and to make it impossible for purchased voters to deceive them, the Republicans re-enacted the law in a worse form. Officials may now inform the purchasers of votes whether the "goods have been delivered." There has never been a more shameless scheme to encourage corruption than the enactment of this law. In furtherance of this purpose, the color and age columns of the registration books, by which a voter may be identified, when offering to vote at the election, were abolished; and anyone can understand how difficult and almost impossible it is to distinguish between the negroes and prevent them from repeating at registrations and elections, when neither their color nor their age can be asked or known for the purpose of identification.

The constitutional provisions requiring bids for public printing and supplies are disregarded by Republican officials, and contracts given to favored members of their party at prices which will pay them for their political work.

While Democrats were in control of the State and county governments, there never was a default in the payment of either the principal or interest on a public obligation of the State or any of its counties. The Union Republicans had no sooner obtained control of the county government in Sussex County than interest on its bonds was allowed to default, and no interest has now been paid for two and a half years.

No

Officials have been increased in number and salaries have been increased in amount. State officers, where they were holding-over Democrats, have been legislated out of office by the repeal of laws under which they were appointed, and immediately new laws to the same effect have been enacted and Republicans appointed under them. special regard is shown for any law if not in accord with the political necessities of the moment, or if it can be evaded by the neglect or refusal of the officials thus elected, whose duties require them to enforce its provisions.

In one county the whole panel of both grand and petit jurors, selected by new Republican officials in an illegal manner, and amid charges and countercharges of misconduct, has been quashed; the jurors have been dismissed by our courts, and new men selected by the judges to take their places. It is said that in another county Democrats have been entirely excluded from jury panels, though two-thirds of the white men of the county are Democrats.

In one branch of our government, however, our trust remains absolutely unshaken. Our judiciary now stands the only certainly uncorrupted and incorruptible barrier protecting our rights and liberties

against organized and partially successful political outrage. Fortunately, no evil word, even of suspicion, has been or could be uttered against the members of our Bench. They were appointed by a Democratic Governor from both political parties for twelve years in 1897 under the provisions of our newly adopted constitution, and thus one branch of our government is probably until 1909 beyond the possibility of pollution. With a tool of the Union Republican leader for Governor, able to appoint our judges, and with his servants in control of the State Senate to confirm appointments, the worst conditions of South Carolina and Louisiana in reconstruction times would probably be repeated here. "But there must be two sides to the question " is so common a remark when charges like these are made against an individual, organization, or party, that I shall give the other side in the exact words of the recognized organ of the dominant faction of the Republican party, printed since this article was requested. No lawyer or layman can construe this as a plea of "not guilty." It is a confession and defiance:

...

"Nowhere else has Republican leadership been so sincere in its devotion to party principles, so persistent in loyalty to party friends, so courageous and liberal in its efforts to redeem a State as . . . in the State of Delaware. . . . Those who alone deny this are the men and people who contented themselves with the pittance of Federal patronage that comes to this State through Republican national victories, who failed in every attempt at political leadership, and whose often proved incompetence made them objects of contempt with their opponents. . . . The truth is that the bolter Republicans who are backing and promoting this country-wide slander were so poor in money and spirit, and so incompetent in leadership, that they allowed the State to be given over to the Democrats . . . until they could not, even if they would, ransom it and make it free. . . . These Republicans and all others of the State know that, under the leadership of the bolter leaders, the State Republican Party was a political mendicant; that at every campaign period they are running around holding out their hats and hands for political alms to enable them, not to win the State, but to make fight enough to allow a claim of recognition and patronage distribution. The only senatorial representative the Republicans ever elected bought his way-or rather it was bought for him at the polls-with money that had been begged for that purpose in another State. While this kind of politics was going on these bolters were begging money of Mr. Addicks for political purposes, and were perfectly willing to take all he would give them to buy their way into office, but he must not aspire to either office or leadership. . . . That price had to be paid. The Democrats were beaten in this way in 1894 and 1896 simply because the party under its new leadership had money sufficient to do the work. . . . The Republicans have won in every election since. The Republicans have elected a majority of every Legislature since 1894. The State Government is Republican throughout. This, in ten years under Mr. Addick's leadership, is to be set against thirty-four years of failure-absolute, beggarly failure-under the leadership of the so-called bolter Republicans.

...

It is this ransoming of the State from the thraldom of dishonest, vicious, and corrupt politics upon the Democratic side, and the poverty-stricken incompetence of the bolter Republicans on the other side, that these slanderers of Mr. Addicks, and

་

เ

the State of Delaware, call' buying a State.' . . . These being the fruits of buying the State' it is evident that it ought to have been bought ' long ago. It would have been bought long ago if the bolters could have raised the money necessary, and then could have backed it by competent leadership."

This was not an ordinary newspaper utterance, but is entitled to be printed as "the other side." It is the official answer and defiance of the Union Republicans through their political mouthpiece.

When a Regular Republican member of the General Assembly was asked to further the election of the leader of the party, the member replied: "What you ask me to do is to change my code of morals. Would you ask and expect me to change my religion to become a Catholic or Protestant or an infidel if you thought the change would benefit the Republican party?"

The people of Delaware are very jealous of the good name of their State and of the character of her public servants. They have held the senatorships to be the most honorable dignities they could confer upon those they wished honorably to distinguish. Doubtless, the ability of her senators has varied; but until the influence of the existing condition was felt, a high standard of civic excellence and personal integrity was maintained in the public mind by which to measure aspirants for these honors.

The names of Van Dyke, Bassett, Rodney, Read, and Clayton are as honored and beloved by Delawareans as those of their later leaders who are still remembered personally by this generation. The story is still told of Rodney's ride to give Delaware's deciding vote for Independence, of McDonough's and Kirkwood's heroism. It is remembered, too, that in Delaware the stars and stripes were first unfurled and baptized in battle; and that in every war more than our State's proportion of the country's defenders have volunteered when called to her defence. The strength of these traditions has enabled us to maintain the standard of ability for which the country generally has not hesitated to credit us, and increases our resentment at the attempt to degrade our State's good

name.

So we stand. No voice may speak for Delaware in that highest legislative body in the world created by the Constitution of the United States, which she, instructed and led by her patriotic sons of Revolutionary times, with clear foresight, was the very first to ratify. No power but her own will could make vacant those senatorial chairs to which we point with pride as silent but irrefutable witnesses to the purity, incorruptibility, and steadfast honor of our people, willing to withdraw

from the high places of distinction rather than barter their State's good name. These chairs may remain a long time vacant; this fight will go on until we are victorious or overpowered. We have been accustomed to claim great credit for our State because she has honored those who have by their valor, worth, integrity, courage, and ability reflected back that honor upon her, and have written their names high among their contemporaries upon the roll of patriots and statesmen; and no one has cared, after time has mellowed the feeling personal clashes have produced, whether they were Federalist or Republican, Whig or Democrat. But now we are in a dogged, determined, hand-to-hand contest for a semblance of clean political life, and there need be no fear that there will be a surrender by the respectable elements of society in Delaware.

Party politics, in the usual sense, are almost abandoned here in the face of the threatened dishonor of our State's good name. Family feuds and personal animosities and ambitions are sunk in this time of common peril; and if we do not maintain our position, if the strain becomes too great, let the other States of this Union beware, for their time has almost come. They may have more territory and wealth; their people may outnumber us; but man for man they are not more courageous, more honorable, more upright, less mercenary, or less self-seeking, nor do they love their State more, than those who in Delaware for twelve years have stood together for the preservation of a State's honor, and will so stand to the end.

No one could be a stronger advocate than I of the doctrine that the citizens of each State should unhindered manage its own affairs; yet in this Union, an injury or a danger to one, and she almost the weakest, is and should be the concern of all. That the good people of this nation may know and understand in some small measure the conditions which threaten us in Delaware, and through our failure will threaten them, this article is written; and we cherish the hope that all those everywhere who believe in good government will join us in the us in the prayer, still officially appended to many of our proclamations, "God Save the State." WILLARD SAULSBURY.

SUGAR AND THE NEW COLONIES.

IN an article published over two years ago,' I pointed out the prominent part that would be played in the problems pertaining to the new colonies by the political and economic aspects of the sugar industry. I showed the intimate relation existing between the future prosperity of these tropical countries and the treatment to be accorded their chief article of export, and argued that the path to success in colonial government was to be found in the rehabilitation and development of the tropical cane-sugar industry.

The march of events since has demonstrated, to a degree surprising even to the writer, the accuracy of the predictions then made. The public prominence that questions relating to sugar now occupy throughout the world is remarkable. It is a most curious and interesting fact that no other food product used by man enters so largely into the domain of state and international politics. Sugar has enjoyed the dubious distinction of being "mixed up with politics" from the days of Napoleon down to the time of the sugar trust. Whether the industry as a whole has gained or lost by the association is an open question. This much seems to be certain, however, that there is no immediate prospect of a change of condition in this respect; for the plot thickens from year to year and almost from month to month, in the shape of new bounties, new schemes for bounty, and fresh tariff restrictions, with the resultant crop of international complications, countervailing duties, and reprisals. Outside of colonial matters it is only necessary to instance the recent contention between the United States and Russia, caused by a question of sugar bounty, that has involved the two nations in a controversy, of which the end is not yet in sight, and which may have very far-reaching consequences. Still more interesting among recent developments has been the imposition of a duty on imported sugar by England, marking as it does a relaxation of the free-trade policy to which she has clung so doggedly, a policy of which the results have been recently so graphi"The Opportunity of the Cane Sugar Industry," in the "North American Review" for March, 1899.