The Week.

The award of the Nobel prize of $40,

000 to Theodore Roosevelt is a prope
recognition of his success in bringin{
about peace between Russia and Japan
Thisisthe
finest of President Roose
velts achievements, andthe
one f o
which he should be longest remembered
In everyland
thisaward will be ap
plauded, nowhere, however, more warm
ly than in this country, which is a shar
er in the honor to its Chief Magistrate
With admirable public spirit and tact hl
has decided to devote the money to
cause of industrial peace. The prizc
will also, we trust, modify his own con
ventionalideasabout
the necessity
being armed to t h e teeth, and will sei
his thoughts more stronglythanhere
tofore in the direction of amity be
tween nations. At the coming Haguc
Conference he has a unique opportunity
to startlethe
world by humanitarian
is p e
proposals fordisarmament;he
culiarly in a position t o lead in somc
long steptoward relieving-the poor of
Europe fromthecrushing
burdens of
militarism.
President Roosevelt oftenspeaks and
acts as if in his conception an efficient
government is that of a benevolent autocrat-not
amere executive, checked by
a legislature and a judiciary, and hem
med in by rigid laws When routine administration under law allows perpetratlon of a wrong, he would step in, deus
erc machana, and make the cause of vir.
tuetrmmph
,This notlon of hishas
never been displayed more clearly than
in his special message to Congress askingauthorityto
dismiss navalpfficers
whenever he sees fit. The cas6 which
has lncltedhim
tothisextraordinary
step is that of a paymaster who, becoming drunkat a dinner in a Yokohama
hotel, on May 9,1905, behaved indecently in
the
presence of number
a
of
Indles. When this officer was tried in
January, 1906, the .court-martial plaibly
came short of duty, for,instead of dismissing him, it merely reduced him to
the foot of the list of paymasters and
prescribed a public reprimand. In humaninstitutlons
such failuresare inevitable. I think
there
iis~
no danger that this power would be abused,
says Mr. Roosevelt, in
making
his
request for absolute authority.
His
consciousness of his own rectitude is
thus only surpassed by his comidence in
his unlinown successors. Moreover, he
wrote this message atthe
very moment when thousands of Americans were

warmly protesting because he had ended

the military careers of 150.innocent 601.
die% because he could not get hold of
from nine to twenty guilty men. This
was so grave an error that it may fit1Y
be characterized as an abuse of powel
The President, too, has plainly neg
lected the naval officers point of vies
objects was de
Thelaw t o whichhe
manded by the army and navg. jointl:Y
as security that officers should bede
prived of life commissions only
dule
process oflaw. And why not the Arm:Y
if the Navy?
the Revenue Marine ?
If executive dismissal will extirpate a11
evil growths, why limit it to the Navy?
The Secretary of the Navy recant;S
this year his last years belief that wc
havewarships
enough, and hethink 3
it well to havetwomorebattleships
His
change
of mind is due t o thc
failure of certain expectations that
foreign nations would limit thei;r
fleets, andtoanother
mysterious rea
son, no reference t o which shall slil
from his pen. The rest of his armua.
report is of interest because it endorse:
highly the recommendation of the Per,
sonnel Board, which has been sitting al:1
summer with a view to regulating thf
flow of promotion; and because it favor:5
also a radical reorganization of the N a nr
Department. A more sweeping changf
in the corps of officers has never been1
proposed at any one time, unless it be
theamalgamation
of thelineand
thc
engineers. In urging a reorganization 1
of the Navy Department,
Bonapartc
fayors placing allthebureauswhkh
L
have t o do with
under one head
and those relating to the personnel under another. The first
will comprise thebureau of sardsand docks,
squipment, construction and repair,
heam engineering, and ordnance. In
;he other will be the office .of the Chief
if the Navigation Bureau, the Surgeon2enera1, Paymaster-General, Commandmt of the Marine Corps, and the Super.dendent of the Naval Academy. From
;he point of view of business method
tnd fighting efficiency, much is t o be
;aid in.favor of the suggestedchange
3ut the heads of these two sections will
lave
enormous
power-much greater
,han that of the present Chief of the
3ureau of Navigation, who, in the eyes
,f many officers, has had far too much
:ontrol over the destinies of individials.

cia1 legislation, as a whole, than the fact

that, for nearly half a century, the anTreasury reports have almost without exception advocated a change in existing law. Secretary Shaw, in his first
report, -1902, argued for a banknote currency based on general assets, remarking
that he did not believe it necessary t o
make the currency thus issued a first lien
on assets, and that the new plan would
not preclude the continuance of the
present national bank currency. A year
ago, he psoposed additional issues of
banknotes,
to 50 per cent. of outstanding bond-secured circulation, but
subject to a tax of 5 or 6 per cent., with
a view t o early redemption when no
longer needed. Since Secretary Shaws
report of 1905, committees of the New
York Chamber of Commerce andthe
American Bankers Association, have, as
we noted on November 22, joined in
formulating a plan which includes the
main principles of these Treasury propositions. But now. the Secretary seems
t o have abandoned his currency reform plan of a year ago, and the modification of it proposed by the bankers, in
behalf of a plan of sheer paternalism in
the money market. He revives the ideas
which he has enunciated iromtime t o
time regarding bank reserves, and their
.
regulation in
the
discretion of the
Treasury. In t h s vlew he is, we think,
governed by wholly erroneousnotions
of the money market, whichlead him
t o a mischievous inference as t o the
of theTreasury
His
properfunctions
fundamental argument seems .to be that
Wall Street call money rates of 25 or
50 per cent. are evils per se and
necessary evils atthat; therefore, the
banks ought to combine t o suppress
them, and if the banks willnot do so,
the Treasury ought t o intervene. For
ourselves, thisstrikes us as sitting on
a safety valve. Mr. Shavs
ideas
on
oaternalism in. .finance are summariz?d in this extrapdinary paragraph from
his report, whjchwe
reprint without .
1further commentIf theSecretary
of theTreasurywcre
:men $100,000,000 t o lje deposlted with the
or withdrawn a s be mlght deem ex1
if m addltion he mere clothed
Iledlent.
1n t h authority over the reserves of the sevr
f ?rsl banks. wlth power t o contract the nat:ional-bankcirculation at pleasure, 111 my
dlstingulshed
Jludgrnent no panic
1ndustrial stagnatloncould threaten either
or Europe that he could
t.he United
Ilot avert

The United States Civil Service ComThe annualreports of the Secretary

report, confirms
the Treasury have long been largely nission, initsannual
;iven up to dl-cussion of the currency t he press dispatches regarding the diffi.nd exposition of projects of reform. c:ulties of the Government in Elling its
Jothing, in fact, could better prove the Crompetitive positions People stilltake
lodge-podge character of
past finan- t heexaminations, it appears, butfrom

Th.e N a t i o n .

49s

[Vel. 83, No. 2163

,40 to 60 per cent. of the highest eligibles on the various lists decline appointments.The
Government cannot hope
to compete with
private
employers,
saysthe Commission, unless it pays
salaries that measure up fairly well t o
thestandard
6f private business. In
order t o make Government posltions
more attractive, a bill has been introduced increasing thesalaries of civil employees
by
1 0 per cent.
The
complaint
of thls class does not, however, come
alone. Congress i s coming t o the point
of raising the salaries of its own members. A Cabinet officer has embodied
an allusion t o
inhisannualreport
the inadequacy of hispay Generally
speaking, there is not a man in public
position, hlgh or low,whodoes
not
make a convincing demonstration that,
on a basis of the.private demand for
like services, he ought to receive more
thanhe does. Logically, we should expect the announcement that the Government machinery is inadequatelymanned.
yetthe speciqcations in regard t o the
presentlabor famine are not alarmlng
T o saythat Government salaries have
not been adjusted t o meet the present
cost of living, is merely stating one of
their shortcomings. They have not properly been adjusted a t all. Most of them
Just growed.And
theman really t o
be pitied is not the ambitious outsider,
whether he be a candidate for a Cabinet
post or a rural free delivery route, but
the sheltered clerk who entered the service in the days when the salary looked larger,and to-day can neither have
It enlarged nor summon theinitiative
10 go elsewhere.

Th,e Isthmian Canal Commission announced on Saturday a postponement

tillJanuary 12 of the openlng of bids
for the completion of thePanama CaThis is the officially optimistic way
of confessing that no blds had been received, andthat
none would bo recelved by thedate originally fixed,December 12. Moreover, it is sbated that
certain changes inthe form o contract are to be made. These ape due,
I t IS explained, to the suggestlons of a
number of contractors. This again is
thepolite way of saylngthat th,e old
form of contract was impracticable.
Among the sweeping alterations now to
be made in thls contract, which last
hummer was
Wwless
and would be
changed tosuit
no one,
(1) Reductlon in theamount of the bond required; (2) rellef of the contractor from
liability f o r defective material, throwing upon the Government the expense
of peplacing any that may be discovered; (3) Government
a
guazantee
to
cover fluctuations in the wage smle on
tbe.Isthmus,and
(4) a atlpulation by
the Government that no contractor shall
be held in loss on account of faulty engneering data. Thlslast point is ,crit-

ical and ominous. Prospkctlve bidders,

so disturbed
it is admltted,,havebeen
bythle
engineering uncertainty-ofthe
plans adopted by the Government, that
they would not
undertake
the
work
without. a g&rantee that the Treasury
should standthe loss, if any resulted
from that cause. It is understood that
these technical doubts relate mainly to
the borings forthe great Gatun dam,
and to the constructton of three locks
In flight atthat point. How seriousis
the latter difficulty, may be seen by running over the testimony of various engineers before the Senabe Committee
last spring.
A standpat Congress refused 1 s t
of Canadyear to allow thefreeentry
ian lumber for the rebuilding of San
Francisco. Therefore, Oregon andwashingtonhave been drawn upon for the
exceptional demand Rutthe American
tonnagewhich alone can carry freight
from one American port t o another-As
so inadequate thatrates have already
risen fram $5 o r less to $9 per thousand
feet, with a prospect of $10 Meanwhile,
there lies idle an abundance of firstclass
foreign
shipping.
These
foreign
ships cannot carry lumber t o San Francisco undertheir presentregister,
nor
can .American capital buy them and apgly them in this vitally necessary work
The only practicable plan is explained
by thePortland Oregonian, inthe case
of theBritish steamship Duneric. This
vessel has been chartered by Portland
capital, and will be sent to British Columbia, thereto load with lumber for
San Francisco, a t freightrates
of $6
per tliousand feet, whlch, plus the duty
of $2, will still be iess than the charge
forcarryingnative
lumberfrom Portland to San Francisco under the American flag. If it werea case of foreignowned freight-car or wngon or wheelbarro.w, Americans would simply buy and
use it But as it is a ship, it must be
sent first round Robin Hoods barn, and,
after all,
deliver
lumber
not
cut
in
American mills.

The promotion of John W. Riddle,

now Minister to Rumania and Servia,
to be Ambassador to Russia, is thoroughly deserved He never gave large
sums to the Republican campalgh chest,
or owned a newjspaper, or wielded great
political and social influence; hence he
will be, among our Ambassadors, almost
in a class by himself. Because he represents the simple life, is one reason
now given for
his
appointment. A
farbetter
one is that he has worked
his way up from a secretaryship by
sheermerit. A remarkable linguist, devoted to the diplomatic s_ervicein which
he has now been a round dozenYears,
he has shown conclusively that
the
United States can get men of-the right
type to fill the entire diplomatic service
\

as soon as ,it ofPers a permanent

career and pays suitable salaries.

The Popes seeming reJectlon of

compromise with theFrench
Government on the question of Separatioq has
undoubtedly precipitated as grave a
crisis as any Ministry has been compelled to face slnce the establishment of the
Third Republic. Should the deadlock
turnout to be as obstinate as would
appear from the declarations of both
the Vaticanand the Cabinet, the country would be confronted by c i v ~ ldissension at a time when external-relations
are enough of themselves to cause the
Government much anxiety. Yet it is the
very necessity of maintaining the countrys position inthe presentdelicately
adjusted balance of European politics
that may impel the French Government
to find means for avoiding actual war
with the Church, while maintaining the
Separation Law in its substance. Nor
isthe Churchbent on actual violence.
So far as may be gathered from conflicting dispatches, the resistance of the
French Catholics is t o be passive in nature It is said thatparish
priests,
vicars, etc,mustremain
passive, and
may not codperate in any act of sequestratlon; but if the bishop considers that
the refusal of the treasurers t o surrender the keys may cause-grave consequences, he can permit them to do so.
And, again: Bishops may
authorize
Catholic officials t o participatein
sequesters, if the refusal would endanger
positions necessary for the maintenance
of their families. Neither side, webelieve, should be desirous t o provoke a
collision-the
Government,
because
crisesoften mean ministerial changes,
and the Vatican, because
religious
war, in the present temper of the country, would notredound tothe permanent interests of the Catholic Church.
It i s significant that the Popes decision
shouId have been withheld till the, new
French law was on the point of going
into effect Such high
dignitaries
as
Archbishop Lecot of Bordeaux and Car8ina.l Richard were allowed t o put
ward
measures
of compromise which
they are now compelled to repudiate.
The Gokernment may find this summary
overriding of he peaceful efforts Of
French ecclesiastics by the Curia powerful weapon inthe campaign against
foreign dominance in French affairs.
One Rllnistrp after anothef falling on
the anti-clerical issue, the King alarmed,
and the^ people on the verge of riotous
outbrea1tssuch is the news from Catholic Spain. Yet signs of a political .
movement against the privileges of the
Church have long been vlsible. It is not
only the Republican or anarchistic element, < a s in Catalonia, @at has now to
be reckoned with; there-is evidently a
deep and widespread feeling thatthe

The Nation.

Dec. 13, 19061

civil power mustassert
itself against
the ecclesiasticar. The intellectual alienation from the Church has long been
evident in Spain, aqd, of late, the antagonism h1a.s seemed to be striking
down. One recalls the popular excite
ment which GaldBss mildly anti-cleric,al play, Electra, provoked. The large
sale and vogue of a tirade against the
Church which itsauthor, Ibafiez, call.
ed a novel and published under the
title La Catedral, had a similar ominous significance. That the political result will be some form of legislation directed at the prerogatives of the Church,
along the lines of the French law,
though probably not so extreme, now
appears to be certain.

peoplewho are out of employment, anc

similar socialisticenterprises, take ma
ney from the rich and give it to thr
poor-a blessed levelling of inequalities
Not so, says Mr. Bullen. Therich arl
not the chief sufferersfromthese
tempts a t equalizing, but the
largf
and almost unconsidered class of
ers, just kept on the weatherslde
o
want by incessant work. These an
the people who feel the pinch of increas
ec! taxes, an increase that isdistribut.
through the community in a rise 0:
rents, as well as in the price of all thc
necessaries of life. I haveheard Lad]
Warwick assert at a banquet, adds Mr
Eullen, that it was theduty
of thr
state t o feed and clothe as well as edu
czte every chlld of the poor,. and I long
ed to askher whatshe understood bJ
thestate.Sheevidently
had in minc
the people of wealth; but Mr. Buller
argues that in London the state meanr
the humble workers who are willing
and
industrlous,
and who dread the
pauperization of themselves or theil
children more than death,yet whoarc
bot.
Igradually crushed down intothat
tcrmless pit by the ever-growing burden
( rates expended by utterly irresponsi,
of
ble men of the type of Mr. Will Crook
sud Mr George Lansbury, and women
1like Lady Warwick. In this country
we have not gone so far; but many perfEons of fine humanitarian impulses, wha
3ympathixe deeply with themiseries of
1:he poor, urge us to follow the example
1~f New Zealand, Australia,
Germany,
tndEngland.
But before .castingtheir
1cotes for such policies, they should e x
imine the problem more deeply and dlsthe
ultimate
incidence of the
(:over
I.axes for their well-meant projects

Sharp differences of opinion at the

congress of Itqlian Socialists lately held
Rome were taken by many as a sign
of weakness and break-up. Buta writerinthe
Nouvelle Revue assertsthat
the result was really a trlumph for the
moderatesThereis
a party of reform
which constitutes. the Right. It preaches
the emancipation of theproletariat by
means of education and instruction. It
.
does not advocate any particular politicaI r6g1me, but opposes clerical influence, urges the reduction of the mllitary establishment, and favorsuniversal suffrage. The Syndicalists compose the Left. They seek to propagate
revolutionary collectmism; they advocate the general strike, and demand the
substitution of an armed nationfor
the present standing army.The
Centre is represented by the Integralists.who seek t o compose the diEerewes between the extremes At the
congress, however, the Syndlcalists were
defeated by a coalition of the two other
parties. The programme upon whlch
German colonial affalrs have inevitatheseagree
puts social refqrm above 1:)!y taken much of thetime
of the
political agitation, and this distlnguishes 1ieichstags present session, and the re.
them from the earlier Republicans, who :ent six.days debate put the Governbelieved that a change in the form of nent to.its trumps. Fortunately for its
government was of the first importance. )restige, it had already begun to clean
I
Dunng the last twenty years there has Elouse; and the new Director of the Cobeen a rapid development of Socialism 1onial Bureau, Bernllard Dernburg, was
in Italy, due, according to the writer in
lble to present his plans and achievethe Nouvelle Revue, to the wretched Inents so vigorously as t o demblish many
condition^ of the working people, espe- C)f the criticisms directed agalnst him
in the agricul- ma his office. Von Bulow stood by his
cially in the south and
turaldistrictsButit
happens to be In Ilew subordinate with all possible loyalthe north that Sociallsm has been most. t y, and the result is distinctly a triumph
successful. As was pointed out fifteen f or the Government. The gravest acyears ago by Leroy-Beaulieu, the so- C,usations of cruelty and mismanagecialistic unrestinItaly
really arlses Inent were made by Bebel and by Herr
from the fact that there has been great toerens, one of the leaders of the Cenimprovement in the condition of the tre The latter produced, as proof
of
working classes, and the reforms al- tarbarity, a h e a v cane which in one
ready accomplished make them eager C:olony had been used in beating the nato achieve larger results.
this aspect of the colonial
tives.Oyer
f.ailure Herr Dernburg was fain t o glide
aspect of socialistic experiments, 1?asily; nor would it be just t o hold
often overlooked. is brought forward by 1him responsible for the misconduct of
F. T. Bulien in the London Spectator. 1nen appointed by his predecessors. Yet
The common notion is that public relief I ,he need of reform in the treatment Of
works, old-age pensions, support for I t;he natlves. neither Herr Dernburg nor
0

499
any one else can deny; in this respect
the German colonial record is black, and
Debels assertions are not t o be brushed
asidewith a merecharge of exaggeration.
The most significant passage in Jacob
H Schlbs plea at the Zionist massmeeting, in this city Sunday night, was
addressed to the secretagents
of the
Russian Government, of whose presence inthe meeting the speaker felt
convlnced:

I say t o YOU, is it any wonder that the

in
become revolutionists?
It 1s not himself that has made the
a
revolutlonlst; it is the Russlan Government.
This is a clear admission that the Jews

in Russlahave
become revolutionary.
Therehas
always been a pronounced
tendency to slur over thepart played
by Jews in the present Russian disorders, withthe
benevolent object, no
doubt. of representing them as the innocent vlctims of sa murderous autocraEspecially afterthe
different p o groms, the sympatheticpress has been
at p a l m t o refuteall stories as t o the
responsibllity of Jemsh revolutionaries
for the outbreak of massacre. It is true
that the victlms are for the most part
innooent and inoffensive, but it, is no
service t o their cause t o evade the fact
that the Russian Jews are the mam support of the revolution, andthe
most
dangerousenemies of the existing regime. This onlyserves
tobringout
in a clearer lightthe
iniquities of a
system that has driven an entire people
to desperate resistawe,not only
ish sociallstsand
agnostics, b u t even
that large part of the race which 1s
capable of cherishing so idealistica
Iream as Zionism.
Increase inthe
consumption of absinthe 1s causing some uneasiness in
Europe In Belgium, a law has lately
been passed forbiddmg its manufacture,
importation, transportation, or sale. A
similar
measure
was
adopted in the
Canton of Vaud, by a popular vote. The
Cathollc Congress of Fribourg passed
resolutions approving this Swiss initiative In the
des Ddbats. Dr.
Daremberg states that in 1884 France
2onsumed absinthe t o the amount of
19,335 hectolitres, in 1894, 125,078, and
,n 1904, 207,929. It is said that the abjinthe habit prevails especially among
;he younger llteraryfolk;
but it is
spreading rapidly among business men.
Ihe hablt increases the liability t o tuJerculosis, for most patients in the conjumptive hospitals in France have been
tbsinthe-drinkersThesubject
is one of
nterest in the United Statesalso; for
.uring the last twenty-five years there
.as been a considerable iqcrease in abinthe drinking here; it is usuallytakn in the form of vermouth, which is an
ofusion of-absinthe in white wine.