Circumstances made it necessary for Mr. Smith to return to Philadelphia, as he had for sometime desired to do. The President gave the retiring Postmaster General a farewell dinner, and invited friends to call after dinner. Mr. Smith said at the dinner: "I had not intended to spring any surprise on the public in this matter. The fact is that I have for a long time desired to retire. The considerations which impel me have been all along and are now entirely personal and private. A month ago I told the President it was imperatively necessary that I should be allowed to go and that it was my wish to remain here only so long as my presence seemed an indispensable convenience."

The Baltimore Sun, at the time of Mr. Smith's retirement, prophesied a bitter war between the Senate and the President, and headed its presentation of the theory of war on Pennsylvania avenue, "The President on the Road to Jordan"-a suggestion of "Jordan is a hard road to travel."

The Sun continued:

"President Roosevelt has always been more distinguished for his courage than for his flexibility, and it is just possible that he might attain his ends more surely, or come nearer to them, by pursuing a more conciliatory course.

"The late President McKinley had the advantage to carry with him to the Executive office long years of experience in Congress. He understood Congress as few of his predecessors in the Presidential office had; and while upon the whole he made many and great concessions of his own views and purposes, it is probable that he exerted more influence over the legislative branch of the Government than any other Executive since Andrew Jackson. Jackson accomplished his purposes in Congress more or less by determination, and McKinley by fine management and concessions. But the Congress, and especially the Senate, with which Jackson had to deal was a different and far less formidable body than that which now confronts Mr. Roosevelt."

There is in this, instructive history, but the Senate is not a consolidated fighting body. The President is a fighting man with no time for finesse; and he does not seek to put in place persons who are rapacious for him. He asks for the best men, and if they are not recommended by the Senators or Members, he appoints the best he can find. There are, in some parts of the country, politicians who have claimed places on account of "color," backed by incapability. The President has been civil to Mr. Booker Washington, the best representative man of color, and consulted him. This master stroke is not fully recognized, but the ultimate effect already perceptible, will aid the President with both races in the South. Senators will not make haste to step barefooted on hot iron in such a case, especially as they know the President will fight all his battles to a finish, and there is no possibility of intimidation.

The managing editor of the most important international paper in the world-the Times of London-was in the United States last summer, and wrote a powerful communication about the Senate of the United States in respect to treaties, plainly intimating that there were Senatorial influences. relentlessly and irrationally opposed to the ratification of any treaty with England. He gave a terse statement of the constitutional power of the Senate, as follows:

"The Constitution of the United States places in the hands of the President the conduct of foreign relations, but rather by implication than by direct mandate. The President 'shall have power,' so reads the Constitution, 'by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided twothirds of the Senators present concur,' and this provision has been interpreted to mean, that, while the President may initiate, the Senate alone can conclude; in other words, the President proposes and the Senate disposes."

Further, this forcible remark is made:

"The Senate has the right to amend any treaty which the President may negotiate; that, to quote the words of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of 'Haver vs. Yaker,' 'The Senate is not required to adopt it or reject it (a treaty) as a whole, but may modify or amend it, as was done with the treaty under consideration;' but in the early days that was a right seldom exercised. Of recent years. the Senate has become the dominant force in legislation; it has made the House of Representatives merely a cipher in the legislative equation, and has compelled the President, if he would live in peace and amity with his legislative Assembly, to recognize the power of the Senate. In order to enlarge and increase that power, it has argued that treaties negotiated by the President and sent to the Senate for ratification 'are not strictly treaties, but projects for treaties; they are still inchoate.' This was the expression used by Senator Lodge, of Massachusetts, a member of the committee on foreign relations, after the Senate had amended the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty. Mr. Lodge defended his position with great ability and ingenuity. He quoted John Quincy Adams and Secretary of State Henry Clay in support of his contention; and he drew attention to the fact that Washington, before commencing the negotiation of the Jay Treaty with England, consulted the Senate, which he cited in support of his argument that the Senate has equal treaty-making powers with the President."

Here are practical points stated: Mr. Hay simply exchanged notes with the Powers regarding the open door in China, instead of attempting to conclude treaties, as he realized the impossibility of action by the Senate on the treaties. At any time during the last few years Mr. Hay could have concluded a treaty with two of the Great Powers to maintain the integrity of China, and he was approached by the representatives of those Powers to enter into nego

tiations, but, knowing that it would be simply a waste of time to discuss the question, he declined to enter into its consideration.

Naturally, this writer takes up the case, "both real and supposed," of a treaty with England, and what befalls it from three hostile sources. First, "men antagonistic to Great Britain, who by birth and environment can never talk about England except to insult her, who would, if they had their way, ratify no convention with Great Britain. The second group is made up of men who are either politically opposed to the Administration, and who see an opportunity to make political capital by defeating any Administration measure, or who are of the same political faith as the President, but 'disgruntled' because they have been slighted in the matter of patronage, or because in some other way their feelings have been ruffled. These men cannot afford to fight the Administration openly, but covertly they can attack it. They can raise objections, they can doubt the wisdom or patriotism of concluding the treaty, they can, and do, employ the methods of the assassin, and, under cover, deal it a death wound. The third element is composed of the men who oppose the treaty because of the object sought to be obtained-for example, in the case of the recent Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, the men whose interests are with the Transcontinental railroads."

The "Manager" of the "Thunderer," whose place is more important than that of any diplomatic official, except in an extraordinary case, remarked:

"Brushing aside fine-drawn, hair-splitting constitutional technicalities, and coming to the practical question involved, one sees at once how the President is always at the mercy of the Senate, how he is completely controlled by it, and how he is hampered in the conduct of foreign relations. In fact, the veto power exercised by the Senate over the President in the conduct of foreign relations has been regarded by many men of great intelligence as the weakest spot in the Constitution; and it has led Senator Hoar, of Massachusetts, to say that it is impossible for the United States to enter into world politics, as its constitutional system makes impossible the carrying on of secret and delicate negotiations. Ninety men, the present membership of the Senate, cannot hold a secret, when treaties sent to the Senate in confidence are published in the newspapers twenty-four hours later, when the full proceedings of an Executive session are always reported in the newspapers the following day, although the members of the Senate take an oath not to reveal.

"Because of the uncertainty of the disposition of a treaty by the Senate, of recent years a custom has grown up, illegal, probably-certainly without constitutional warrant-by which the State Department is rendered independent of the Senate. It has been the practice of Secretaries of State to conclude a modus vivendi, which, while having no binding force as a treaty, con