Vol. 68

ernor

No city or State official Ex-Mayor Pingree in our time has occupied a larger place in the public eye than the "fighting Mayor" and "fighting Govwho died in London last week in his sixty-second year. Hazen S. Pingree was the son of a Maine farmer in poor circumstances, his business abilities, like those of most captains of industry, being an inheritance only in the sense that they were born of his family necessities. While still a child, he entered a cotton-mill to earn his living, and a little later learned the business of shoemaking; this he never left except, when the Civil War broke out and he enlisted in the First Massachusetts Heavy Artillery—the first man in his village to enlist. At the close of the war he settled in Detroit and worked at shoemaking until he had saved enough to start a small factory of his own, in company with C. H. Smith, who remained his partner for years. It is interesting to note that the sum which then enabled him to become a manufacturer was $400. he was first nominated for Mayor in Detroit in 1889, that city was Democratic by a normal majority of three thousand. This majority was overcome, partly through the popularity which Mr. Pingree had achieved as an employer who had never known a strike, but chiefly by the tremendous energy of his campaign and the transparent sincerity of his promises to free the people from the manifest wrongs perpetrated by corporations holding city franchises. These promises he redeemed by means of a struggle which made him a National figure. In this struggle he not only had the opposition of the corporations directly interested, but also of the most influential papers in his city, which refused even to publish his statements of the public side of some of the controversies. The Mayor, however, was not to be dismayed by any sort of opposition, and when the

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papers refused to print his statements, he erected a bulletin board at the City Hall. The public did hear what he had to say, and uniformly gave him in the end enthusiastic support. The result of his efforts was a substantial reduction of the price of gas, the introduction of three-cent fares upon the competing trolley line chartered. during his term, the establishment of a municipal electric light plant, and, in general, the gaining of better terms for the public all along the line.

Ex-Governor Pingree

When elected Governor after serving six terms as Mayor, Mr. Pingree began to work for the State in the same spirit in which he had worked for the city. The chief measure to which he gave his efforts was the taxation of the property of corporations upon its market value, in the same manner in which the homes and farms of individuals are taxed, and at the same rates. This measure was resisted by corporate influences in the Legislature, and when first enacted was overthrown by the courts. When the Governor tried to secure a Constitutional amendment authorizing it, the mass of the people and the conventions of all parties heartily supported him, but the Legislature refused to submit the amendment to the people until he called it together in special session during the campaign preceding the Presidential election. The popular vote in favor of the amendment was simply overwhelming, the opposition mustering hardly a corporal's guard. This year's Legislature passed in a slightly modified form the act for which the Governor had so long struggled, and the railways of Michigan are now taxable upon their selling value at the same rates as real estate, a State Board estimating their value from the market price of their

stocks and bonds. When Governor Pingree left his executive office at the beginning of this year, his popularity was temporarily under a cloud, his opposition to expansion having alienated supporters in his party, and his wholesale granting of paroles having alienated supporters in both parties. But the record made by the present Legislature, unrestrained by his influence, had completely re-established his old prestige, and when the news of his sickness was telegraphed to this country, his fellow-citizens were already engaged in preparing for him such a reception as had never been given to a returning public official. He made many enemies, and was severely criticised even by political sympathizers for self-assertion and for recklessness of speech, but his career was that of a man who weighed his deeds even if he did not weigh his words, and who asserted the rights of the poor even when his own popularity was thereby jeopardized. He was charged with having assailed the rights of prop erty; but no man in our time has done more to give concrete reality to Emerson's distinction between good wealth and bad wealth-between wealth that is earned and wealth that is merely capitalized extortion. The fight which he made against the perpetuation of unearned dividends on watered securities will in the end make safer and surer the payment of earned dividends upon capital actually invested in any form of industry. All over this country his struggles have given courage to those who are battling for the maintenance of the rights of the common people.

Not since the breakThe West Virginia Flood ing of the Johnstown dam has water played such havoc as in the flood in West Virginia on Saturday of last week. Throughout that day and night an extraordinarily heavy downpour of rain fell in the Elkhorn Creek Valley, a prosperous mining region in the extreme southern part of West Virginia. The Elkhorn Creek, which flows through a basin surrounded by high mountain ranges, and, being fed by many small mountain streams, rises rapidly, spread in a few hours over the surrounding country, washing away the town of Keystone, destroying railway tracks and bridges for thirty

miles, and bringing death and disaster to the inhabitants of the region. Many escaped from their inundated dwellings to the higher ground. When the train on the Norfolk and Western Railway reached Vivian on Sunday morning, it met the flood and could go no further. The passengers had to be rescued from the water that filled the cars by ropes strung from the windows to the tops of coke-ovens still standing some distance away. Telegraphic communication west of Bluefield is cut off, so that the full extent of the calamity cannot at this writing be known. Present estimates put the loss of life at nearly a hundred; the damage to property may amount to a million dollars.

The Barker Care

The State of New Jersey, and in some sense the whole country, is to be congratulated on the verdict of guilty so promptly rendered by the jury in the case of the trial of Mr. Thomas G. Barker for the shooting of the Rev. John Keller last February. The evidence in this case appears to indicate that Mr. Barker's wife, whom charity will regard as not sane, preferred certain charges to her husband against her former pastor, whereupon her husband, without, so far as it appears, making any further inquiry or investigation, waylaid the minister and shot him. That he did not kill his intended victim appears to have been due rather to the imperfection of his aim than to any lack of murderous purpose. The court did not allow the charges against Mr. Keller to be laid in form before the jury, though the counsel for the defense succeeded in bringing out something of those charges by indirect methods. No one, however, appears to have taken them seriously, unless it were the defendant and his wife; the unfortunate clergyman, who has lost the use of one eye and nearly lost the use of the other as a result of the shooting, appears to be absolutely without any suspicion of ill behavior on the part of those who know him best. It ought by this time to be settled that in civilized communities no husband may take the law into his own hands, make himseif judge, jury, and sheriff, try and convict an accused with out giving him a hearing or explaining to

dered a further service in the matter of exposing the value of the public property turned over to private individuals in Philadelphia by the scandalous franchise ordinances of week before last. Representative Foederer, one of the machine coterie to whom the franchises were granted, had intimated in a reported interview that Mr. Wanamaker's offer of $2,500,000 to the city for these franchises was not sincere. Mr. Wanamaker, in a reply, renews the offer in the most explicit terms, and offers a further bonus of half a million dollars to Mr. Foederer and his associates if they will release the rights for which they paid nothing unless for the corruption of officials. "In addition to this," he continues, "I will agree, on the surface roads covered by your charters and the ordinances, that three-cent fares only shall be charged between the hours of 5 and 8 A.M. and 5 and 7 P.M., and not over five cents for the other hours." This last offer is worth as much to the poor of the city as was the first offer to the direct taxpayers. Indeed, it is worth more, for it means a saving of twelve dollars a year to all working people who ride to and from their work, and a great saving of time and strength to others who would ride if the fares were lower. That three-cent fares during the "rush" hours are profitable is clear to any one who notes the crowding of the cars at these hours, even if he knows nothing of the profitableness of three-cent fares in Detroit and Toronto. Mr. Albert Johnson, the head of the inter-State system of trolley lines who offered three-cent fares all day if given the Philadelphia franchises, states that he found five-cent fares to Coney Island profitable in Brooklyn, where he had to give three-eighths of his capital to a syndicate for his franchise, and used cars with only half the seating capacity of those now employed. Fortunately, we

are able to record that the indecent haste of the Philadelphia city government in giving to a political clique franchises worth several millions, and authorizing five-cent fares when three-cent fares were offered, has awakened the public as no other event has done in years, and the prospects are now bright for a union of all the independent elements in a municipal campaign against the machine which is responsible for the recent outrages.

The Decision Against

Preferred Creditors

The vital clause of the new bankruptcy law is the one forbidding the giving of preferences to certain creditors to the injury of others; and the Supreme Court has now upheld this clause in a way that gives it even greater vitality than the supporters of the law contemplated. The case passed upon was one in which the bankrupt firm of Frank Brothers in Chicago had bought $4,300 worth of goods of Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co. within four months of its assignment, paying thereon $1,300. The trustees of the bankrupt firm took the position that Carson & Co. must return this $1,300 or lose its right to share in the subsequent equal division of the bankrupt's estate among all the creditors. The Supreme Court has upheld this interpretation of the law, and the National Credit Association at its recent meeting in Cleveland has in consequence adopted a resolution calling for such an amendment of the bankruptcy law as will prevent the "construing of payments upon accounts made within four months of the adjudication in bankruptcy as preferences, which, unless surrendered, bar the creditor from participation in the distribution of the assets of the bankrupt estate." It is easy to understand the sentiment which impelled the adoption of this resolution, for it is indeed a hardship for an honest wholesale dealer to be obliged to pay back money which he has already collected in the ordinary course of business; but unless he is willing to submit to this hardship we can see no way in which he can prevent the renewed giving of preferences to competitors less lenient with the bankrupt, or even to dishonest persons in collusion with the bankrupt to defraud the sellers of goods. The moral evils inseparable from the permission of preferences

make dangerous any modification of the present law which will afford a loophole for the creeping back of the old abuses.

Civil Government in the Philippines

It is semi-officially announced that civil government will be established in the Philippine Islands on July 4, and that Judge W. H. Taft has been designated as Civil Governor. No details are given by the telegraphic despatch to which we are indebted for this intelligence, but some contemporaneous news is, in the light of this despatch, of special interest. The Commission has created courts,

appointing as judges some Filipinos and some Americans, and it has attempted a solution of the difficult problem in what language shall judicial proceedings be carried on, by providing that both the American and the Spanish languages shall be used. This language problem is a more difficult one than the daily papers seem to have recognized. The law in all Latin countries, inherited from Imperial Rome, is rather an instrument of power in the hands of the strong than a bulwark against oppression furnished to the weak. How Latin law can be used for purposes of oppression, and how ineffective it is for purposes of defense, was strikingly illus trated in the Dreyfus case in France. If we are to establish a just government in our new Spanish possessions, our first duty is to substitute, not necessarily AngloSaxon methods, but certainly Anglo-Saxon principles for Spanish principles, in all judicial proceedings, and especially in criminal law; but if all proceedings are to be carried on in the Spanish language, they must be carried on by judges who are accustomed to Spanish methods and are imbued with the Spanish spirit. If Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence is to take the place of Spanish jurisprudence, there must be a certain proportion of American judges on the bench; and as most American judges are unfamiliar with the Spanish language, the English language must be used to some extent at least. How to carry over the Philippine Islands from a rule of Spanish injustice through judicial proceedings to a rule of Anglo-Saxon justice is the problem which the Filipino Commission has to confront; and, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, we must assume that its construction of

a composite court and its determination to use both the Spanish and the English languages in the courts indicate its recognition of the present transitional period.

Of scarcely less imof greater importance, is the intelligence portance, possibly

Schools in the Philippines

that our officers are acting as schoolteachers in many provinces, and that the School Superintendent, Mr. Atkinson, has cabled to the United States, according to one report, for five hundred, according to a later report for a thousand, American teach

ers.

It is said that the Filipinos are very anxious to acquire the English language. This report is inherently probable, since everything indicates that they have no affection for the Spanish régime, and no liking for anything which suggests the continuance of that régime. It is true that Commissioner Harris, for whose judgment we have very great respect, in his address before the National Educational Association in July, 1899, urged that only one lesson per day should be given in English. "More than this," he said, "would be liable to the suspicion that we desired to substitute English for Spanish in our new possessions, and such suspicion would embarrass and even render futile all our efforts at improving their schools." The wisdom of this suggestion, however, appears to us largely to depend upon the question whether the Filipinos are desirous of continuing their education in Spanish or of transforming their schools into English schools. The old adage that any man can lead a horse to water, but ten men cannot make him drink, applies preeminently to educational systems. The extent to which English should be made the basis of education in the Filipino schools depends largely upon the desires of the Filipinos themselves. If it is not safe, on the one hand, to make the teaching of English compulsory, it is not wise, on the other, to make the schools less English than the people desire. Our efforts should keep pace with their aspirations.

in the place of military government, but also by the establishment of free trade between the United States and Porto Rico. Our readers will remember that the Foraker Act, which imposed a tariff upon all imports and exports between the United States and Porto Rico, provided that the Porto Ricans might abolish this tariff whenever they were prepared to meet the expenses of government by an internal revenue system. They may also remember that the proposition of the Porto Rican Legislature to levy a land tax for the purpose of meeting those expenses met with vigorous protest on the part of landowners in the island. It is difficult at this distance, and from the conflicting reports, to ascertain accurately the facts; but we judge that the protest of the landowners was very analogous to that which always comes from any body of men anywhere on whom a new tax is levied, and that those interested in the commercial development of the island believe that its interests will be better promoted by levying taxation on the land than by levying it on imports and exports. At all events, the so-called Hollander Law was enacted by the Porto Rican Legislature; the President refused to interfere, and it is now said that the receipts of the island under the Hollander Law will be sufficient to meet the expenses of the Government, and that, as a consequence, free trade will be promulgated between the island and the United States on or about July 4. It is proper to note in this connection that if the decision of the Supreme Court had been that the Constitution follows the flag, the whole internal revenue system of the United States would have been necessarily applied to the island of Porto Rico; and it is at least a question whether the system adopted by the Administration, allowing the Porto Ricans to determine their own system of taxation, is not more likely to be in accordance with their interests, as it certainly is more in accordance with democratic principles.

The reciprocity polReciprocity of Injury icy half-heartedly proclaimed at Washington is not yielding the promised fruits. The reciprocity treaties with various countries, framed with so

much care by the Hon. John A. Kasson, of Iowa, special Reciprocity Commissioner, were all so unceremoniously rejected or neglected by the Senate that the Commissioner, with true dignity, resigned his post, and when, at the President's request, he consented to resume it, he refused to accept any further salary while the office remained useless. Every treaty that promised to increase our exports necessarily promised to increase our imports in payment for them, and these imports of course always competed, directly or indirectly, with home productions in some quarter of the country. Some Senator or Senators in the quarter affected seemed always ready to use every possible means to defeat the pending treaties, and, by appealing to the prejudice against the free-trade theory" that exports must be paid for in the products of the labor of other countries, the means used proved successful. Every reciprocity measure providing for increased commerce has been defeated, but at the same time the "reciprocity' clauses in the Dingley Bill providing for retaliation upon countries discriminating against our products have manifested unexpected vitality. Not many weeks ago our manufacturers of machinery learned to their dismay that Russia had increased her duties on many of our iron products because we were levying additional taxes on her bounty-fed sugar, and last week our manufacturers of resin and of bicycles. were chagrined to find that Russia had imposed additional duties on these exports from America, because we were discriminating against Russian oil products in retaliation for Russia's duty upon American petroleum. There is only one hopeful side to these mutual recriminations, and that is that they may force home the truth that all trade is reciprocal, and that with what measure any nation metes, it is measured to it again. The whole episode might well lead Commissioner Kasson to repeat with renewed emphasis what he said as a Representative from Iowa in 1866: "What you call protection amounts, therefore, simply to a system of equal robbery, taking from one home interest in order to pay another. . . . If we go on in the present plan, . . . there is not another country upon the face of the globe that will contribute one cent to enrich the people of the United States."