VOL. 85, NO. 2 Rome Against By Charles Wagner Author of "Truth," "The Simple Life," etc., etc. The People and the Corporations By the Hon Peter S. Grosscup Judge of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals Secretary Taft's Letter SATURDAY, JANUARY 12, 1907 It may not be true that we are getting an absolutely new type of politicians, but a type radically different from the conventional is more in evidence than for many years past. The popular impression is that the man always seeks the office. There have been recently some striking illustrations of the office seeking the man, such as Mr. Roosevelt's nomination to the Vice-Presidency against his protest; Mr. Root's acceptance of his present position at great self-sacrifice, simply because it offered him an opportunity to render great service to his country; Mr. Hughes's reluctant accept ance of the nomination as Governor of the State of New York, forced upon him because he was the only person who could save the Republican party from defeat; the organization of a Third Term League to force a Presidental nomination on Mr. Roosevelt despite his pledge, though in this instance the League will find in that pledge and Mr. Roosevelt's persistent adherence to it an insuperable obstacle to their design. The most recent illustration of the office seeking the man is afforded by the letter of Secretary Taft published last week:. For the purpose of relieving the burden imposed by recent publications upon some of my friends among the Washington news He known, is judicial, not political. would rather be on the Supreme Court he has thrice declined the desired judibench than in the White House. And cial appointment solely because he will not voluntarily relinquish his present post until he has accomplished for the Filipino people what he set out to accomplish. As to his availability, his vigormay make his nomination difficult, but it ous attack on the corrupt ring in Ohio would promote his election, since no virtue in public office appeals more to the American people than courage; his labor opinions would increase rather than diminish the labor vote for him, since workingmen want square treatment, not special favors; and while his public utterances in favor of tariff revision may concentrate against his nomination the politically influential representatives of favored interests, they would add to his popularity among the plain people. To-day Mr. Taft would be the strongest candidate the Republican party could put in nomination for the Presidency. A Self-Evident There is one action which the United States Senate ought to take, and take promptly, from the motive of paper correspondents of putting further self-respect if from no other. It ought inquiries to me, I wish to say that my ambition is not political; that I am not seeking the Presidential nomination; that I do not expect to be the Republican candidate, if for no other reason, because of what seem to me to be objections to my availability, which do not appear to lessen with the continued discharge of my own official duty; but that I am not foolish enough to say that, in the improbable event that the opportunity to run for the great office of President were to come to me, I should decline it, for this would not be true. There are two veiled references here which we may venture to interpret. Mr. Taft's ambition, his friends have long to demand the right to debate and vote reducing the present Philippine tariff upon the Philippine Tariff Bill. A bill now and abolishing it altogether two years hence passed the House by an it was referred to the Committee on the overwhelming majority. In the Senate Philippines, and that Committee has refused to report it either with approval or with disapproval, or with neither apthat Committee has refused to allow the proval nor disapproval. In other words, There are two ways of defeating legislaSenate to debate and vote upon the bill. tion in the Senate: one is to smother it in committee; the other is to talk it to death in the open sessions. This bill could not be talked to death; public sentiment in its favor is too strong. The Senate ought not to allow it to be smothered in committee. There are some arguments which can be adduced against the bill, though they appear to us both feeble and fallacious, and the fact that the opponents of the bill dread discussion indicates that this is their belief now. But there is no argument for the position that a bill which is urgently called for by those most familiar with the conditions in the Philippines, which is supported by the representative press in both parties, and which has passed the House by nearly a two-thirds majority, shall not even be discussed in the Senate. If the Committee does not act of its own motion, we hope that some Senator will ask the Senate to call the bill out from the Committee and let the country see who favor a free debate and who favor a policy of stifling debate on the question of doing justice to the wards of the Nation. There is a. movement in The People vs. Congress to deprive the the Swindlers Post-Office Department of its present summary power to prevent by administrative order the use of the mails by fraudulent concerns to obtain, by means of seductive advertisements, the money of a too credulous public. The unprincipled lobby organized in the interest of such concerns could probably accomplish nothing were it not innocently supported by doctrinaires who believe that the powers possessed by the Post-Office Department are inconsistent with American ideas of liberty. It is true that there is no evidence that these powers have ever been exercised unjustly, that any man has been deprived of any other liberty than the liberty to cheat his neighbor and use the post office in the operation; and there is abundant evidence that hundreds of fraudulent designs have been defeated. But there are not wanting in America very high-minded men who believe that an ounce of theory is worth a pound of experience, and it is from such men that danger is to be apprehended. Under the present law, the Postmaster-General may upon adequate evidence issue an order refusing mail facilities to advertising matter of a fraudulent character. Under this law lottery schemes, guessing contests, turf-gambling enterprises, blind pools supposedly organized for speculating upon the stock market, sales of indecent literature and of medicines avowedly concocted for criminal purposes, have been broken up. The courts have held the law Constitutional; that is, they have held that the Government is not under a Constitutional obligation to carry any mail matter that may be offered, nor to wait until the courts, after tedious judicial proceedings, have passed upon the mail matter offered. The power of exclusion has been so cautiously exercised by the Post-Office Department that out of the 2,400 fraud orders issued an appeal to the courts has been taken in less than thirty cases. In all these appeals, with one exception in which no decision has yet been reached, the Department has been sustained. Under such circumstances it would be a great mistake to interfere with the present summary powers of the Department, lest in the future some innocent person should suffer injustice although no one has suffered injustice in the past. The opinion of the Postmaster-General on this subject is both cautious and conclusive: If a single case could be shown in which injustice or wrong had been suffered by any honest man or woman in consequence of the exercise of authority contained in sections 3,929 and 4,041 of the Revised Statutes as amended, there would be good reason for demanding that similar occurrences in the future be strongly guarded against by legislation, but I am satisfied there has been no such instance. In my opinion, any such legislation now would be unnecessary and premature. This is also the opinion of The Outlook. Yet there is some peril of such unnecessary and premature legislation under the combined influence of the lobby and the doctrinaire. Some one of those organizations which, in the interest of the people, are watching legislation would do well to watch the bill now before Congress, and, if its passage is seriously threatened, arouse public opinion to the peril and to the necessity of protesting against it. The object of legislation should be to protect the people against the swindlers, not to protect the swindlers against the protectors of the people. Dr. Hall in India now. As Barrows lecturer of the University of Chicago, Dr. Charles Cuthbert Hall, of New York, four years ago gave a course of lectures in India which were most favorably received. He was reappointed, and is now giving another course of lectures in that country. The present is a most unpropitious time for an ordinary Christian lecturer to visit India. In fifty years there has not been such irritation and bias against the Government, and against most things from the West, as What this fact signifies in such a land is suggestively indicated by Mr. Bissell in his article published in this issue. The success of Japan in its war with Russia had powerfully quickened the desire of Indians to develop a more united and forceful national life. At this juncture Lord Curzon's Government forced a division of the Province of Bengal into two parts. This was bitterly resented by most Hindu Bengalis. Unfortunately, a spirit of opposition also to Christian missions and Christian thought, as well as to Western political authority and trade, was aroused. At such a . time it is propitious that the Barrows lecturer is an American who had previously won the deep respect of India's leaders, and who is above all a most tactful Christian gentleman. An unprecedently cordial reception has been given to Dr. Hall and his message. The general subject of Dr. Hall's previous course was "Christian Thought Interpreted by Christian Experience." Under that general subject he attempted to show "that man as man, be he Oriental or Occidental, is bound to find in the essence of the Christian religion that which concerns him as a man and controls him as a man, through the reason, the conscience, and the affections." The general subject of the present course of lectures is "The Witness of the Oriental Consciousness to Jesus Christ," and is "the outcome of reflections awakened by the study of Indian personality in its psychological relation to the most profound and the most lofty elements of the Christian religion." It is manifestly impossible to give any adequate summary in a brief space of a discussion which in its very nature calls for an Oriental subtleness of interpretation. Dr. Hall naturally emphasized the mystical element in the Christian religion. It is the mystical as opposed to the materialistic that the Orient values, and it is this quality that Dr. Hall told his hearers could be found in the religion of Christ. The popularity of Dr. Hall in India has been very marked. He has succeeded in no small degree in bridging the gap between the Orient and the Occident; and he has done this, not by refinements of philosophic speculation, but by direct appeal to the idealism of the Orient. Moreover, he has succeeded in impressing his hearers by his plea that the East should accept, not the ecclesiasticism and the theology of the West, but Jesus himself, the Asiatic. teacher, interpret him for itself as the expression of the heart of God, and dedicate to him and his kingdom its own splendid gifts. Dr. Hall's Reception Thus far Dr. Hall's few critics have been mostly from the minority of missionaries, who think that he has conceded too much to the value of the higher Hinduism, But many missionaries feel that, like the Greek philosophy, the truths of Hinduism should be treated as a preparation for the Gospel. Not the least interesting fact in connection with the lectures is that the men who have been chairmen of the various meetings have been representative of various eleinents in India. Hindus and English alike have given evidence of their hospitality and of their sympathy with the project. Dr. Hall began lecturing in the northwest of India. Simla he lectured to a great company of men connected with the Government; in Lahore he lectured in the great hall of the Punjab University, the largest hall in India. Among the chairmen was a In |