Government by Hysteria.

who are capable of sane thinking and self-restraint should do their utmost to cultivate sanity and moderation, each in his or her own community and in the community at large. If mental violence and hysteria are catching, so also, fortunately, are calmness of mind and

common sense.

Since the eve of the war of secession there has been no such public excitement and private anxiety. It is not worth while to take too seriously the isolated threats of disunion; it is well understood that separation would be of no practical use as a cure for any alleged grievance; and besides, the question of secession has been well settled by events that are not yet forgotten. Neither is it profitable to impugn the motives or to attack the character of sincere and weil-meaning individual believers in this or that political, financial, or social program or panacea. It is, however, highly desirable to deprecate and denounce the hysterical mood of approaching problems of finance, political economy, and civil government.

Political nominating conventions in America have not always been the grave and orderly assemblies which they should be, having to make, as they must, such tremendous decisions in the name and for the welfare of the people. But recent conventions have surpassed all others

about amid scenes of turbulent and insane emotion. Women-sad to say, painfully prominent in other convention years-have this year been encouraged to add the emotionalism of their temperaments to « demonstrations » which have outdone anything of the kind heretofore witnessed in the United States.

Not only in conventions has this ungoverned emotionalism shown itself. In much of the current political discussion there is the distinct note of hysteria. One expects intense political feeling to find expression in isolated instances of intemperate phraseology. But in this campaign,—when there is greater danger than for thirty-six years past of even good men being dangerously swayed by blind and unreasoned prejudice; when some phases of the debate are purely technical and require expert knowledge and a cool head; and when the decision of every voter is momentous,—in this campaign the evidences are wide-spread of a state of mind in which calm judgment, and wise and deliberate action, are simply not possible.

Is a man who is in a condition of complete or semihysteria capable of deciding, for instance, the question as to whether a certain radical financial expedient, condemned by the body of opinion of the conservative business world at home and abroad, is really going to

work the miracle he is assured by politicians and even by certain experts» it will work? A citizen who is about to cast a ballot ought to be able to reason with himself and to listen to reason from his neighbor; but if he is subject to political hysteria he is no more open to intellectual considerations than a horse running away from a locomotive. History is full of frightening examples of mental epidemics, where argument was out of the question, and where all human experience was disregarded; indeed, a distinguished historian has truly declared that experience counts for nothing in great fanatical movements.» Students of mental phenomena are devoting more and more attention to what is called the law of imitation.» It is a vast subject, and can be studied in connection with all mental and moral epidemics. The article on «Mental Epidemics,» in this number of THE CENTURY, will be found, by the way, to be as startlingly suggestive as it is timely.) To the law of imitation we owe very largely the development of conscience; on the one hand it fosters fashions, on the other religions; it works for good in matters of educa-, tion, from the home and the kindergarten up and out; it keeps the world moving forward, and sometimes it gives it a backward twist. One of its individual developments is hysteria, for, as Maudsley says: «It is impossible to conceive hysteria attacking one who was not a social being, or one, again, who, Robinson Crusoelike, was planted alone on an uninhabited island.>>

When hysteria shows itself in the processes of selfgovernment, it is time for well-balanced minds to bring to bear the always efficacious physics of sanity and selfcontrol.

It is declared by American orators of all parties and all beliefs that America is a great country, the greatest of all countries. But no amount of protestation or display of statistics on the part of the people of a country, on platforms, in corner groceries, or in college lecturerooms, can make a country «great.» The extent of its population cannot do it, nor its infinite resources »; its geography cannot do it; even its hereditary institutions cannot do it, no matter how free and admirable these may be and surely in this regard America is dowered above all the nations of the earth. The greatness of a country depends upon the ability of its people to govern themselves with dignity and in such a way as to develop character in the individual, and to make the national name a pledge of good faith throughout the world. Something more is at stake in the coming election than the success of candidates or of policies. The Republic itself is on trial, and the ability of our people to conduct the affairs of the country calmly, honorably, wisely, and as they should be conducted in a sane and exemplary member of the sisterhood of civilized nations.

The Workingman's Interest in the Gold Standard. THE workingman has more reason to be a gold bug than any other member of our population. He is a creditor every day of his life, and he wishes to have his debt paid in the best money possible. No man who has done a day's work is willing to receive for it any except the best money; that is, money with the largest purchasing power. If you were to say to a laborer who had spent

a day in your service, and to whom you had agreed to pay his regular day's wage: «Here are two kinds of money between which you may choose. One is called gold-bug money because it is based on gold. The other is called the people's money because it is based on silver, which is said to be dearly cherished by the people. The gold-bug money will buy for you about twice as much as the silver or people's money will, but you are assured by the advocates of the exclusive use of silver money that if the country only gets it in free and unlimited amount, everybody will be more prosperous, including yourself.» What response would a workingman make to that proposition? He would insist upon knowing how it was to come about that by giving up half his wage he would add to his welfare. The satisfactory answering of this inquiry would be extremely difficult.

In the first place, the workingman of this country is to-day receiving, on the gold basis, the highest average wages ever paid for labor in the history of the world. At the same time, prices of commodities, food, clothing, fuel, and other necessities and comforts of life, were never lower in price than they are now. The silver advocates claim that these prices have been reduced through the appreciation in the value of gold and its exclusive use as the monetary standard of value. Their claim is demonstrably false, but in making it they admit the existence of unprecedentedly low prices. They are also forced to admit the existence of unprecedentedly high wages paid in gold or its equivalent. It comes about, therefore, that the workingman can buy more for his money than he ever could before in the world. What inducement can be offered to him to make him desire to change from gold to silver? The silver advocates wish to change to silver in order to force up the prices of commodities; they can give the workingman no assurance that his wages will be raised. If he were to receive wages that would have only half the purchasing power that those which he receives now have, and if at the same time the price of what he buys were to be doubled, what would be his condition?

He would be in the situation thus outlined were this country to pass to a silver basis. That transition might be made in a night. Prices of commodities would be doubled instantly, for they would still be reckoned in gold, and would be fixed in the markets of the world. Indeed, the chief reason why the advocates of silver desire to have it for our standard is that it will effect this doubling of prices. They do not promise a doubling of wages. The farmers who are told that if we have a silver standard they will get twice as much per bushel for their wheat and corn and oats as they get now, are not told that they would also have to pay double wages for labor. If they were compelled to do this, in addition to paying double prices for whatever they had to buy, in what respect would they be benefited by silver?

Let us look for a moment at the different classes of laborers in the country. According to the last census, the largest single body of laborers are those in the manufacturing and mechanical industries. There are over four million of these, a large part of whom are of voting age. Their wages, at present paid on the gold basis, are from 50 to 68 per cent. higher than they were in 1860. Is it supposable that these will be doubled if we have the silver standard? Can their employers,

forced to pay double prices for their material, and confronted with the confusion and uncertainty which an unstable and depreciated standard of value always brings, pay double wages also? The idea is preposterous; yet, unless wages be doubled, these four million laboring men will really have their wages cut down one half. They can buy only half as much with them as they bought before silver's advent. The next largest class of laborers are those in agriculture. There are over two and a half million of these, nearly all of voting age. As we have said, the farmers, who are their employers, do not expect to double their wages when the prices of farm products are doubled. Are these laborers ready to vote to give up half their wages?

The third largest class of workingmen is that of employees on steam railways. There are nearly half a million of these. There is not the remotest possibility of an increase in their wages under a silver standard, but there is a strong probability of either a reduction or a total loss, for the railways would be the severest sufferers, next to the workingmen, from a descent to silver. Railway fares and rates could not be doubled. The receipts of the companies would be cut in half, while at the same time the interest on their bonded debt would have to be paid in gold. Every railway in the country would have its profits wiped out at a stroke by the change, and many of them would be driven into confusion and bankruptcy. This has been the fate of Mexican railways under like conditions, and would be inevitable here. Nothing could prevent it except a doubling of all charges, and this would simply put the burden back upon the people, and still further raise the prices of commodities. In any event, the railways would be seriously crippled, and would be in no condition to pay higher wages.

We have not included the farm owners in the agricultural laboring class. The census classifies these separately, and shows over five million of them. They are told by the silver advocates that with a 16 to 1 dollar they will get double present prices for their products. But they will get, in payment, money which will buy only half as much as gold-standard money buys now. The Southern farmer at the close of the war was able to get a wagon-load of money for a barrel of flour, but was he prosperous in consequence? If a farmer could get a silver dollar that was worth 50 cents when he sold, and 100 cents when he bought, he would gain by the 16 to 1 standard; but that would be a system of currency which has never yet prevailed in any community.

It is impossible to find any aspect of the silver question which can make it attractive to the workingman. He would suffer most severely of all persons, and his sufferings would begin soonest and last longest. Even if his wages were doubled, which might be effected after a long time, what would he gain if everything he bought cost double? If he had any savings, they would be cut down one half; if he had a life-insurance policy, that would be reduced one half; while his rent would be doubled, and his prospects for steady employment would be impaired by all the additional risks which a shifting standard of value would bring to his employer. The American workingman cannot possess the superior intelligence with which he has always been credited if he

fails to see that free silver coinage is his most destructive enemy.

Silver's Worst Victims.

THERE are three large classes of people in this country who have special reason to dread the substitution of silver for gold as our standard of value. We mean, of course, silver at the ratio of 16 to 1; that is, 16 ounces of silver equivalent to 1 ounce of gold. This is an artificial ratio, for in the markets of the world at this time of writing 1 ounce of gold sells for as much as 30 ounces of silver, so that the real ratio is 30 to 1. To declare by law that a silver dollar on this basis shall be equivalent to a gold dollar is to seek by legislative fiat to make 53 cents worth 100 cents. Repeated efforts during the past four hundred years to effect miracles of this kind justify the unequivocal assertion that this attempt, if made, will be a failure. The certain results will be the disappearance of gold from circulation, its rise to a premium of nearly 200 per cent., the doubling in price of nearly all commodities and of rents, a slight but tardy rise in wages, and the practical destruction of one half of all savings-bank deposits, life-insurance policies, and pensions.

Let us see what the extent of the loss in these three last-named directions would be. There are in the United States about 5,000,000 depositors in savings-banks. Their aggregate deposits are estimated by the best authorities at $1,800,000,000, a sum fully equal to the entire stock of money in the country. These deposits are not made payable only in gold. If we were to pass to a silver standard, to a dollar worth only 53 cents which would be legal tender for all debts, these $1,800,000,000 would shrink in a night to $954,000,000. Who would lose the other $846,000,000? Would they be capitalists, money-lenders, rich bankers, and millionaires? Not a bit of it. They would be the hard-working heads of families, devoted fathers and mothers saving for their children and their old age, widows and orphans, and deserving and ambitious youth seeking to lay the foundation for active and useful lives. There would be no escape for them from this deprivation, which in many instances would turn a life of simple comfort into one of want and misery. We have here a single class of 5,000,000 persons who have the best of reasons for looking upon gold as the true money of the people.

Yet these do not greatly exceed the holders and beneficiaries of life-insurance policies. There are in this country no less than 3,382,000 holders of life-insurance policies and certificates, amounting in gross to $9,463,000,000, a sum nearly six times the entire amount of money in the country. These holders have been paying their premiums for years in gold or its equivalent, expecting to have it paid back to their families after their death, or on their policies becoming claims. The policies are not payable in gold alone. The companies and associations did not agree to pay them in that coin only. The average annual payment for claims is $120,000,000, so that if we pass to a 53-cent dollar this will be cut down to $63,600,000, and the annual loss to the widows and orphans of the land through this source will be $56,400,000. In this case, also, the loss will not fall upon the rich. It will fall upon the most helpless, and will be robbery of the most deserving of all our citi

zens, for the man who insures his life for the benefit of those who are dependent upon him must be a worthy citizen. This is another class who have excellent reason for looking upon gold as the true money of the people. Finally, there is our army of 970,000 pensioners, drawing annually from the national treasury $140,000,000. Their pensions are not payable in gold alone, and would be paid in silver. Their annual receipt would drop from $140,000,000 to $74,200,000, and the other $65,800,000 would not come out of the pockets of the rich, but of the poor veterans of the war, who have been given this aid because they are supposed to have deserved well of the nation and are not able to support themselves. As a greater part of the persons affected in this case are voters, it is interesting to see how they are distributed in the country, and how the loss will fall upon the different States. In Ohio there are 105,160 of them, and their total loss would be over $7,779,000. In Illinois there are 68,678 of them, and their loss would be nearly $5,000,000. In Indiana there are 69,850 of them, and their loss would be over $6,000,000. Surely this is an aspect of free coinage which rises above partizanship; for, as the late Congressman Harter of Ohio said of it, the nation's good faith to its living soldiers is not only called in question by it, but if it becomes a law the widows and orphans of the nation's dead will be robbed by the laws of the land they died to save. This is a third class, then, who have excellent reasons for looking upon gold as the true money of the people.

And what is to be said of the great body of American people outside these three classes? Are they prepared to say that they think such robbery as this would be is a desirable thing for a great and rich and free people to decree? We do not believe for a moment that they are capable of such inhumanity and injustice. They have only to comprehend fully the nature of the proposition to condemn it under overwhelming defeat.

An American Statesman.

EVERY country has numerous types characteristic of different phases of its life, and of different sections of its territory. The variety in our national geography, and the diversity in our local origins and histories, give America many such types. But, also, each nation produces certain men who are peculiarly significant of its general conditions and temperament. The late William E. Russell, ex-Governor of Massachusetts, was not only a representative of the culture and manhood of New England, but he was a representative American. In the freedom and dignity of his mind, in the self-respecting democracy of his manner, in the purity and earnestness of his character, and in his « saving common sense," he was recognized throughout the Union, both by political allies and adversaries, as one of those statesmen whom our soil and institutions are well fitted to breed.

A nation that produces such a man, that discovers him early in his career, and marks him out for present and future distinction, may take some honest credit to itself. Here was no trimmer, and no sensationalist; his appeal was always to reason, to the mood of judgment, not to that of prejudice or moonstruck madness. He would have cut off his right arm rather than utter a phrase that might array class against class, or section against section. He loved honor more than success. He

died a soldier, fighting, as he believed, for the life of the party that was his choice, and the honor and welfare of the country that he passionately loved.

Lifting the Lid from Central Africa. WITH the third paper, printed in this number of THE CENTURY, our readers have been offered glimpses of the most arduous half of the late E. J. Glave's remarkable journey from the mouth of the Zambesi diagonally northwest across Central Africa to the mouth of the Congo. That he died on the threshold of home lends emphasis to the self-sacrificing character of his motive, which was to uncover the haunts and methods of the Arab slaveraiders of the interior. It was his privilege to witness the destruction by force of arms of the chief organized bands of man-hunters in the region of the great lakes; in the first paper (in the August CENTURY) was described the war waged by the English on the Arab raiders of the Nyassa region; and in this number the Belgian forces from the Congo Free State are shown in the act of completing their conquest of the disturbers of native peacefulness west of Tanganyika. In the second paper (in the September CENTURY) an account was given of Glave's discovery of the tree under which was buried the heart of Dr. Livingstone, and which still bears the inscription cut by the great missionary's followers.

These vivid extracts from Glave's journals seem to lift the lid from benighted Africa. They reveal the natives as generally peaceful tillers of the soil, as engaged in rude arts, and occupied with intertribal trade; they show that vast districts of the interior are adapted to planting, and point to a not distant day when the great rivers will be the highways of organized commerce. Other travelers have emerged from the interior of Africa as from a land of war and famine; Glave's intimate notes are of a world of primitive human life, and wherever he goes he shows a peaceful path wide open behind him.

A Little "Rift within the Lute.» IN order to close the «rift within the lute,» we must first understand one more feature of its cause. That feature is the financial distress in the West.

Two years ago that distress was due to crop failure so great that food, seed, and clothing had to be sent to « the Western sufferers.»

The years of plenty since have been years of such low prices that the distress is hardly less. There is food, but the surplus cannot be sold at a remunerative price, so as to pay taxes and interest and buy clothing. actual condition, personal inspection alone can suffice. A study of prices will show this; but to realize the If part of the travel tide to Europe might be diverted to flow over our «uninteresting prairie States, the money it would drop would help where help is most needed. And, more than money, there ought to result a more perfect understanding of and particular interest in the condition and needs of our own land. yourself become one of the bonds that shall unite all This year let the word be, «Go West, traveler, and sections and heal the rift.»

William Jones Gregory.

THERE has been financial distress in more than one quarter of the country lately; in some sections that have shown a good deal of free-silver sentiment, conditions

1 See Topics of the Time » for August, 1896.

have been, however, not unfavorable. Statistics demonstrate that in some parts of the West «farm lands are selling for much more than they brought half a dozen years ago, and mortgages are being paid up. Uncertain climatic conditions have had to do with the distress in certain sections, also competition, over-production, and other causes not allied to currency conditions. The questions for inquiry are as to the true causes of discontent and as to practicable and genuine cures.

It has always been a desire of THE CENTURY MAGAZINE to make each section of the country known to all

other sections. Hence the «Great South » and the Great West » papers; the papers on farming in different localities and by different methods, and on great features of natural scenery; the recent papers on forestry, irrigation, etc. The magazine expects to continue in this line. For while actual travel cannot be forced, as the writer of the open letter generously wishes to force it, it is possible, and it is a public duty, to cultivate mutual understanding and good will by means of those <<fireside travels» on which the illustrated magazine can conduct its immense company of tourists.

Sloane's Napoleon.

(SEE PORTRAIT ON PAGE 912.)

γου YOU are to be congratulated upon the publication of the most satisfactory life of Bonaparte which has yet been presented to the public. Professor Sloane deserves the highest praise for his recent contribution, in the pages of THE CENTURY MAGAZINE, to the verities of history. He will receive it not only from the lovers of a vivid and picturesque style of historical writing, but also from the scholar who searches the historic record with an impartial spirit, that the very truth of motive and of character may be ascertained. A still higher aim of the true historian is the interpretation of the underlying providential order of cause and effect which science finds in nature, and which the historian should find in the progress of humanity.

I have never read a story of Napoleon Bonaparte's life or career which so nearly attains this sum of attractions as does the work of Professor Sloane. While escaping the influence of the blinding hostility of English criticisms of the Corsican adventurer, he equally refuses to subordinate his judgment to the adoring enthusiasms with which the French surrounded their military emperor. He never loses sight of the man, whether his ambition is limited to the partizan seizure of a fortress on his native island, or contemplates the partition of the world between himself and the Emperor of Russia. The man is always revealed, within the lieutenant's uniform, or behind the embroidered robe of this ruler of kings. Nearly all previous writers upon this brilliant theme-the twenty-five dramatic years of France-have been thrown off their mental balance by the scenic glories of the stage as the curtain was lifted and revealed the greatest actor of modern centuries. This author, on the contrary, keeps his feet on the ground, and his eye steadily fixed upon the central figure, and the studied effects which he produces, from his first entrance to his final exit. And so he has been able to tell us the true life-story of the most astonishing international actor in all history.

Such a book is needed in all our libraries. The author has evidently put his material under great pressure of condensation. I could have wished to read his more com

plete portraiture of other great characters of the time associated with or against Napoleon, and drawn with equal candor and accuracy. But within its constrained limits the book is a treasure, is almost the only life of Napoleon to be safely submitted to the youth of the country as a part of its culture in history. Its characteristic portraits add a charm to the text.

John A. Kasson.

"The Century's» American Artists Series.
FRANK W. BENSON. (SEE PAGE 917.)

FRANK W. BENSON, the painter of «Summer,» was born in Salem, Massachusetts, thirty-four years ago. When eighteen he entered the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, where he studied four years. In 1883 he went to Paris, and became a pupil of the Academy Julien. There he had the benefit of two years' study under the eminent masters Boulanger and Lefebvre.

In 1889 he was chosen instructor in his former school, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, a position he now holds.

Mr. Benson is a member of the Society of American Artists; a winner of the Shaw, Hallgarten, and Clarke prizes, National Academy of Design, New York; Jordan and Art Club prizes, Boston; and the third prize in the recent competition for the decoration of the Philadelphia City Hall. He is one of the artists at present engaged in the decoration of the new Congressional Library, Washington.

If what the distinguished French critic Albert Wolf said is true, «What gives value to a work of art is the artist's own sentiment added to his science, Mr. Benson's works are precious. His sentiment seldom rises into poetry, but it is often akin to it. His science is excellent (by science I understand mastery over paints and brushes, and knowing how to make a picture). He composes with taste and rare decorative perception, and executes with charming freshness and delicacy of color.

W. Lewis Fraser.

Some Results of the Higher Education of Women. MOST readers of THE CENTURY are familiar with the work of Toynbee Hall, in the east end of London, where