BY CHARLES J. BAYNE.

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The close of the old year and the beginning of the new finds the civilized world in a state of parliamentary deliberation, with the establishment of additional parliaments in various dependencies as one of the leading subjects of deliberation. The lawmakers of practically every nation in the two hemispheres are now in session, so the discussion of budgets and the agitation of reforms furnish ever-changing subjects of public interest.

The American mind has been moving forward from its varied and conflicting analyses of the recent elections to the concrete measures which will be introduced in Congress, and still it is unable to fix its attention definitely on serious subjects while the holiday spirit is in the air. Members of Congress themselves feel that they are merely in Washington for a few days to outline a program for a later date.

The President’s Message.

Congress convened on the first Monday in December, and on the following day the President’s message was transmitted to that body. It is generally agreed that Mr. Roosevelt’s communications to the federal law-makers are increasingly partaking of the nature of open letters to the American people rather than being definite suggestions to the House and Senate of the measures which should be enacted at the current session into law. The present document is no exception to that rule. It is largely made up of homilies which recall the waggish comment of Tom Reed about “Roosevelt’s delightful enthusiasm over his discovery of the Ten Commandments.” Such is practically the view of The Washington Herald, for instance, which says that “Congress will regard the counsels of the President as the obiter dicta of a distinguished publicist, awakening the public conscience, but without special bearing on the work of the present session.”

The forces of reform were delighted to find him advocating a law prohibiting corporations from contributing to campaign funds, the failure to pass which during the first session of the present Congress, when reform was in the air, was the subject of considerable criticism. It is pointed out that he does not now go so far as to advise that all contributions shall be made public. He is quoted, since the transmission of his message, as favoring a return to the large insurance companies of the funds they contributed to the last Republican campaign, and this has brought forth the question from his critics: Why disgorge only the contributions of the insurance companies, when the funds belonging to stock-holders, as well as to policy-holders, have been used by various corporations to influence elections?

The Race Question.

One of those homilies to which reference has been made is the President’s discussion of lynching and the race question. No one will take issue with him on what he says on the subject—unless it be on the statement that two thirds of the lynchings are for crimes other than rape. He quotes Ex-Gov. Candler as saying that he had, within one month, saved a dozen innocent negroes from lynching. After still further discussion of the question, the President advocates the infliction of the death penalty for rape and urges that assault with intent to commit this crime be made a capital offense, “at least in the discretion of the court.”

All this is, of course, a matter with which the states alone can deal, except in the territories under the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal government. On the general subject of lynching, The Brooklyn Eagle says that “the President is right in his preachment, but would be tempted to ignore it if he were in private life, and a citizen of a Southern state.”

Labor Legislation.

The relations of labor and capital come in for considerable discussion, and the cause of labor is well sustained. The President advocates a rigid enforcement of the eight-hour law, where practicable, a conservative use of injunctions, and an investigation of the conditions of the labor of children and women.

Senator Beveridge is already primed with a bill which will reach the child labor question, through the elastic Interstate Commerce Commission, by prohibiting the interstate transportation of commodities on which child labor has been employed.

The President favors the enlargement of the Employers’ Liability bill, passed at the last session of Congress, so as to place the “entire risk of the trade” upon the employer, and he favors federal investigation of controversies between labor and capital.

He advocates an enlargement of the meat inspection bill, so as to provide for placing the date of inspection on the label and throwing the cost of inspection on the packers.

He urges the more complete control of corporations in general, “by a national license law, or in other fashion,” which is one of the utterances anticipated with the keenest interest.

He comes out for an inheritance tax, an income tax, and mildly urges a ship subsidy and currency reform.

A bill providing for free trade with the Philippines passed the House in the last session, but it met its death in the Senate at the hands of members who feared that it would seriously affect the beet sugar industry. The President again recommends the adoption of this measure, or at least a reduction in the Philippine tariff; and, as one result of his visit to Porto Rico, he asks that the inhabitants be granted United States citizenship. A special message on this subject, it is said, will go to Congress later.

The Japanese Question.

His utterances on the Japanese question are perhaps the most sensational in the entire document. At least they have proven so, from two points of view. After paying a splendid tribute to the “little brown men” of the Orient, and advocating the adoption of naturalization laws in their behalf, he makes an attack upon the principle of state rights which has attracted more than ordinary attention. The exclusion of Japanese children from the public schools of San Francisco, which is discussed more at length elsewhere, has occupied a foremost place in the public mind for some time, and it is generally conceded to have largely resolved itself into a question of state rights, and the power of the federal government to force an observance of international treaties on the individual states, particularly where state laws alone are involved. The President demands that the civil and criminal laws of the federal government be so amended as to “enable the President to enforce the rights of aliens under treaties.”

Further along he made some nebulous threats about employing all the force of the army and navy in behalf of the Japanese, if necessary, and at once the California representatives were, themselves, up in arms. The President hastened to explain that he had been misunderstood—that he only meant to say that he would protect the Japanese from mob violence, by aid of the army and navy, if necessary, so the members from the Pacific slope are satisfied.

In the meantime the President has instructed the department of justice in California to make a test case of the state law segregating “the children of Mongolian parentage” from the whites in public schools, and it is believed that the matter will thus be settled.

The remainder of the message is devoted to the Rio conference, the situation in Cuba, Central America and Alaska, the maintenance of the navy at its present efficiency, and the approaching session of the second peace conference at the Hague.

Mr. Watson’s Views.

While various public men have selected a variety of sentences from the Presidential Message as being particularly striking, our readers may have a natural curiosity to know what sentence in the message of the President most impressed our Editor-in-Chief. His section of the Magazine had been closed before the President’s message was made public, but in a private letter to me, Mr. Watson remarks that the finest sentence to be found in Mr. Roosevelt’s recent message to Congress, is this:

“Neither a nation, nor an individual, can surrender conscience to another’s keeping. A just war is far better for the soul of a nation than the most prosperous peace obtained by acquiescence to any wrong or injustice.”

Mr. Watson thinks that the manner in which the President emphasizes the fact that a nation, like an individual, should not consent to live under dishonorable conditions, was very fine.

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In addition to the editorial expressions which have been incidentally quoted in the foregoing summary of the message, The New York World says that “if Roosevelt would advocate tariff reform and if Mr. Bryan would stop advocating government ownership of railroads, they would be substantially in accord.” The New York Tribune says “the message is characterized throughout by that courage with which the President habitually faces public questions.” The New York Press thinks the reading of it must have given the trust-owners “a night of restless slumbers.” The New York American calls it “the most ambitious state paper of his career.” The New York Times thinks the wisest counsel the President gives Congress is to “obviate the evil of prohibiting all combinations of capital, whether good or bad.” The New York Sun devotes its criticisms chiefly to those matters affecting the judiciary.

Cabinet Changes.

The echoes of the Presidential message had scarcely died away, when the President communicated to the Senate a long list of nominations which included many changes in his Cabinet. Root, Taft and Wilson will remain where they are. Charles Jerome Bonaparte, will become Attorney General; Secretary Victor H. Metcalf, Secretary of the Navy; Oscar S. Straus, of New York, Secretary of Commerce and Labor; George B. Cortelyou, Secretary of the Treasury, in place of Leslie M. Shaw, who is to resign, and Mr. Cortelyou will be succeeded in the Post Office by Mr. George V. L. Meyer; James R. Garfield, Secretary of the Interior.

The appointment of Attorney General Moody to a position on the Supreme Court Bench has brought forth considerable criticism. Before him, in that capacity, must come for review much of the litigation in which he, as prosecuting attorney for the government, has been interested. Nearly forty million dollars in various suits are being held up for a hearing before a full bench. According to established precedent, Mr. Moody should not pass upon them, after having been identified with them in the Department of Justice. No definite opposition to his confirmation is manifested, however.

The General Elections.

The general elections are receding farther and farther into the past, and public interest in the matter is abating. The returns in the state of New York, showing the election of the entire Democratic ticket with the exception of the head, have been interpreted according to the personal views of the interpreters, but the truth seems to be that there was a general uprising in favor of reform, brought largely to the forefront by Hearst, but that the personality of Hearst himself, coupled with his adhesion to Boss Murphy, was something that the people would not stand for, and hence his defeat. Representative Jas. W. Wadsworth paid the penalty of his opposition to the meat inspection bill, and will not be in the Sixtieth Congress.

A survey of the elections as a whole shows that the Republican majority in the Sixtieth Congress will drop from 112 to 58. The Republicans carried every Northern state by reduced majorities, and the Democrats carried every Southern state, in many instances by increased majorities, at the same time redeeming Missouri from the Republican ranks into which she passed for the first time with the Roosevelt tidal wave. In the lower house of the Sixtieth Congress there will be an even hundred new members.

The Republicans of the Senate, will probably make a gain of four members. The terms of thirty senators will expire on March 4, 1907, fifteen of them being Democrats and fifteen Republicans. Patterson, of Colorado, Guerin, of Oregon—appointed to succeed the late Senator Mitchell, who died in disgrace—Dubois, of Idaho, and Clark, of Montana, are the four Democrats who will probably be succeeded by Republicans. Then the Republicans in the Senate will have more than a two-thirds majority.

Senator Dryden, the life insurance president of New Jersey, doesn’t know whether the legislature in January is going to re-elect him or not—and no one else seems to know any more than he does. The Republican majority is very close, and there is considerable defection in the ranks. He may be opposed by Gov. Edward S. Stokes.

Pennsylvania went Republican all right, but it was not exactly as “Maine went for Governor Kent.” Edwin S. Stuart—the first bachelor in a generation, by the way, to occupy the Keystone White House—is conceded to be “a very nice man,” so the Republicans elected him over the fusion candidate, Emery. It is charged in some quarters that his election indicates that Pennsylvania has recovered from her spasm of righteousness and reform, but the fact remains that Boss Penrose is now asking that things be done instead of demanding them, as he formerly did, after the manner of the Quay school in which he was educated.

New Hampshire has a peculiar election system. If no candidate receives a majority over all, the election is thrown into the legislature. Hon. Charles M. Floyd, Republican, received a plurality, but not a majority. His election by the legislature is assured, however.

The election of James O. Davidson as governor of Wisconsin was hailed as a victory for the anti-Follette forces, since they had opposed his nomination, but the junior senator made his influence felt in no uncertain way elsewhere, notably in the defeat of Representative Babcock, who has served seven terms in the house, and for a long period was the official fat-fryer of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee.

The new state of Oklahoma selected Democratic members of the constitutional convention and will stand by Jeffersonian principles. Some effort is being made to embody white supremacy provisions in the organic law which is being framed, and this has started a discussion as to whether the President, under those circumstances, would issue the proclamation admitting the new state to the Union. It is recalled that under somewhat similar circumstances the statehood of Missouri was held up for fifteen months.

Such is a running review of the results of the elections, but, as previously indicated, the measures to which Congress will devote its attention after the Christmas holidays are the center of interest.

A concerted effort is being made to force the administration to take up the subject of tariff reform, notwithstanding the fact that the President ignored the subject in his message.

The Divorce Congress.

One of the notable conventions of the year was that of the National Divorce Congress which assembled in Philadelphia on Nov. 19 and 20 for the purpose of formulating a uniform divorce law which, it is hoped, would be enacted by all the states of the Union. It was the legislature of Pennsylvania which took the initiative in this matter, not only by codifying and examining its own laws, but by arranging a conference, through Governor Pennypacker, to discuss the matter of uniform divorce laws. This conference was held in Washington last February and a committee was appointed to draw up a model bill to present to all the states. Thirty states and territories were represented at the Congress in Philadelphia and the grounds for absolute divorce, as presented by the committee and adopted by the Congress were:

1. Adultery.

2. Bigamy, at the suit of the innocent and injured party to the first marriage.

3. Conviction and sentence for crime, followed by continuous imprisonment for at least two years, or under indeterminate sentence for at least one year.

4. Extreme cruelty, endangering life or health.

5. Wilful desertion for two years.

6. Habitual drunkenness for two years.

The Situation in ’Frisco.

About the least pacific section of our united country just at present is the Pacific slope. The action of the Board of Education of San Francisco in excluding Japanese children from the regular public schools of the city, and requiring that they be segregated in schools set aside exclusively for them, has aroused the deepest interest all over the country, and its echoes are reverberating on the shores of the Chrysanthemum kingdom. It is becoming increasingly evident that the matter of excluding the Japanese from the public schools is not the crux of the matter. It is but a symptom of a very general condition of dislike and distrust. The people of California frankly declare that the more they see of the Japanese the less they like them and that since the Russo-Japanese war, as one resident of the state puts it, “the Japs are getting too blamed cockey.” The Californians assert that they have the sympathy and support of the entire Pacific slope in their determination to hold the Japanese in check. They point to the fact that the little brown men practically dominate the labor situation in Hawaii, and that they are making that territory merely a half-way house to California, which they will likewise over-run. The labor unions, which are particularly strong on the slope are strong in their antagonism to the Japanese.

It is boldly declared by many representative citizens of California that they will not stop short of introducing a bill in this or the Sixtieth Congress excluding the Japanese from the United States on practically the same terms as are now applied to the Chinese, who are held in some quarters to be more desirable.

Many interesting questions of national and international law are involved in the present situation.

Those who advocate a federal law excluding the Japanese are reminded that the existing treaty, which was negotiated by Mr. Gresham in Mr. Cleveland’s second administration, provides that “this treaty shall go into operation on the 17th day of July, 1899 and shall remain in force for a period of twelve years from that date.” Twelve months’ notice, from the time of expiration, must also be given by either party, if such party desires to terminate the agreement. Notice of termination cannot be given, therefore, until July 19, 1911, and until July 1912, it must continue as the supreme law of the land. Consequently the adoption of a Japanese exclusion law cannot become effective for five years and a half. The President’s advocacy of naturalization for the Japanese is not received kindly on the slope. In addition to all this Mayor Schmitz and Abe Ruef, the political “boss,” have been indicted for extortion.

The Increase in Wages.

The month of November was marked by the announcement of the most general increase in the wages of employes ever recorded in this country during so short a period. This increase was made, for the most part, by the railroads and other large corporate interests and chiefly affects employes whose salaries are less than $200 a month. In many instances the advance began with the first of December, while in others it becomes effective with the new year.

It would be a difficult matter to make anything like an approximate estimate of this golden harvest which is to go into the pockets of the laboring men. It is said by those who are in a position to know, that the advance in wages announced by the railroads during the month of November would alone amount to $20,000,000 annually, affecting 200,000 employes. Even so conservative an authority as The Chicago Evening Post thinks it entirely probable that the advance in the wages of railroad employes becoming effective on the first of the year will reach something like $100,000,000 a year, while others place it still higher. The Steel Trust and the street railroads have also advanced wages.

It is only fair to say, in dwelling upon this general advance in the wages of labor in so many departments of industry, that, according to the mercantile agencies, the cost of living is higher now than it has been at any time in twenty years, and the continuance of agitation and discontent in certain quarters is held to be justifiable for the reason that the purchasing power of a dollar is so much less than formerly that it is no more than off-set by an increase of ten per cent in wages.

The Harriman-Fish Embroglio.

The final triumph of Edward H. Harriman over President Stuyvesant Fish, of the Illinois Central, after a long and bitter feud extending over many years, is still a topic of absorbing interest in the railroad world and to the public in general. At a special meeting of the directors of the road held in New York early in November Mr. Fish was defeated for re-election by a vote of eight to four, the thirteenth director, Vice-President Welling, being confined to his bed from an illness of which he died a few days later. The formal complaint made against President Fish was that he had not observed the “harmony” agreement of last July, when it was at one time proposed that a special committee should solicit proxies, and not Mr. Fish personally. He was charged with arrogating to himself alone “the duty and function resting upon the entire board,” and not being able to “distinguish between the powers and duties of the president and those of the directors of the corporation.” The purpose of the board was known before-hand and it was no surprise when James T. Harahan, one of the vice-presidents, was chosen to succeed Mr. Fish.

The nomination was seconded by Charles A. Peabody, President of the Mutual Life Insurance Company, which was one of the many reasons sustaining the belief on the part of Mr. Fish’s friends that his refusal to take part in the “white-washing” of the Mutual officials was really responsible for his overthrow. It is recalled that Harriman made threats at the time that he would make reprisal on Fish for his refusal to knuckle under.

In the meantime Mr. Fish announced his intention of carrying the matter into the courts. The constitution of the state of Illinois provides that “no railroad corporation shall consolidate its stock, property or franchises with any other railroad corporation owning a parallel or competing line. A majority of the directors of any railroad corporation now incorporated, or hereafter to be incorporated by the laws of this state, shall be citizens and residents of this state.” Of the directors of the Illinois Central only three, at the time of the recent election, were residents of the state of Illinois. They were Gov. Deneen, who is an ex-officio director by reason of his office as governor, James T. Harahan, the new president, and John C. Welling, who has since died. It is not denied that for thirteen years a majority of the directors have not been “citizens and residents of Illinois,” and the scope of the immediate issue is enlarged by the fact that if the courts hold the present board to be illegal, so also will be the work of every board for the past thirteen years, including issues of stocks, bonds, etc.

Harriman’s control of so vast a system of railroads is naturally regarded as a menace. The Union Pacific and the Southern Pacific, of which he is absolute master, aggregate 15,000 miles, with an outstanding capitalization of $1,031,000,000. The Chicago & Alton and the Illinois Central, which he practically controls, have a mileage of 6,668, with a capitalization of over $380,728,223. He is largely in control of the Baltimore & Ohio, the Reading and the Central of New Jersey railroads, with a mileage of 7,255 and a capitalization of practically $770,000,000. He is a stockholder and director in Erie, which has a mileage of 2,553 and a capitalization of $382,900,000. Thus he is a moving spirit and to a large extent the dominant figure in 31,000 miles of railroad, with a capitalization of more than two billions and a half of dollars. It is not surprising that an investigation on the part of the Interstate Commerce Commission is now announced.

Ryan’s Vast Interests.

One of the recent surprises in Wall street was the resignation of Thomas F. Ryan as a director from more than twenty railroads and industrial corporations, including the leading trusts of the country. Coincident with his retirement came the announcement that he was one of a number of American capitalists who had secured from King Leopold of Belgium certain rights in 8,400,000 acres of land in the Congo Free State, for the purpose of developing the rubber and mineral resources, building railroads and otherwise exploiting that vast territory.

An effort is being made in Congress to have this government join in an investigation of conditions in the Congo and several of Leopold’s lobbyists are in hot water.

The Lesson of Spencer’s Death.

No event in recent years has created a more profound sensation than the tragic death of President Samuel Spencer, of the Southern railroad, who was killed in a rear-end collision on his own road on the morning of Thanksgiving day. Mr. Spencer was a native Georgian, and worked his way through all the grades of his calling to the presidency he held at the time of his death. Many personal tributes have been paid to Mr. Spencer, but the fact that he was a victim to the inefficiency of his own railroad system has been commented upon with decided emphasis. Readers of The Jeffersonian Magazine will recall the heated controversy last summer between Mr. Watson and the editor of The Macon Telegraph. The latter criticised Mr. Watson for making the point that Mr. Spencer, as a railroad manager, squeezed too much money out of the South into the pockets of Wall street millionaires, allowing his road to become dangerous, allowing employes to be overworked, allowing bridges to become decayed, refusing to double-track where double tracking was needed and refusing to employ a sufficient number of men to do the amount of work necessary in the proper operation of the property. The text from which Mr. Watson preached was the official commendation of Mr. Spencer by the voting trustees of the Southern Railway Holding Company. They praised him because he had, during the last thirteen years, doubled their property, trebled the gross earnings, and increased the net earnings, over and above all operating expenses, more than 525 per cent. He took this report and proved that instead of being something for Mr. Spencer to be proud of, it was something to make him ashamed, since it proved conclusively that the road was being run simply from the standpoint of those who wanted dividends and who did not care how unsatisfactory was the service, nor how many lives were lost because of the failure to adopt safety appliances, double tracks, and by failure to abolish the deadly grade crossings. Mr. Watson feels that the fate which has overtaken Mr. Spencer is the most appalling proof that could be furnished that he was right in his contentions.

The press of this country and England view the matter in the same light. The Brooklyn Eagle, in discussing the matter, says, “We can only deplore this very able man’s loss. We can only hope that his sacrifice may result in no further disregard of the precautions that would have averted it, had those precautions been observed. Until that time,” continues the Eagle, “we may expect preventable ‘accidents’ which wear every quality of murder except its intent.” The Pall Mall Gazette, of London, founded by W. T. Stead, expresses the hope that Mr. Spencer’s death “will arouse those responsible for the management of American railroads to a feeling that it is desirable to make them safer.” The statistics of accidental deaths in America, says The Gazette, “are appalling to the English mind, but seem to have little effect in America. But the inclusion of directors among the victims is almost proverbial as the surest route to reform.”

In spite of these solemn warnings another fatal rear-end collision occurred on the Southern within ten days, a short distance from the scene of the former accident.

Mr. Spencer has been succeeded, as President of the Southern, by Mr. W. W. Finley, formerly second vice-president of the road.

Standard Oil Before the Bar.

The most definite and concrete form which the agitation against trusts and combines has ever assumed in this country, and the most interesting legal step the government has taken in a generation, was the filing of a bill in equity, by United States Attorney General Moody, on Nov. 15, in the Eighth Judicial Circuit, in St. Louis, Mo., against the Standard Oil Company, of New Jersey, and seventy of its subsidiary corporations and limited partnerships, as well as against seven of the leading officers and directors of the big trust, to have the combination dissolved under the Sherman Anti-Trust law, as being in restraint of trade and commerce. The government, for nearly two years, has been gathering information on which to base some such action. But last June the attorney general appointed two assistants, Messrs. F. B. Kellogg and C. B. Morrison, to act with Assistant Attorney General Purdy in gathering information as to the transgressions of the Oil Trust in the business of refining, transporting, distributing and selling oil throughout the United States.

THE STRIPES MAY GO ON YET, IF YOU DON’T WATCH OUT.