the strike, as Mr. Debs himself afterwards admitted. The movement had spread over twenty-seven States and Territories and had affected the operations of 125,000 miles of railway. But everywhere it was dealt with in the same energetic manner wherever it obstructed the service of the mails; and after the arrest of Mr. Debs it died speedily away.

On July 20thless than a month after the general strike began the United States troops left Chicago, their presence being no longer needed there.*

In the opinion of the Governor of Illinois, Mr. John P. Altgeld, their presence there had never been required. Mr.

GOVERNOR ALTGELD

Altgeld was a Democrat of the Populistic type. In appearance, he resembled a typical German Anarchist-fanatical and intense. He had just pardoned the Anarchists who were sentenced to imprisonment at the time of the Haymarket murders in 1886. His sympathies were undoubtedly with the strikers, and he felt, with some reason, that the presence of Federal troops was essentially provocative.

He read over the Fourth Section of the Constitution, which pledges the United States to guarantee each State protection against domestic violence "on application of the Legislature or of the Executive." As Governor Altgeld inter

*The strike, as a whole, ended on August 3d. †See THE BOOKMAN for March, pp. 42, 43.

preted that section, it meant that United States troops may be sent into a State only upon application of the Legislature or of the Executive. He, therefore, immediately after the arrival of the troops in Chicago, telegraphed the President that they were not needed:

"Waiving all question of courtesy, I will say that the State of Illinois is not only able to take care of itself, but it stands ready to-day to furnish the Federal Government any assistance it may need elsewhere. . . . As Governor. . . 1 protest . . . and ask the immediate withdrawal of Federal troops from active duty in the State."

But Governor Altgeld had missed the point involved in the despatch of troops. These had not been sent to protect the State from "domestic violence," but to guard the property of the United States, to prevent obstruction of the United States mails, and to enforce the judgments of the United States courts as against illegal combinations. Authority for this was found in the law of April 20, 1871.* The President answered Governor Altgeld, explaining the matter very briefly; only to receive another and very long despatch, arguing about the relations of State and Federal authority, and still missing the point as completely as before. To this second telegram, Mr. Cleveland sent (July 6th) a short response which ended the discussion:

"While I am still persuaded that I have neither transcended my authority or duty in the emergency that confronts us, it seems to me that in this hour of danger and public distress, discussion may well give way to active efforts on the part of all in authority to restore obedience to law and to protect life and property."

Mr. Cleveland's course in sending

*"In all cases where insurrection, domestic violence, . . . or conspiracies in any State shall so obstruct or hinder the execution of the laws thereof and of the United States, or whenever any such insurrection, violence, or conspiracy shall oppose or obstruct the laws of the United States or the due execution thereof, . . . it shall be lawful for the President and it shall be his duty to take the such measures by the employment of land or naval forces of the United States as he may deem necessary for the suppression of such insurrection."

troops to Chicago, and in using the army elsewhere to prevent obstruction of the mail-routes, was, on the whole, generally approved by public opinion and by Congress. A great deal of the comment made upon it was, however, based upon a misapprehension of the facts. Many persons then imagined, and many still believe, that the President put a new and bold construction upon his own powers, and that in consequence the functions of the Executive were by his action substantially enlarged. Such, however, was not the case. He was merely doing what he was empowered and even required to do by statute a statute originally enacted under President Grant, and aimed at that time at the Ku Klux Klan. Hence both the States' Rights Democrats, like Governor Altgeld, who condemned him, and the advocates of centralisation, who applauded him, did so with insufficient knowledge. If he deserved praise at all, it was not because of a new precedent which he established, for he established none; but for his courage in using, through a sense of duty, his statutory powers in a way that was certain to intensify the hatred of him which had by this time come to be almost a religion in the Western States.

The really serious constitutional question which the strike of 1894 brought into vivid prominence concerned the judiciary instead of the executive. "Government by injunction" was the phrase that now came into general use. The Interstate Commerce Law of 1887, and the Sherman Anti-Trust Law of 1890, had both been framed with a view to checking the power of the corporations. Clever lawyers, however, had most ingeniously converted these two acts into instruments to protect the railway corporations against attack. If an engineer left his post, or if the crew of a train deserted it, that was held to be conspiracy in restraint of commerce. A United States Circuit Court had issued a "blanket" injunction against all the employés of the Northern Pacific Road, forbidding them to strike. In the case of Mr. Debs and his associates, they had been enjoined from inciting men to strike. On December 14th, they were brought before Judge Woods in Chicago and sentenced-Debs to six months' im

prisonment and the others to three months -for contempt of court. This extension of the enjoining power was contrary to the whole spirit and practice of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence as hitherto understood. By means of it a judge defined in advance the nature of an offence, and by injunction forbade the commission of it by certain specified persons. If they disobeyed the injunction, they were brought before the judge and fined or imprisoned, not directly for the act performed, but for contempt of court. this way, the judge became also the accuser, and the offender lost the right of a jury trial. Many of the most conservative publicists in the East were stirred by this alarming stretch of the judicial power. As to Mr. Debs, the principle at issue was admirably summed up in these words:

In

"If Debs has been violating law, let him be indicted, tried by a jury, and punished. Let him not be made the victim of an untenable court order and deprived of his liberty entirely within the discretion of a judge. . . . If the precedent now established is to stand, there is no limit to the power which the judiciary may establish over the citizen."*

The action of Judge Woods in sentencing Debs was, however, sustained by a unanimous decision of the Supreme Court handed down on May 27, 1895, and he served his term in prison. It is to be noted, however, that the indictments for conspiracy found against him in legal form by a Federal Grand Jury were dismissed. The report of a Commission appointed by President Cleveland to investigate the origin of the great strike was also full of deep significance. The Commission found in the Railway Managers' Association an example of "the persistent and shrewdly devised plans of corporations to overreach their limitations and to usurp indirectly powers and rights not contemplated in their charters." It was found that neither the Railway Union, nor in fact any general combination of *Springfield Republican, quoted by Andrews op. cit. p. 342.

In July, 1894. The members of this Commission were Carroll D. Wright of Massachusetts, John D. Kernan of New York, and Nicholas E. Worthington of Illinois. See the President's message of December 3, 1894.

I.

SIDNEY LOW's "THE GOVERNANCE OF ENGLAND."*

It is venturesome, to say the least, for a new writer on the English constitution so to indicate the method and scope of his inquiry as to challenge comparison with the classic work of Walter Bagehot. The latter's aim, when he wrote forty years ago, was to set free the spirit of the constitution from the mass of fiction and obsolete theory which enveloped it; more particularly, to contrast the efficient, working part of the constitution with the ceremonious, dignified part. Moreover, Bagehot, substituting for the worn analogy of a mechanical structure that of a living organism, essayed to represent, indeed, to picture in a lifelike manner, the constitution at a certain period of its development, the culmination culmination of the Palmerstonian era in 1865; nor, beyond the declaration of a few great principles, was he eager to forecast the course of constitutional evolution, in view of certain great political changes which had not then manifested their true character. In

the introduction to the second edition of his book he noted the changed aspects which so short a time as seven years had witnessed a retrospect which narrowed his range of prophecy and increased his caution.

Mr. Low in effect proposes to do for the constitution of to-day what Bagehot did for it as it was forty years ago; that is, to observe where fiction and false theory still obscure the working spirit and practical trend, and to describe such new features of constitutional practice as may have since appeared. As an implicit believer in the sufficiency of the master's method, he wishes to apply it to the period extending from 1865 to 1905.

It is but fair to say that, while he has found little of striking importance which

*The Governance of England. By Sidney Low, M.A., of Balliol College, Oxford, late Lecturer on History at King's College, London. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. London: T. Fisher Unwin.

had not been recorded, or at least suggested, by his great predecessor, he has found enough to justify his book. Some of his chapters, it is true, are little more than clever elaborations of what had already been succinctly and memorably said. If his views of the cabinet, the mon

archy and the House of Commons be considered, the reader will find in Bagehot many of the notions which Mr. Low seems to regard as discoveries; and when the latter defines important terms-a difficult thing to do when the term stands for part of a living, changing growthit will generally be found that the greater writer's guarded formulas, with their wider margins reserved for a hinterland of disconcerting exceptions, were not only justified at the time, but can be justified to-day. Take, for instance, Mr. Low's idea of the cabinet, which is presumably intended to supersede the various preceding definitions. Bagehot looked upon it as a committee of the legislative body selected to be the executive body. This definition made forty years ago better fits the facts than that of Mr. Low, who considers the cabinet to be a committee selected by one member of one party in parliament from among other members of the same party. Let us apply this to the last cabinet of Lord Salisbury, keeping in mind the author's intention to discard the point of view of the mere legalist and constitutionalist and to choose that of the practical observer, seeking to penetrate below the surface to the heart of things. Who, then, "selected" Mr. Chamberlain as Colonial Secretary? From what party was he selected? It would be idle to characterise Lord Salis

bury's nomination of Mr. Chamberlain as a choice, a real selection, no less than it would be so to characterise Premier Bal

four's nomination of Mr. Chamberlain's son as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Both were unusual administrative necessities, forced upon the leader of the government by the importance of a statesman belonging to a third political party who broke in upon the traditional dualism of opinion, and who even now are ready to

desert the Conservatives if the original terms of the compact are violated. I consider this the best possible example, because Mr. Low has earnestly attempted to improve upon current definitions of the cabinet.

Nor is he more fortunate in discussing the "inner ring" of ministers by whom he thinks the prestige and authority of the other members of the cabinet have in recent years been absorbed. When was there not an inner ring of British royal advisers during the last two centuries? Is it not both natural and inevitable that among a ministry of twenty members three or four should be pre-eminent, and that among these latter the official head may not sometimes be the real one? The name of Mr. Chamberlain may again be mentioned to illustrate not only the potency of the inner ring, which is no discovery at all, as Mr. Low would have us believe, but also the rivalry, if not the dominance for a time, of a nominal subordinate within the cabinet-a dominance resting upon an outside electoral influence stronger than the party majority in the legislature.

One does not need to be told at this late day that the cabinet and the House have won almost complete control of the administration; but it would be interesting, if there were space, to trace the strange and devious process by which this has been accomplished. Not as a thief in the night, but openly armed, rather, with a system of decorous and deferential apologies made in the public interest, powerful ministers and cliques have almost shorn the crown of its ancient prerogatives. And they blundered before. they robbed. They not only said one thing while meaning another, but they started the development of the existing constitutional order while aiming at a totally different one. Their working language and expedients have been shunned. in public documents as if they were symbols of treason. It was not until 1878 that the words "prime minister," and not until 1900 that the word "cabinet," appeared in an official record.

Mr. Low has the substantial merit of pointing out the errors of those prophets who foretold the cheapening of English Dolitical leadership by enfranchisement of

the masses. In this respect Bagehot and other constitutional writers since his time were wrong. The electorate still prefer to intrust large politics to those who are highly placed by birth, character and fortune; nor do the Liberal party in this respect differ noticeably from their Conservative opponents. During the last half century, however, the progress of science and art and the influence of literature have made the parliamentary life less exclusive and relatively less important, so that politics is now broadened and refined by the genius and culture which come with increasing value to the help of statesmanship. Especially interesting are Mr. Low's suggestions for improving the House of Lords by a liberal representation of literature, science and art. cerning the problems of imperial federation and the constitutional relations to be developed between Great Britain and her colonies this book contains some interesting speculations on lines already familiar to the political student. There can be little but praise for the author's literary style. It is easy, strong and clear, with a light touch and aptness of allusion that never detract from the weighty theme. John William Russell.

II.

Con

THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE ANCIENT CELTS.*

In the reconstruction of the religions of the culture-nations of Europe, scant attention has thus far been paid to the mythology of the Slavs and of the Celts. In the case of the former people this is not strange, since the material is so meagre and the religious and literary influence which they exercised on Europe is so slight that their faith has attracted but few investigators. Far different is it with the Celts; for in Britain, Ireland and Gaul once reigned a host of gods, whose forms may still be faintly seen through the disguise of saint and king to inspire in these latter days the genius of Tennyson and of Wagner. Scattered

*The Mythology of the British Islands: An Introduction to Celtic Myth, Legend, Poetry, and Romance. By Charles Squire. London: Blackie and Son. Imported by Charles Scribner's Sons.