moral result of the struggle and the nature of the ideas which it stimulates."

The London Spectator gives a eulogy of the "splendid and unexpected manner in which Mr. McKinley has risen to the requirements of a high and difficult position. The president has developed latent talents showing him the possessor of many of Lincoln's great qualities. It would be remarkable if for the second time in a generation the American system of really an elective monarchy proves itself a strong system for dealing with a dangerous crisis. Europe may have been hasty in rejecting the very idea of an elective monarchy as fatal alike to stability and strength."

The war with Spain was not of the president's seeking. From a long line of predecessors he received the unsavory legacy of the Cuban question. The issue was forced upon him; it was his opportunity as well as his obligation, and he met the issues with the courage of his convictions. In diplomacy, he was direct, sincere, and wise, and whether from foresight or good fortune he was remarkably successful. He did not enter office in 1896 at the end of a brilliant career, but as an efficient and successful American statesman; and when as time passed and grave issues had to be met his versatility of talents was a surprise. When the nation trembled with passion, his wise words and good politics brought it to reason. And this was the more conspicuous because he had not always about him the best of advisers; among his ministers were those who did not hesitate to place in positions of high trust incompetent favorites instead of reliable officers of tried ability. As with Lincoln in the civil war, while arming for the conflict McKinley's best efforts were called forth to avert dissension at home and prevent interference from abroad. Any imprudence might lead to general conflict with the powers of Europe resulting in humiliation and disaster. Nothing would be lost but everything gained by moderation. One serious mistake would result in greater harm than many delays. Give the people time to consider what they want. Give Europe time. to become convinced of our inflexibility of purpose and purity of intentions, and that it is principle, not passion, that governs us. Give Spain time to realize the dire retribution which awaits her if she persists in her course of evil doing. James

K. Polk did not hesitate to force upon the country an unjust war with Mexico for more slave territory. But McKinley paused before the terrible arbitrament of war, as Washington paused on the brink of independence, and as Lincoln paused. before committing himself to the civil conflict as well as in the emancipation measure. And William McKinley, like Washington and Lincoln, will always be remembered by a grateful country as one of its few great presidents.

CHAPTER III

EUROPEAN BARBARISM IN AMERICA

EUROPE of the fifteenth century was barbaric; or, if civilized, it was a civilization as different from the culture and refinement of to-day as the civilization of the Roman differed from the barbarism of the German.

When Spain went forth to conquer the New World four hundred years ago, she was much the same as other nations of christendom in civility and humanity, much the same in cruelty and barbarity. In wealth and power she was equal to any, if not indeed superior to all. Later, some of them changed for the better, dropping the worst of their mediæval manners, and emerging from under the denser clouds of ignorance and superstition. But while other nations advanced, Spain remained stationary, and in some respects retrograded, still guided by the old spirit which drove out Mohammedans, killed Jews, and proselyted at the point of the sword. Hence we can understand how it was that Weyler's methods in Cuba were so like those of Cortés in Mexico and Pizarro in Peru.

In the administration of the Indies, New World affairs were at first divided into two great governments, one under the viceroy of New Spain and the other under the viceroy of Peru. Later a third viceroyalty was established at Santa Fé de Bogotá, with jurisdiction over the kingdom of Tierra Firme, and the provinces of Quito and Rio de la Plata. In the islands, and in the smaller or more distant provinces, the chief ruler might be a governor, or captain-general, or governorgeneral, the high ecclesiastic having always much to say about matters, and the military sometimes acquiring undue influence. Discovery and conquest were made for the king, from whom emanated all grants, and to whom reverted all tenures. All America, save Portugal's portion, was the property of the crown. The souls of the inhabitants were the property of

the church, which was subordinate to the sovereigns, the pope being nominally master. What the pope gave to Spain on behalf of his maker was not to the Spanish people, but to the Spanish sovereigns. Governors, magistrates, and all other officials, civil and ecclesiastical, were created and deposed at pleasure by the king. To the colonist belonged no rights or privileges apart from the crown. Municipalities might elect their own officials, but subject always to the approval of the crown. There was significance in the fact that the king of Spain had himself called also king of the Indies, indicating thereby that his transatlantic possessions were provinces, and integral parts of the crown domain, rather than colonies in the ordinary sense, with some sort of individuality and independence. The cédulas reales, by which the royal pleasure was expressed, formed in reality the first legislative code of the kingdom of the Indies, embodied in the Recopilacion de las Indias, back of which was that of Castile, and Las Siete Partidas, or the common law of Spain. After the establishment of the Council of the Indies, legislative power vested in that body under the king, and executive power in the captainsgeneral and viceroys under the king.

Finance, also, was based upon the theory that the king was owner of the land. Some of the natives paid a capitation tax; some a primicias, or first fruits tax; others gave in the aggregate eighteen months' service in the mines at various times between the ages of eighteen and fifty years. The church took a tenth of the proceeds of agriculture, and after this tax on the raw material, the prepared article, as indigo, sugar, and cochineal, paid another tax. Then there were the customs duties on articles of commerce, the alcabala, or vendor's duty, and from the product of the mines the king's fifth and other royalties. Tobacco salt and cards were crown monopolies. Many of the offices of the colonies were sold by auction to the highest bidder, the purchaser's profit to be ground out of the colonists. After manufactures had been driven from the Peninsula, goods from abroad must be entered at Cádiz and pay a heavy duty; on leaving Spain another duty; still another on entering Mexico or Peru; after that bribes, commissions, notary fees, and the seller's profit made the price to the purchaser in the New World three or five times the original cost.

Meanwhile the sovereigns of Spain as a rule were not so bad as their agents. They were bad enough, however, suspicious, treacherous, and mendacious, the kind of masters to make the worst of servants; but they frowned on robbery, unless it were for their benefit; they forbade the enslavement of the Indian, though they permitted the systems of repartimientos, or partitioning the lands of the natives among the conquerors and adventurers, and encomiendas, under which the natives of the conquered country, as well as their lands, were assigned to the conquerors and made tributary to them. Fine distinctions! The natives were held with the soil and must work, but they were not slaves. When the Indians fell ill and died from unaccustomed labor and cruel treatment, the adventurers, who would by no means work themselves, began to complain that the Indians were willing to die but they would not work, that without laborers their lands were worthless and the mines of no value, and without returns the sovereigns might as well throw away their Indies. Then the Portuguese and Spanish, the English and Dutch being not far behind them, took pity on the poor Indian, whose carcass was worth no more than the living body, and seeking to save him suggested to their sovereigns the naked black men of the African jungles, who were not of their fold, telling how they were able to endure severe labor under a tropical sun better than the native American; wherefore the humane rulers of Europe permitted their merchants and seamen to buy or steal black men from the Gold Coast, and bring them to the Indies, and so save their own people. Such was the quality of their kindness, these sovereigns, so very like Weyler's in Cuba!

As early as 1503 the inhabitants of the discovered islands were declared free, but their freedom was worse than slavery, the man's labor belonging to the conqueror, at a wage of the governor's naming, but without property in the man, and hence indifferent as to his welfare. Such was the freedom Spain gave her distant subjects from the first, the sovereigns not always meaning to be cruel, much of the injustice practised being due to infamous agents. As in the days of Isabella of Castile, who censured the Genoese for enslaving Indians, so the present Isabel of Spain, let us hope, were she free to act, would scarcely sanction the work of her governor-generals done in Cuba in her name.