ignorance or recklessness of the sensational American press was shown last week by its repetition of such headlines as "War Within Forty-eight Hours," "Constantinople to be Bombarded." In point of fact, there has been no serious danger of war; for one reason, Turkey is totally unable to cope with France at sea, and war with a Power like France is the last thing which the Porte desires. The matter in dispute concerned the quays which have been constructed in Constantinople by a French company, with the understanding that they were to be taken over by the Turkish Government under certain conditions. The Sultan, as usual, has broken his promises about this matter, and has neither allowed the French company freedom of action nor allowed it to carry out the option granted to it of selling to the Turkish Government. Promises were made by the Government that the quays should be purchased, and that a loan of eight million dollars should be raised for that purpose. After repeated postponements the French Ambassador insisted that this promise should be fulfilled by noon of Monday of last week; as it was not fulfilled, the French Ambassador to Constantinople, M. Constans, notified the Sultan that diplomatic relations were broken off between the two countries. Later on a direct warning, which had somewhat the nature of an ultimatum, was sent to the Sultan that the French Ambassador would leave Constantinople at a given date unless an understanding was reached. Finally, on Friday of last week, an Imperial irade, or decree, was issued, declaring that the company which built the quays should be allowed to exercise the freedom of the rights granted by the concession; and it is believed that the other matters involved will soon be amicably arranged. So, apparently, ends an international storm which has been sudden of appearance in the diplomatic sky and brief in duration.

down led to the split in the Nationalist party, have the Irish members presented such a united front in the House of Commons. From the Irish point of view, Mr. John Redmond has been a distinct success as leader of the reunited Nationalists. He is not a Parnell. Ireland can hardly hope to produce a second Parnell in the lifetime of one generation. But Mr. Redmond has had a long experience in the House of Commons, and he has many of the qualities of a Parliamentary leader who is in opposition. He is persistent and audacious even for an Irish Nationalist; and under his leadership the session was marked by a recrudescence of much of the activity and bitterness on the part of the Nationalists which characterized the sessions between Gladstone's Home Rule Bill of 1886 and the incoming of the Salisbury Government in 1895. From the Irish members there was persistent and daringly outspoken condemnation of the war and of its management. There were frequent altercations with the Speaker and the Chairman of Committees. There were several turbulent scenes and much obstruction; and altogether the House of Commons and the country were made abundantly aware of the fact that the Irish Nationalists are again united, bent on pushing Home Rule, and as determined as they were at any time since 1881 to make themselves obnoxious at Westminster. In Ireland, as a result of the reorganization of the party and its renewed activity, a little new life has been infused into the Home Rule movement. In England the position is unchanged, or, if changed at all, is still more unfavorable to Home Rule. English people just now are troubling themselves very little with politics. There is more political apathy and indifference than at any time during the last thirty years. The war is still on; but public interest in it has long been on the wane. Everybody is weary of it, and middle-class England is chafing under its cost. Still, while no other question can be said to be occupying public attention, the attitude which English people are taking up towards the proposal that the Irish representation at Westminster shall be much reduced shows that the predominant partner will make no concession to the Irish demand for Home Rule.

There was no important net change

The

The Steel Strike's Progress in the steel situation last week. company claimed to have reopened several departments in certain mills, but the men denied that work of any importance was going on in them. The men claimed that work in several departments in other mills had been brought to a standstill, but the company explained that the stoppage was entirely due to the lack of material supplied by other departments and not by further defections to the ranks of the strikers. At South Chicago the efforts to get the employees of the old Illinois Steel Company to follow the example of their fellows at Joliet and Milwaukee in treating their contract with their former employers as no longer binding failed to produce any tangible effect. These works at South Chicago are the most important operated by the old Illinois company, and employ, according to an article in the last issue of the "American Journal of Sociology," over six thousand men-of whom barely one-fifth are of American or English birth. The policy of the Trust has continued to be the dismantling of plants in places. where unionism is strong, and the transfer of work to places where it is weak. On Sunday it was announced from Pittsburg that the Star mills of the Tin Plate Company, which were to have been abandoned, are now to be re-equipped and enlarged because the Trust finds that it can operate them with non-union employee. On the part of the strikers the work of the week has been to secure sympathetic action from other unions. It is reported that members of the coal-miners' union have refused to handle coal for one of the Trust factories, but no general sym pathetic strike on the part of the coalminers is feared. Indeed, it seems scarcely credible that such action was solicited by the Amalgamated Association, since very few of the anthracite miners are either directly or indirectly employed by the Steel Trust, and sympathetic strikes against employers so remotely involved in a conflict are recognized by nearly all union leaders as suicidal. The disastrous failure of the attempt of the American Railway Union to punish the railroads for refusing to discharge their duties as common carriers to the Pullman Company was believed to have taught this lesson to

66

the most pugnacious unionists, but last week it was reported that one of the steel strikers had written to Chief Arthur, of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, asking that his order refuse to handle trail. carrying Trust-made goods. This letter, says the report, brought the sensible reply that the locomotive engineers would keep their contracts with the roads and not attempt to discriminate between shippers. The chief point of danger to the Trust from sympathetic strikes seems to lie in the threatened action of the building trades unions, which may in certain cities refuse to handle building material made by strike-breakers." Toward the close of last week there were renewed reports that the strike would be settled through the mediation of the committee of the National Civic Federation. This committee has been in conference with the strikers, and is reported to have secured. concessions enough to reopen negotiations for a settlement. Its disinterested work deserves all praise. Should it fail to secure a settlement by compelling each side to understand the other's position, we trust that it will make a report to the public which will enable it to understand where the responsibility for the continuance of the conflict rests.

Convention

The Republican State A Record-Breaking Convention in Pennsylvania met, organized, adopted platform, nominated candidates, and adjourned in just one hour and thirty minutes. The record-breaking speed of these "deliberations" was, of course, due to the fact that the Convention merely ratified the programme prepared for it by the Quay machine, whose leading members did not even take the trouble to attend. The platform adopted affected to regard the issue of ring rule "with amusement rather than concern," and declared that the Democratic declarations on the subject might be found in the files of the socalled yellow journals . . . subsidized by full-page advertisements." This deliverance was followed by an attack upon Mr. Wanamaker, whose exposure of the plundering operations of the ring, by offering $2,000,000 for the franchise the ring demanded as a gift, evidently inflicted an unhealed wound. The Democratic

Convention is taunted with having completely ignored National issues, in a campaign in which no National official is to be elected, and Republican voters of the State are asked to support the State machine on the ground that the National policy of the Democratic party created the (international) depression of trade between 1893 and 1897, and that the National policy of the Republican party created the (international) revival of trade since 1898. The tactics adopted recalls a favorite story of Fred Douglas about a State Senator of his own race, who, when confronted in a joint debate by the most explicit proof of plundering the public treasury, successfully weathered the gale by disdainfully declining to notice "the personalities" to which his opponent had stooped, and asking for re-election as the representative of the "grand old party which has given liberty to all my race." Whether the Pennsylvania Republicans can be similarly diverted from the real issue before them remains to be seen.

The present prosFusion in Philadelphia pects are somewhat favorable to the movement which has been inaugurated in Philadelphia to defeat the nominations of the Quay-Ashbridge machine at the November election. The various organizations opposed to the ring have agreed upon a strong fusion ticket. The Municipal League assumed the leadership, calling together a conference committee composed of representatives of the Union or Town Meeting party (which placed District Attorney Rothermel in nomination), the Municipal League, the Citizens' Union, the Young Democracy, and the Jeffersonian Society. The latter two bodies are independent Democratic organizations. After numerous meetings of the conferees, a full ticket for the State and city offices has been agreed upon for recommendation to the constituent bodies. Judge Harmon Yerkes, who was nominated by the Democrats, is recommended for Justice of the Supreme Court. The Hon. E. A. Coray, Jr., one of the insurgent leaders of the late Legislature, was named for State Treasurer. It is generally expected that later in the campaign the Hon. A. J. Palm, the Democratic nominee for State Treasurer, will retire

from the ticket to make room for Coray, and in this way fusion between the independent and Democratic forces be accomplished. On the city ticket put forward by the fusionists are five Republican officials, who have given pre-eminent satisfaction to the public, but were refused nomination by the party machine because they refused to submit to its dictation. Whether the ticket thus named by the reform organizations and the independent Democrats will receive the indorsement of the regular Democratic organization remains to be seen. This indorsement, however, is not so important as people outside of Philadelphia are apt to think. A generation ago, it is true, Philadelphia was a Democratic city, and as such gave majorities against Fremont and Lincoln. But of late years the Democratic party has declined in power, until at the last election it polled but one vote to the Republicans' three. But numerical weakness is not its only shortcoming. The machine which has controlled it has gradually become a mere tender to the Republican machine. A strong effort has lately been inaugurated, however, to bring about reorganization, and a committee for that purpose was appointed by the recent State Convention. It is hoped that the policy of this committee, and of ex-Governor Pattison, who has been elected Chairman of the Democratic City Committee, will bring about co-operation. The Democrats have certainly a great opportunity, which the friends of good government hope they will avail themselves of at the present juncture. It is generally conceded that if they do not throw their whole influence against the Quay machine at this time, they will stand stultified in the eyes of the country.

grandparents was denounced as hostile to the spirit of republican institutions, and the plan to deny others the suffrage because of their color was denounced as hostile to the letter as well as the spirit of the National Constitution. Apart from this issue, the most important declaration of the platform was its arraignment of the Democratic Legislature for its long-continued refusal to modify the "fellow-servant law" so as to permit the employees of corporations to secure damages for accidents for which they themselves were not responsible. In the Iowa Democratic Convention the one question debated was the indorsement of the Kansas City platform, or the restriction of the platform to State issues. The majority of the committee on resolutions favored the latter plan, but a minority report reaffirming the National platform of the party, though declaring State issues paramount in the approaching campaign, was adopted by a vote of 6691⁄2 to 550%. The State issue pushed to the front was the same that Governor Pingree successfully urged in Michigan, and that Governor La Follette is now insisting upon in Wisconsin and Mayor Johnson in Ohio -the taxation of railroad and other corporate property in the same manner and at the same rate as the farms and homes of individual citizens. This reform is evidently gaining strength in all parts of the country.

Proposed Monument

to Jefferson

The Outlook has received from Lieutenant C. P. Shaw the appeal which we publish below; we are very glad to give additional publicity to it. In our judgment, this country owes a debt beyond all estimate both to Jefferson and to Hamilton, as representatives of two contrasting tendencies whose intermingling and combination has made America. The Republic should treasure the names of such men, and should preserve some visible monument of their life and service; the best of all monuments is the home identified with the patriot and pioneer whose name we wish to preserve. Monticello has passed into private hands, but the monument which marks Jefferson's grave, which is not far from his former residence, is public property, and access to it is open to the public, and the owner

of Monticello, despite the fact that his hospitality is sometimes abused by vandals, still courteously allows strangers to visit the spot forever identified with the great leader of the American democratic movement. It would be a fitting memorial to Jefferson's name if the road making access to Monticello easy should be built by a spontaneous democratic contribution. The appeal is as follows:

In 1903 will be celebrated the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase, the greatest expansion which our country has ever undergone. This purchase was largely due to the then President, Thomas Jefferson. To him, as monuments have been erected, but not one to statesman, patriot, and patron of letters, many the practical side of his character which induced him to advocate economic reforms, such as the building of canals and good roads. To commemorate suitably this characteristic it has been proposed to build a memorial road from his tomb at Monticello to Charlottesville, near which is situated the University of Virginia, which he founded. The present road of two and a half miles between these two points is very roughly surfaced, with a maximum grade of fifteen feet rise in the hundred, which makes travel thereon disagreeable and even dangerous. A survey, just completed, has resulted in selecting an ideal location for a new road, three miles in length, with such light grades that a team to a pleasure vehicle may trot either up or down. The proposed road is to be built under the supervision and direction of the Road Inquiry Office of the Department of Agriculture at Washington, as an object-lesson in modern road-making, and assumes a character of National importance, since the tomb of Jefferson is visited annually by people from all parts of the United States. The County of Albemarle, justly proud of her distinguished citizen, would gladly undertake this work, but she cannot ties, since, in the words of the Commission do it in justice to the need of other localiwhich selected the new location, "this short piece of road is not of sufficient value to the whole county to justify such a large expenditure from the general treasury." It is therefore suggested to build this road as a National memorial to the practical side of the man to whom our country owes so much, and whose fame is the common heritage of the whole land. Now, therefore, while the Nation is preparing to celebrate this great Louisiana Purchase by an expenditure of millions of dollars in an exposition in St. Louis, and the erection in that city of a monument to Jefferson, it seems most fitting that it should build, in the county in which he was born, at the cost of only a few thousand dollars, a lasting Memorial Road to his tomb. For this reason an appeal is made to all admirers of Jefferson, and to all lovers of good roads, to unite in building this object-lesson in road-making which shall commemorate one of our greatest Americans.

Old Home Week

First instituted in 1898 by Governor Rollins, of New Hampshire, the dedication of a week in the holiday month of August to local commemorations of hereditary interest seems likely to become, at least in New England, a permanent thing. Last year Maine adopted it from New Hamp shire. This year Vermont has joined the celebrants. Sporadic celebrations have also occurred elsewhere in New England. The sentiment appealed to is venerable and perennial. The Governors of the three States by their proclamations designating the week have only given public recognition to the sentiment of the thousands that have swarmed forth from the New England hive, and have concentrated public interest in its appropriate collective manifestation. New Hamp shire, as it first led the way, seems to have observed the week this year with peculiar zeal, inaugurating it with beacon fires on the hill-tops in every county and in many a town. Whether in the cities or in the little towns, the observances in the three States have been of the same general character. The historical element, of course, has been made prominent by addresses, in churches or in town halls, commemorating the early pioneers, the old settlers and soldiers of the old wars, and such natives of the neighborhood as have won fame for themselves and their town. Some of these little towns have a notable roll of honor, as Boscawen, N. H., whose record, says the Rev. A. A. Berle, "includes not mere generals and soldiers of every rank and figuring in all kinds of wars, but statesmen and lawyers of the very first rank, financiers and diplomats and men of invention and commerce, together with ministers innumerable, and college presidents sufficiently numerous as not to be at all exceptional." The local celebrations with more or less formality have taken form in processions and speech-making, illuminations and the dedication of monuments and public buildings, or in dinners and picnics, concerts and athletic games.

ment.

ment, issues in something more practical. It is desirable that the exuberant life that has been drained away from rural New England, to discharge its forceful current upon the wheels of material progress, should return with some freshening impulses to little communities often threatened with stagnation and decay because depleted of their most enterprising eleYears ago the wise policy of New Hampshire initiated such a return by appointing a Commissioner whose office was to promote the sale of abandoned farms for summer homes to city residents. The effect of this, already perceptible to the traveler's eye, was noted by Mr. Winston Churchill, the novelist, a former resident of Cornish, N. H., in his address at the recent celebration in Concord. He regarded it as a sign of the times that men are coming back to New Hampshire to settle "precisely as their fathers went out fifty years ago to Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas to settle." Though they do not winter there, their family home is fixed there for a good part of the year, and they aid in the general betterment of the vicinage. Speaking as one of such, he said: "We are not here to criticise or to meddle, but to fraternize and lend a hand in public enterprises with those who have been here always, and whose families never went West at all." The cottages and villas springing up along the Maine coast, by the margin of the New Hampshire lakes, and on the flanks of Monadnock and the Green Mountains, are evidences of this return tide. Its effects upon the vicinage appear in better roads, village improvements, a new church or public library here and there, and a general quickening of local enterprise.