known.

Thus the very advances in the sciences and the arts which constitute one part of our modern civilization are pressed into the service of efforts to perfect the engineries of death, devastation and oppression, which are to make brute force in our days more and more terrible and destructive, and to render the weak more and more helpless as against the strong. It looks as if the most civilized Powers, although constantly speaking of peace, were preparing for a gigantic killing-and-demolishing match such as the most barbarous ages have hardly ever witnessed, and this at the expense of incalculable sacrifice to their peoples.

Nothing could in this respect be more instructive and pathetic than the appeal in behalf of peace and disarma'An address before the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences at Philadelphia, April 7, 1899.

Hearty thanks are given to the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences for generous consent to this reprint.

ment addressed last year by the Czar of Russia to all the Powers represented at his court. Of that appeal this is the principal part:

In the course of the last twenty years the longings for a general appeasement have grown especially pronounced in the consciences of civilized nations. The preservation of peace has been put forward as the object of international policy; it is in its name that great states have concluded between themselves powerful alliances; it is the better to guarantee peace that they have developed in proportions hitherto unprecedented their military forces and still continue to increase them without shrinking from any sacrifice.

All these efforts, nevertheless, have not yet been able to bring about the beneficent results of the desired pacification. The financial charges following an upward march strike at the public prosperity at its very source.

The intellectual and physical strength of the nations, labor and capital, are for the major part diverted from their natural application, and unproductively consumed. Hundreds of millions are devoted to acquiring terrible engines of destruction, which, though to-day regarded as the last word of science, are destined to-morrow to lose all value in consequence of some fresh discovery in the same field.

National culture, economic progress and the production of wealth are either paralyzed or checked in their development. Moreover, in proportion as the armaments of each Power increase, so do they less and less fulfil the object which the Governments have set before themselves.

The economic crises, due in great part to the system of armaments à outrance, and the continual danger which lies in this massing of war material, are transforming the armed peace of our days into a crushing burden, which the peoples have more and more difficulty in bearing. It appears evident, then, that if this state of things were prolonged it would inevitably lead to the very cataclysm which it is desired to avert, and the horrors of which make every thinking man shudder in advance.

VOL. VI.-4

There has been much discussion as to the motives which may have impelled the Czar to make this appeal. Many of those who consider him sincere, call the manifesto a mere outburst of generous sentimentality which, although laudable in itself, loses sight of existing conditions and of the practical exigencies of the moment. If it really was mere generous sentimentality, it was sentimentality of that sort which in the history of mankind has not seldom served to give impulse and inspiration to great movements of progress in justice and humanity, overcoming with its optimism that dreary and pusillanimous wisdom which reasons that existing evils cannot be rectified simply because they are strongly intrenched in existing conditions. If it was that sentimentalism, it did honor to the Czar's heart, and, inasmuch as it attacks a terrible evil which eventually must be remedied, it did no discredit to the Czar's head.

Others have questioned the Czar's sincerity and good faith, suggesting that the peace manifesto was merely a diplomatic stratagem designed to dupe his competitors for territorial conquest. This is, in view of the solemnity of the Czar's words, so atrocious an imputation that only hardened cynicism will readily accept it. It is, however, all the more to be deplored that the Czar, at the time when the belief of the world in the sincerity of his benevolent purposes is so important, should himself endanger that belief by ruthlessly suppressing the constitutional rights and liberties of the good people of Finland, which he had solemnly sworn to maintain, and which his predecessors, even so stern a despot as Nicholas I., had faithfully respected. The performance of two acts so different in character by the same person may be explained on the hypothesis that in the one case the Czar, being sincerely alarmed by what he himself experienced of the evils and dangers of excessive armaments, could not resist the impulse of attacking them, and did so in good faith, while