not met with the virulent Southern criticism that used to be showered on a "traitor" to the Democratic party. A great change in Southern public thought has taken place and is taking place under the instruction of commercial events. The number of men increases every year who feel as Senator McLaurin feels, that it is suicide to keep out of the great currents of the world. For this reason the sincerely hearty reception given in Southern cities to President McKinley has a deeper meaning than mere courtesy to the Chief Executive. The applause that everywhere greeted his reference to the growth of our foreign trade indicates the direction of a strong current of new Southern sentiment. This is bound sooner or later to express itself in political terms. The inscription over an arch under which he passed in Mississippi was "Expansion." In other words action-the taking of our rightful place among the nations and commercial expansion seem likely to bring an independent political era in the South; and, if it do this, expansion will justify itself as the best influence in our political education that we have felt for forty years. THE SECESSION OF SENATOR MCLAURIN SENA pansion, the gold standard, a protective tariff and shipping subsidies are the policies that will make for Southern development. The merit or the demerit of this programme is of less importance than the fact that it is a radical departure, by a man of character and influence, from the "solid" programme of these "solid" forty years; for war, poverty, illiteracy, epidemics and tornadoes have all done less hurt to the South than (be it said with respect to all men of breadth and tolerance) the politicians and the preachers. For these have been the conservators of out-worn opinions and creeds, and they have suppressed intellectual independence. It is they who are to blame for the loss to the nation of the old time southern force and character since the war. They have suppressed thought and prevented growth-these unscarred Colonels who wear long hair and white ties and frock coats, and these doctors of divinity who herd good women by the most stagnant waters of theology. Now the schoolmaster and the manufacturer are fast getting the better of these "hard shell" types of men. Industrial and intellectual activity are bound to change Southern leadership. The best evidence that such a change is taking place in politics is the comment by conservative Southern Democratic papers on Senator McLaurin. "Senator McLaurin says," the Louisville Evening Post, declares, “just what thousands of people are thinking and saying all over the South. We want to identify ourselves with every forward movement of the nation, whether it be industrial, commercial, or military." The Mobile Register protests against the South's exclusion from its proper place in the nation by "the obstinacy of political leaders who live in a fog .and are continually butting their heads against the substantial interests of the country." The Richmond Times declares that many men in the South are "sick and tired of the party yoke," and that "if they were left free to vote their sentiments, they would undoubtedly act with the Republican party in national elections." Southern seceder from traditional political doctrines has before been received with such comments as these. No THE PRESIDENT'S EXPANSION OF THOUGHT AND, if many Southern men who have always been Democrats find themselves in agreement with the Republican party, on sound money and on expansion, President McKinley has very frankly put himself in line with their traditional position as regards foreign trade. In his speech at Memphis, Tenn., on April 30, he spoke almost if not quite as any Southern free-trader might speak. said nothing about free-trade or protection, but he spoke of the necessity of foreign markets in a way that would have been forbidden by the old protectionist doctrine; for open doors in other countries for our wares implies a corresponding degree of hospitality on our part to foreign wares. He said: He "It is your business as well as mine to see to it that an industrial policy shall be pursued in the United States that shall open up the widest markets in every part of the world for the products of American soil and American manufacture. We can now supply our own markets. We have reached that point in our industrial development, and in order to secure sale for our surplus products we must open up new avenues for our surplus. I am sure that in that sentiment there will be no division, North or South." In other words, the President recognizes the new conditions and he has learned, as he declared that his hearers had learned, that "maxims are not as profitable as markets." The new economic era, the era of our tradeexpansion, is bringing great wealth, but it is bringing other benefits even greater; and among them is an expansion of thought in every party and in every section of the country. The commercial men of the South will never again vote for an inflated currency; and the author of the McKinley tariff act will never again have only the home market in his mind. If our unexpected expansion has brought us some difficult problems, it has also taught us all-men of all sections and all political creeds—some lessons of broader meaning than we had before been willing to learn. We are not likely to return to the parochial and sectional view of our own problems or of our own country. The journey of the President and of most of his cabinet through the South and the Southwest and up the Pacific slope is more noteworthy than any preceding Presidential jaunt, for several lighter reasons, as well as for the significance of his more serious. speeches. Hard breathing as the heavilyscented atmosphere of compliment must make, the President speaks with aptness, with sincerity, and, more wonderful still, with variety. He is doing admirable service in emphasizing the benefits of sound money and of thrift as the basis of our prosperity. The journey was a happy idea happily carried out. SUFFRAGE IN VIRGINIA AND ALABAMA OLLOWING South Carolina, Mississippi, and Alabama have taken steps to disfranchise the illiterate Negro without disfranchising the illiterate white man. The amendment election in Alabama resulted in a majority for the convention of more than 20,000 votes. Practically no Negroes voted, and the white vote was small. The last Democratic State Convention pledged the party "not to deprive any white. 'not to deprive any white man of the right to vote, except for conviction of infamous crime." In Virginia the Constitutional Convention. will meet on June 12 to construct a similar amendment to restrict the suffrage. There has been heard both in Alabama and Virginia very vigorous protests from white men of influence-not against a restriction of the suffrage, but against a restriction that does not apply alike to both races. But the overwhelming white sentiment in all these States is opposed to restricting white suffrage. Under these amendments an incentive is given to the poor and ignorant Negro to learn to read and to acquire property, but not to the poor and ignorant white man. The Negro has not been permitted to have an active part in politics in any of these States in recent years. in recent years. In the actual political result, therefore, these amendments make no change; and they would meet very nearly the unanimous approval of both races and of opinion in every section of the country if they did not put a premium on white ignorance and poverty. The discrimination against the Negro is really a discrimination in a deeper sense against the lowest class of white men ; and there is menace for the future in this situation. The best safeguard is educational activity. A GREAT NEW MOVEMENT IN EDUCATION IF F one were obliged to say what subject, apart from our great industrial activity, is now uppermost in the minds of thoughtful men, he would say Education. It is the season when a very large part of the population visits schools and colleges, when gifts to them are added up and announced, and when visible evidence is given both of the earnestness and of the diffusion of interest in the subject. It would be an impressive spectacle, if one could see at a glance the whole prodigious educational activity in the land. The colleges never before had so large an attendance; nor the professional schools, except the schools of public schools. But more impressive than the mere magnitude of the work is the undoubted improvement in method and the very great extension of special forms of work-the development of technical education for instance, and the wonderfully rapid extension of manual and industrial training (as a matter of mind-culture as well as hand-culture.) This last indeed is the most striking single fact in present educational progress. It seems to have been clearly demonstrated that pupils who are taught to do things with their hands do better work also with their minds than those who do not have manual training. The most noteworthy movement in educational work in the near future seems likely to be based on this fact. It is a movement straight towards common sense and towards the strengthening of democratic character. A THE SOUTHERN EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE STRIKING evidence of the universal interest in education is the very wide comment that was recently provoked by the Southern Educational Conference which was held this year at Salem, N. C., instead of Capon Springs, W. Va., as hitherto. It was attended by both Northern and Southern men, and its proceedings showed a general awakening to the necessity of popular education in the South-alike for each race. The most interesting papers read were by Southern men who, with great frankness, made the situation plain, and who showed the greatest enthusiasm for the too-long neglected work. Indeed it is doubtful if any men of any calling at any time or in any section of our country ever labored more wisely or more zealously than the best educational leaders now work in the upland South. The spirit of the Conference was the spirit of earnest men and women who believe that the development of free education in every section of the land and for all the people is our first duty to our country-far more important than politics. The most important needs of Southern public education are these: (1) to carry on a campaign for the more liberal support of the schools by taxation, especially in the rural regions; and (2) properly to direct help that may come from any other source. The earnest educational workers there are fast arousing public sentiment. To build it up to a point that will compel higher school taxation is the first task. until recently inadequate schoolhouses, or no houses at all. Public-spirited men in the towns took one school district after another, made an educational campaign among the country people, and in a spirit of neighborliness offered their aid. In a school district that needed a schoolhouse the townsmen would offer to contribute, say, $200, if the residents of the school district would contribute $300. The residents of the school district needed just such inspiration and help as this. The result is that with the expenditure of a small sum of money and of some energetic encouragement, every school district in the county now has a well-built and equipped schoolhouse, and of course the interest in popular education has been correspondingly aroused. A similar principle has been followed by the management of the Peabody fund. Certain towns in Southern states were selected as beneficiaries. Out of the fund was given a certain sum of money on condition that the towns raise a certain additional sum by local taxation or by private subscription. In the course of two or three years the school systems of these towns were completely revolutionized. The Peabody agent then withdrew his aid from them and gave it in the same way to other towns. Enough of this sort of encouragement to self-help would, in a few years, equip most Southern communities for public school work almost as well as the rural communities of the rest of the country. The discovery of this principle gives the key to the whole educational situation, and opens a practical way for the best investment that perhaps could be made in public education anywhere in the world. THE INCREASING CO-OPERATION OF THE RACES regards the education of the Negroes, Then it is the patriotic duty of men every-Southern sentiment has never interested where (for the popular ignorance in the South is not a local burden but a national one) to give aid to the energetic and unselfish men who have the practical task in hand. PRACTICAL EXAMPLES OF SELF-HELP itself in their "higher" education, but it shows approval and even enthusiasm for the common school education, and especially for the industrial education of the blacks. The work done by the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, for instance, meets the heartiest approval of Southern men of all shades of opinion. All the Southern states are constantly increasing their school appropriations for both races, and the recurring threats to divide the school funds between the races in proportion to the taxes paid by each has always failed. The whites and blacks share the school funds alike. A MOST HONORABLE PUBLIC SERVICE NE noteworthy fact about the growing interest But the public schools are in most regions En tote in good municipal government kept open for so short a period, and many of them are taught by teachers so ill equipped, that the good they do is small. To the colored schools for industrial training the white people are giving their personal co-operation more and more freely, as well as state aid. The Slater School for colored youth at Winston, N. C., for instance, has received financial help from the foremost white residents of the town, who serve also on its board of trustees. Mr. Booker T. Washington's invitations to address white audiences in the South increase in number and in importance, as witness two great gatherings at Spartanburg, S. C., and at New Orleans. As years go by and experience accumulates, it becomes clearer that the work done by General Armstrong in creating Hampton Institute was work of a revolutionary kind. It has claims to the distinction of being the most original and the most useful institution in the land. The impetus that it gives both to public school education and to industrial education is incalculable. MOST THE OGDEN PARTY OST of the attendants on the Conference who went from the states north of the Potomac were the guests on the journey of Mr. Robert C. Ogden, a public-spirited citizen of New York, who is the Chairman of the Board of Hampton Institute, and who has from the beginning been the President of these Conferences. The cause of public education owes him a large debt of gratitude. The party included members of the Faculty of Harvard and Columbia Universities, and more than seventy earnest men and women from all the northern Atlantic states south of Massachusetts, many of them men of great distinction. They visited representative educational institutions, some for whites, some for blacks, in Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama. They were enter tained with characteristic hospitality by the residents of Salem and Winston, in North Carolina, and were cordially received wherever they stopped. Personal association in this intimate fashion is the most effective means of furthering a great cause; and for this reason these Conferences have already become events of national importance. is the public-spirited work that groups of the Examples of this sort of unpaid, private activity can be found now in almost all our important cities-certainly in all where municipal government is efficient or hopeful. One such example is the Committee of Fifteen in New York, whose purpose is to cut off the revenue that Tammany receives from protecting vice of all kinds. They are business men who work as quietly as possible without "crusades" or professional "reforms" or any other emotional methods, and they seem likely to bring a revolution in municipal government in New York. Mr. W. H. Baldwin, Jr., the chairman, and his associates, go about their task in the same way in which they manage other great business interests that are entrusted to them. Another example of the same kind in the same city is the Tenement House Commission, an unpaid group of men whose investigations have resulted in the best laws ever enacted in New York to promote decent living in the crowded areas. The city, as a result of their work, will now have a paid and responsible public officer whose business it will be to see that the tenement laws are enforced. Another such example is the Muncipal Association of Cleveland, Ohio, a voluntary organization controlled by a Committee of Ten, of which Mr. H. A. Garfield is president. It has compelled the nomination of good candidates for city offices, although it puts forward no candidates of its own; it has defeated ring candidates; it has guarded the city from vicious legislation; it has promoted civil service reform; it has prevented corrupt city contracts; and it has become such a returned to Manila on May 2 after a visit to most parts of the archipelgo, establishing civil government wherever possible. THE VALUE OF OUR PHILIPPINE EXPERIENCE power that it must be reckoned with by both NOW that the war is over and we are the inefficient and the corrupt. Until the time come, if it ever come, when we can depend on the public spirit of all the voters in our cities to insure good government, private work of this sort will be necessary. In doing it wisely men win enviable reputations—become, indeed, in a sense, our non-office-holding rulers and servants, to whom we owe gratitude and honor. THE TASKS OF PEACE IN THE PHILIPPINES GUINALDO'S manifesto is characteristically rhetorical but it at last comes to the point: "By acknowledging and accepting the sovereignty of the United States throughout the Philippine Archipelago, as I now do, and without reservation whatsoever, I believe that I am serving thee, my beloved country. May happiness be thine!" It has been announced that for some time he will be kept a prisoner, but under less restraint than hitherto; and it is expected that he will give the help of such influence as he has to furthering the work of the Commission. A startling measure of the severity of the war is given by General Bell's statement (which is, of course, an estimate) that onesixth of the inhabitants of Luzon have died of fever or in war during the three years since the battle of Manila. Our losses of troops from sickness and in battle and from ambush have been more than 3,500 men. The surrender of insurgent leaders of small bands has been reported almost every week till they have become of little public interest in the United States, because the war is now ended, and the even more difficult but far pleasanter task is ours to establish and to develop civil government. The important question of the banished friars and the lands that belonged to them, the building of roads, the establishment of courts of justice-these are the tasks that the Commission has in hand. So far as the American public is informed, the Philippine Commission is doing its difficult duties with a zeal and efficiency that entitle the members of it to the lasting gratitude of the nation. The Commission addressing ourselves to the establishment of civil government in the Philippines, we are beginning to see what an opportunity unexpectedly befell us and into what a valuable experience we blundered. We had never before had such a problem. It had not seriously occurred to us that we should ever undertake such a task, nor should we have sought it. But when we found ourselves responsible to civilization for the future wellbeing of a long-suppressed people and an undeveloped archipelago, we went forward, blunderingly perhaps, but courageously to work the problem out. Indeed there was never a time when we could have done anything else but go forward with it. But by manfully taking it up we won the respect of all the great Powers, many of whom had regarded us with indifference, if not with contempt. We have already succeeded in bringing peace, and we shall soon bring an orderly development for the first time in the history of the islands; and both the country and the people will now make such progress in decades as they had not made in centuries under Spanish rule. We hold them in trust for civilization, and as fast as they show capacity for self-government we are bound to give it to them-bound by the very nature of our institutions and by our way of doing things. In the meantime our presence in the Philippines happened to give us an opportunity promptly to do another good deed for civilization; and our conduct in China has given us influence in the world's diplomacy that centuries of home-keeping shirking of our responsibilities could not have given. This activity at the Antipodes has cost us men and treasure; unhappily, many men and much treasure. But our willingness to give both in the discharge of our natural duties as an important member of the family of nations has brought us respect and power. And these duties of a new kind in a distant part of the world have lifted our own horizon as no event in forty years had lifted it. old-time wretched wrangles over a depreciated currency, over old sectional quarrels, over |