VOL. III.

No. 3.

HE interest of the American people during the past month has centered about two movements-the war in Corea and tariff reform, which, lame and wobbling, finally got through an almost stagnant Congress, and made its way to the President.

THE WAR IN THE WEST.

Now that the center of population of the English-speaking race is New York, and not London, is it not time for us to call Japan West? It will help to bring the Orient before us as it actually is, and not as we have been accustomed to think it. That travel across the Pacific is constantly increasing, and with remarkable rapidity, is an admitted fact. Only a little more than twice the time required to make the run across from New York to Liverpool, carries the west-bound traveler westward to the Orient, and lands him in Japan. The day is not far distant when a Liverpool on the shores of Puget Sound will stand as the gateway to the West. We are, then, probably more interested than we think in the outcome of this war in Corea.

Two nations are at war who have hated each other from time immemorial. One of these nations has, during the last generation, opened her arms to all that is progressive. Her promising young men have studied in different countries of Europe while almost every college in America

boasts its Japanese students at one time or another during the last twenty or thirty years. The other nation prides itself on a civilization of forty centuries. It glories in its conservatism, and conservatism in China's case has meant stagnation. The Chinese for centuries disdained to recognize but one nation, and that their own, and even yet they reluctantly admit that there are other powers.

The success of China, then, would mean indefinite delay to the modernizing of the Orient. The success of Japan, which may fitly be called the America of the Orient, means that the progress already made, and which has such a strong foothold in Japan, will be extended. We are neutral, except in our sympathies, which are almost without exception with Japan. How could it be otherwise? Her people whom we have met have won our respect and our love. They have not wrapped themselves in the shellac of bigotry and refused to learn from the more fortunate or progressive.

The Japanese who came among us were from the better classes, while on the other hand, we carry our laundry to the Chinaman, and find in most of the representatives of that great empire those who come from the lower classes. Then the spirit of the two nations are not to be compared. The walls of China, be they of tradition, conservatism, stagnation or paganism, must crumble before God's plans are fully carried out. Japanese success will be a step in the progress of the world.

PARTY FAILURE.

The party in power, from which so much was hoped, after twenty years of free-trade agitation, and winning the confidences of the people, has yielded to a small coterie of senators, who became the tools of the Sugar Trust. That mere dollars and cents can practically buy the control of our government, arouses among the people righteous indignation. We have but contempt for men, no matter what their ability or position may be, who have not the manhood to put country first, at the sacrifice, if need be, of self and pocket-book. But this, unfortunately, does not seem to be the spirit of the coterie of leaders in the Senate.

While the bill, which became a law without the signature of the President, from the free-trade standpoint is a marked improvement on the McKinley law, it is nevertheless a poor outcome of a twentyyears effort. Republicans have been accused of allowing protected monopolies to dictate tariff schedules. Better things were expected from, and promised by the Democratic party.

"If anything," says the Harper's Weekly, "the subjection of the Democratic party is greater than that of the Republicans. The Republicans believe in taxing the many for the enrichment of the few. The Democrats permitted a violation of their principles for pecuniary considerations.

The imbecility which attended the steps of the tariff bill does not inspire hope. If the Democratic party were wise, it would have adopted the Populist income tax. If it were courageous, it would not have accepted the bill with the Sugar Trust schedule in it." At any rate, the tariff matter is settled for the present, and while the working people are using sugar sparingly for their coffee, the directors of the Sugar Trust are drawing $100,000 a year as salaries, in addition to their large dividends upon stock. (To replace their plants would cost $16,500,000. They paid 22 per cent on a capital of $75,000,000, or 110 per cent on the actual cash values of their properties.)

BRECKINRIDGE PERSISTS.

The campaign waxeth warm in Kentucky, if we may judge from the published reports.

It is not yet settled that Breckinridge will be defeated. The better element of our people, North and South, are a unit in demanding his withdrawal. How, in face of the record of the past nine years, which is a standing affront to any and every tie which makes dear and sacred home and motherhood, this man has the boldness to insist upon the franchises of his people, is almost inexplicable. The petitions, like the one in the front pages of this REVIEW, have come in from every state and territory. They have been turned over to Anthony Comstock, whose name has for years struck terror to instigators and promulgators of

vice.

We trust that Providence will lend aid to those petitions, and that they may avail according to the progress and hopes of those who have so kindly given their aid to the work. We trust the better element is strong enough in his section to defeat him; if not, we shall persist continually in demanding his resignation. A few days ago, one George O. Barnes, an evangelist (whether of God or the devil the report does not state), came out boldly, making a plea in behalf of the profligate. If he had pleaded for the repentance of Breckinridge, we would all say amen. But to forgive without signs of repentance, and honor him with the gift of a high place in the nation -ay, that is too much for any high conscience which has known the love of sister or mother!

BRAVO!

convention nominated Thomas Majors for "The Republicans of Nebraska in state governor. A letter was read from E. RoseNational Committee from Nebraska, because water, resigning his place in the Republican the convention had nominated for governor a man who has been branded as an accesCongressional Committee a man who has sory to forgery and perjury by a Republican consorted with boodlers and jobbers-a man who has been the pliant tool of railroads, and whose nomination was procured by the combined influence of corporate copers, professional bribe-givers, jury-fixers and impeached state-house officials."

This is really encouraging. We con

gratulate that man for resigning. It was plainly the only way out of a difficulty for an honest man; but so few have the pluck or the courage that we congratulate him for doing-simply his duty.

THE ANTI-LYNCHING MOVEMENT.

Miss Ida B. Wells, the gifted and persevering colored journalist, has returned to America after a very successful anti-lynching crusade in England. She is making the tour of the States, lecturing and organizing societies for the suppression of lynching.

Upon her return Miss Wells made a remark which has attracted considerable attention:

I wanted the moral support of that wise

Christian nation, when I should demand in this country that the negro shall have fair trial when charged with crime, and not be made the scapegoat of a white man's crime, or a white woman's falsehood.

Governor Northen's (of Georgia) fertile imagination sees in this movement inaugurated by Miss Wells, a scheme of English and American capitalists to divert investment and immigration from the South to the West.

It is announced that "the special cause which exists for the lynching of colored men at the South cannot be removed by legislation, by English sympathy, by any amount of sentimental palaver." All this may be very true. It is also true that the It is also true that the gentlemen of the South during slave-days sowed the seed which has developed in the colored people to such an extent that extent that according to their judgment lynching is required to stamp it out. Breckinridge, that honorable man of Kentucky, managed his nefarious business in a more polite way than the ignorant negro, whose brutal acts are the results of the same desires and motives. The people of his district never dreamed of hanging him for ruining a young girl. There are some mothers' unworthy children who hope to return him to Congress. Lynching in this country is so frequent as to demand the thoughtful consideration of all thinking people. We may ask ourselves why such barbarious methods do not occur in Canada. It shows a deplorable state of affairs. Every lynching

is a tribute either to the brutality of our people or to the corruption of our courts. Let the people rise up in the strength of an expressed popular opinion against this crime, and let it be forever wiped out of existence.

THE CATHOLIC TOTAL ABSTINENCE UNION.

There is much hope for better things in the stand which the Catholic Church is taking against the liquor traffic. It is one of the signs of the times which help along our optimism. At the annual convention of the Catholic Total Abtinence Union of America, held during the past month, at St. Paul, Monsignor Satolli's decision sustaining the attitude of Bishop Watterson against societies officered by liquor dealers, was heartily indorsed. That the temperance cause among the Catholics is rapidly gaining ground, no one can deny. Yet it is doubtful if the church knows the power of the liquor interests in its affairs.

the saloon-keepers of the United States are either members of the Catholic Church, or

It is estimated that at least two thirds of

its adherents; add to these the brewers and wholesalers, consider the fact that these are always liberal givers to the church and the charities of the same, and we get some faint conception of the power of the liquor

element in the church. Catholicism has attacked a giant, a giant, which has strongly intrenched itself within its very heart. church rids itself of this octopus. But we There will be a great conflict before the all lend heartily our sympathy and help, for the cause is righteous, working for the good of mankind.

INGERSOLL THROWS LIGHT ON WHAT INFIDELITY IS-SUICIDE JUSTIFIABLE.

Robert Ingersoll has at length said some things which can add but repulsiveness to the doctrines which he promulgates. During the month he came out boldly in the New York World in favor of suicide. "The world is outgrowing this absurdity" of our being placed here to await death by natural means. He grows eloquent on a theme which is but repulsive alike against the laws of nature and the command of God.

Some days later the New York Tribune gave a column to an account headed,

"Bound to Die Together." A young man and young woman were found dead in the park. "The young woman was pronounced the most beautiful girl that had been at the morgue in many a day." The young man "was a great believer in theosophy, He had in his pocket a clipping of Robert Ingersoll's letter, declaring suicide not to be a sin."

Ingersoll has again brought deepest sorrow into two homes, and due to his infernal teaching, hearts in at least two families bleed. He may rest easy as he reads such accounts, but did his own children or the wife of his home seek death by suicide, as did this young couple, he might receive some new light on humanity and humanity's relation to God.

PROVIDING FOR THE RAINY DAY.

We are far behind some of the European nations in our encouragement for the working people to save something from their earnings. We are tardy, indeed, in arranging to give the people the benefit of a Postal Savings Bank. Italy is generally considered to be on the verge of bankruptcy, and continually in financial straits, yet her working people have no less than 205,000,000 lire in the Post-office Savings Bank alone. Our government gives protection to the rich bond-holder, and pays him interest. Why not pay the dollar-a-day workman the same interest on whatever sum he may save from his earnings?

That a Postal Savings Bank would be a boon may be gathered from the fact that ordinary savings banks are to be found in almost every large town of the country. Their condition is an indication of the times. That the laboring people have suffered may be gleaned from the statement that during the year ending June 30, 1894, the enormous amount of $247,781,403 passed from the vaults of only thirty-eight New York City and Brooklyn savings banks into the hands of those who had by no little sacrifice made savings from their wages. This vast sum would not have been drawn but from the necessities of the depositors. It is a striking proof of the stringency which has made the past year notable. The encouraging statement is made that since January

1st the deposits have exceeded the withdrawals by no less than $9,000,000. And times are growing better.

PROFESSOR ELY'S TRIAL.

Professor Richard T. Ely, a well-known authority on sociological problems, has been brought to trial by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin. These wise ones are to sit in judgment as to the heresy of the Professor's teaching in their university. The charge was brought by a certain O. E. Wells, Superintendent of Public Instruction (whether by right of intellectual fitness, or due to political wirepulling, we know not) for the State of Michigan.

It is doubtful if any denial to such a charge could strengthen the Professor's position among those who are familiar with his worth and works. Yet he seemed to have felt it imperative to make a public denial, a paragraph of which I quote:

Taking up, first, the series of charges brought against my conduct and character, I deny each and everyone in each and every particular. I defy the author of these base and cruel calumnies to prove one statement that he has made, and until he does so I shall hold him up to the public as an unmanly and shameless slanderer.

Newspaper editors throughout the country proceeded to adjust their eye-glasses and write wise judgments upon the duties of the Regents and the results of such a trial. The general comment being, "If found guilty, the Professor should be dismissed, for the youth of the land should not have perverted views instilled into them. If not guilty, the Professor would be put in his true light before the people."

With their usual short-sightedness these editors, who are too often (and let it be said, against their own conscience) but the hirelings of capital, have overlooked seemingly the principle involved in this trial.

Regents of a university presume to silence the tongue of a man who has devoted his life to the study of social questions! There were in olden times men who sat in high places and wore the insignia of authority, who enforced their wishes by the power of life or death which they wielded. Freedom of thought was too often crushed or silenced by the headsman's ax. Some

time ago a certain young professor in a well-known eastern university expressed himself fully against trusts and combines -against the corruption of wealth in high places. His utterances came to the ears of one of the trustees, a millionaire who was a patron of the university. The young professor was dismissed. In this manner, then, the powerful of to-day defend their systems. It is done in a more polite way than in days of old, but not every man has the courage to stand against the powers that can cut off his supply of bread and butter for himself and family.

The trial of Professor Ely is a disgrace to the state of Wisconsin. It is an affront to all that the American should hold dear to the human heart. It is a denial in this country of the freedom of thought—thought, too, which is constantly striving for the light, seeking only the greatest good to the greatest number.

Men who have become patrons of universities have been lauded to the skies. Think you they rest when they have made their generous donations, sometimes accumulated at the cost of heartaches and the miseries of the poor (God help us not to forget this)? Not so; they have a voice in the control, and that voice speaks out against anything which aims any blow at their system. Obey the mandates of these mighty ones, or your bread and butter will be cut off. I say it is some better than having one's head cut off. Schiller, in Don Carlos, makes the

Marquis of the Netherlands say to King
Philip:

Alas! that when from the Creator's hand
You took mankind, and molded him to suit
Your own ideas, making yourself the god
Of this new creature, you should overlook
That you yourself remained a human being-

You thus become

A thing apart, a species of your own-
This is the price you pay for being a god!
"Twere dreadful were it not so, and if you
Gain'd nothing by the misery of millions!
And if the very freedom you destroy'd
Were the sole blessing, that could make you
happy!

So many rich and blooming provinces,
Fill'd with valiant, great, and honest people!
To be the father of a race like this,

I thought must be divine indeed! and then

And fell Busiris', will he couple yours:

O! that the eloquence of all those myriads,
Whose fate depends on this momentous hour,
Could hover on my lips, and fan the spark
That lights thine eye into a glorious flame!
Renounce the mimicry of godlike powers
Which levels us to nothing. Be, in truth,
An image of the Deity himself!

Never did mortal man possess so much,
For purpose so divine. The kings of Europe
Pay homage to the name of Spain. Be you
The leader of these kings. One pen-stroke now,
One motion of your hand, can new create
The earth!-but grant us liberty of thought.

ALL OF WHICH IS ENCOURAGING.

record for the REVIEW. August was the greatest month on A very distinguished New York editor said a days ago: "You are getting as many new subscribers each week for the ALTRUISTIC as the Century people are receiving for their aim is along right lines, and that the people magazine." All of which proves that our appreciate a publication which has but one aim, to make record of whatever seems to promise the greatest good to the greatest number. It has given us great pleasure during the past few days to send out some drafts to pay the school expenses of our student-agents. Those who have kept up their efforts are very enthusiastic, and write that next summer they will again devote their vacation to the same work, so that they may continue their studies another year. Students may send in subscriptions during the winter, and they will be put to their credit for next year, or the spring term of this year-as they please.