A nation resolved to consume only its own products would resemble a man who tried to raise himself by tugging at his own suspenders. This beneficent exchange of commodities is followed by hosts of visitors to and from every nation, and the French proverb is soon seen to be true: viz., that "we only hate those we do not know." Thus, the peoples of the world tend more and more through commerce to be drawn into the bonds of brotherhood.

In conclusion, here is the sound doctrine: (A) No duties upon the necessaries of life; (B) Heavy duties upon all luxu

ries; (C) Temporary protection for new industries when it is probable that we may be able finally to obtain a home supply as cheap or cheaper than from abroad, and in extreme cases even if we have to pay more for a home supply of articles essential for national safety until the killing of men by men in war has gone the way of private war (duelling) and the selling of men by men (slavery) throughout the wide boundaries of the English-speaking

race.

Such is the A B C of the Tariff Ques

tion.

LAWLESSNESS AND THE PRESS

MAN

ANY have been the mornings in recent months when the pages of even conservative newspapers have looked more like catalogues of crime, than like "journals of civilization." And almost any morning has been rich enough in the harvest of human depravity to enable the sensational newspapers (as one may readily judge from the flamboyant pictures and head-lines to be seen in any street-car) to rivet the attention of millions of readers, by scandal and crime, to pages thoughtfully interspersed with announcements of reduced bargains.

And what a medley of frivolity and barbarity these ingenious editors are able to concoct, from day to day! No end of material is ready to their hands; no class of citizens or section of the country but furnishes its quota of incident. Ordinary blackguardism by plain ruffians receives an ordinary dressing, but unusual instances unusual because of the supposed refinement of the actors, and not for scarcity-are set forth with unusual piquancy and detail. A riot at a great university, in which intellectual youth pits itself with jocund motive against public order and a brutal police, is set forth in a way to invite emulation by the rivals of Cornell; and when the young gentlemen of an Ohio college break into the young ladies' dor

mitory, and with pajamas drawn over their clothes, execute a carnival dance in the halls, the treatment accorded the event is in harmony with its importance to a newspaper that has to be sold to be appreciated.

Stodgy crimes like the ordinary killings and poisonings, "black-hand" stealings and explosions, strike outrages, public defalcations, and plain burglaries, are set forth with an exhaustiveness alike stimulating to those inclined to follow criminal example, and terrifying to those fearful of becoming future victims. It is plain that the average sensational editor handles a topic of that sort with a determination to surpass his rival's "duty to publicity," by making the most of its possibilities as salable news. No matter if premature publication will baffle so-called "justice"; the public shall know all of the hideous reality, and more than all of the imaginary direfulness, even if civilization must thereby perish lingeringly on the altar of journalistic commerce.

But it is the social fault or excess of certain persons, prominent, or both rich and prominent, that commands the sensational editor's heartiest efforts. Here is material that is susceptible of the greatest variety of treatment, day after day, with the surest commercial profit. The more trifling the matter, the greater the opportunity for getting in the deadly work of

rumor and innuendo. And even if a wriggling victim should succeed in establishing mistaken identity, two good "stories"one to launch the imposture, and another to sink it entertainingly, would still be to the credit of journalistic enterprise.

In our Democratic America a title of nobility, real or assumed, spurs the sensational editor into an excess of activity to do his duty to the true nobility of the world, -those who work for a living, and who demand, for a cent, real and imaginary knowledge of all the extravagances and frailties of the aristocracy of birth and wealth.

Divorces, either projected, or in process of being sought by western residence, or merely suspended or resumed, if discovered or suspected at the inception, are susceptible of conversion into columns of "news" as good as gold to a newspaper's till. In addition, the new combinations of the legally untied afford an imperative basis for revivals of the old, appetizing details.

The field of social torture for the amusement of readers who have a cent to spend, would appear to be as expansive as human nature; but the sensational editor never quite shows his full ability to satisfy the public craving for human outrage unless misfortune, mischance, or caprice plunges a well-to-do and sensitive family into the deepest sorrow. Then the inventions of Then the inventions of penny-dreadfuls, the mendacity of keyhole spies, and the cruelties of the middle ages pale before the exploits of those who preach (for personal profit) that "a free. press is the palladium of our liberties." Such an incident furnished New York, and indeed the whole country, with the highest example of this sort of "devotion to the public interest," and vas made to last through the busiest and most crowded winter known to the scandal industry.

At intervals some foreign gentleman, fortunate in all the circumstances of life except a prominence that attracts the interviewer, arrives on these shores and runs the gantlet of inquisition and ridicule from the Atlantic to the Pacific, either with good-natured surprise, or dumb indignation; and after getting acquainted with the institution that is called "the enterprising American press," he asks, with a smile compounded of stupefaction and amazement: "But, why?"

For twenty years a committee of women of the "Baltimore Yearly Meeting of Friends" has been accumulating answers to that very pertinent question. Like Quaker gentlewomen they have gone about their mission with courtesy and patience. When they have seen in a publication news-articles, pictures, or advertisements which any sane person of average judgment would concede to be encouragement to vice, or stimulus to crime, they have made a personal appeal to the editor or owner, asking "Why?"; and also asking: Why not exclude such stuff in the interest of women and children,-if not for the love of home and country? Their last report expresses satisfaction with the results of their many years of effort, for they have not always been rebuffed, and they are possessed, by the power of God's love, with a hope that some time in America all the representatives of the press will regard a sense of public decency of as much importance as intellectual reputation, or newspaper profits.

In a gentle spirit, these Quaker missionaries to our intellectual heathen record that the excuse commonly offered with a rebuff, is the stereotyped phrase: "We give the public what it demands."

So, also, does the professional gambler respond to a public demand; likewise the purveyors of social vice; the distributor of indecent pictures, the peddlers of debasing drugs and other corrupting merchandise. None of them would be in business except for a public demand, and all of them would do more business if the laws allowed them a free hand in stimulating the demand. It is only those who do business under the banner of "a free press" who may pollute the stream of public demand as much as they please, and do so without even the pretense of serving any useful purpose except their own sordid profit. Even some of the best and most valiant newspapers appear to look with distrust on any suggestion to curb by law this unbridled license, lest their own freedom of judgment should be menaced.

All of the press is in principle opposed to the encouragement of physical lawlessness, which, in great variety, abounds at the present time; not a few are doing important service in educating public opinion against the lawless type of labor agitator; most of the press strives continually and

with great ability for the higher interests of the nation; but a minor part of the press which, mirabile dictu, circulates more widely than all the rest of the press put together, is so engrossed with the duty of supplying advertisers with "the largest circulation," that as a regular line of business it seeks, consciously, and with almost insane activity, to outrage private right and shock public decency,-lest overstimulated and jaded readers should find in a rival sheet a mess of social slime and human misery more to their vitiated taste.

Therein lies the answer to the "why" of this journalistic degradation: the pretended "public demand" is a response to a fabricated supply-and the sole motive for the infamy is the profit of a business meaner than stealing and more degrading than the social evil.

And, after all, the worst feature of the activities of the sensational press is its cultivation of lawless thinking, which is the mother of all lawlessness. Does any sort of citizen capable of a single independent thought imagine that wide-spread daily exploitation of Evil does not result in the extension of the curse that is craved?

The question "why?" is an old one, and our legislators, profusely assisted by the press, always answer it in the same way: "A free press is the palladium of our liberties."

What starts the "wave of crime"? Does the public first become hysterical and affect certain newspapers, or do the newspapers themselves supply the initial impulse? . . . That an unusual nervous condition has somehow been produced in a part of the population is not to be questioned. . . . He is an incompetent city editor who cannot supply in any large community a "carnival of crime" on six hours' notice and set on edge the apprehensions and fears of a number of persons sufficient to justify his course. ... But the introduction of the present "wave of crime" is in a manner mysterious. Why should it make its appearance at a moment when there is an ample quantity of

legitimate news to fill all the columns of the newspapers?

It is significant, as applying to our own argument, that newspapers are not in accord as to what constitutes "legitimate news"; also that the entire sensational press, especially in its Sunday supplements, makes a special feature of crime rehashes, and crime inventions, with startling pictures of "hold-ups," and burglaries, in which revolvers are always flourished. This "wave of crime" has been rising for many years, in fact since the advent of certain enterprising spirits in journalism; but the "mystery" of its progress resides in the silence of serious newspapers, and the amazing indifference of teachers, preachers, legislators, and the thinking public.

THE KING JAMES BIBLE

APROPOS OF THE TERCENTENARY

THE

HE English Bible is so deeply embedded in the thought, speech, and character of the English-speaking peoples that it has a place in literature and an authority greater than that of any other book. The fact that it is a translation is remembered by scholars and students; but in the hands of nine generations it has been an original work. This means that the translation has the vital energy of style, the moving power, the convincing phrasing of original literature of the very highest rank. It is not too much to say that in the translation from the Hebrew and Greek into English, the Bible has gained in vitality and penetrating power. It is this almost unparalleled freshness of spirit and speech that has made the English Bible the text-book of a race of worldwide relations and influence. Its content of religious truth and its form of speech are so vitally unified that each contributes to the other and reinforces its effect. is, therefore, not only a great work of literature but a historical document of greater importance in the national life of the English-speaking peoples than Magna Charta.

It

The sources of the English Bible go back to Cadmon and Bede; and half a dozen men of genius contributed to the richness of phrase, the noble cadence, the lofty rhythm of a translation which grew out of a remark made by King James to a