«LET FALL THE RUIN PROPPED BY EUROPE'S HANDS.”

(THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE.)
ТЕТ
LET fall the ruin

propped by Europe's hands!
Its tottering walls are but a nest of crime;
Slayers and ravishers in licensed bands

Swarm darkly forth to shame the face of Time.

False, imbecile, and cruel; kept in place

Not by its natural force, but by the fears
Of foes, with hand on hilt; even by the grace

Of rivals-not blood-guiltless all these years!

Aye, let the ruin fall, and from its stones

Rebuild a civic temple pure and fair,
Where freedom is not alien; where the groans

Of dying and ravished burden not the air.

July, 1896.

R. W. G.

0 TOPICS OF THE TIME

Government by Hysteria.

in the paroxysmal character of their conduct. Sacred

images have not only been used in speech in a way calall the history of the Republic there has never been culated to create frenzy rather than reflection, but re

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work the miracle he is assured by politicians and even a day in your service, and to whom you had agreed to by certain «experts » it will work? A citizen who is pay his regular day's wage: « Here are two kinds of about to cast a ballot ought to be able to reason with money between which you may choose. One is called himself and to listen to reason from his neighbor; but gold-bug money because it is based on gold. The other if he is subject to political hysteria he is no more open is called the people's money because it is based on silver, to intellectual considerations than a horse running away which is said to be dearly cherished by the people. The from a locomotive. History is full of frightening exam- gold-bug money will buy for you about twice as much ples of mental epidemics, where argument was out of as the silver or people's money will, but you are assured the question, and where all human experience was dis- by the advocates of the exclusive use of silver money regarded; indeed, a distinguished historian has truly that if the country only gets it in free and unlimited declared that « experience counts for nothing in great amount, everybody will be more prosperous, including fanatical movements. Students of mental phenomena yourself. What response would a workingman make to are devoting more and more attention to what is called that proposition ? He would insist upon knowing how it « the law of imitation. It is a vast subject, and can was to come about that by giving up half his wage he be studied in connection with all mental and moral would add to his welfare. The satisfactory answering epidemics. The article on « Mental Epidemics,» in this of this inquiry would be extremely difficult. number of THE CENTURY, will be found, by the way, to In the first place, the workingman of this country is be as startlingly suggestive as it is timely.) To the law to-day receiving, on the gold basis, the highest average of imitation we owe very largely the development of wages ever paid for labor in the history of the world. conscience; on the one hand it fosters fashions, on the At the same time, prices of commodities, food, clothing, other religions; it works for good in matters of educa-, fuel, and other necessities and comforts of life, were tion, from the home and the kindergarten up and out; never lower in price than they are now. The silver adit keeps the world moving forward, and sometimes it vocates claim that these prices have been reduced gives it a backward twist. One of its individual devel- through the appreciation in the value of gold and its opments is hysteria, for, as Maudsley says: «It is im- exclusive use as the monetary standard of value. Their possible to conceive hysteria attacking one who was not claim is demonstrably false, but in making it they admit a social being, or one, again, who, Robinson Crusoe the existence of unprecedentedly low prices. They are like, was planted alone on an uninhabited island.» also forced to admit the existence of unprecedentedly

When hysteria shows itself in the processes of self- high wages paid in gold or its equivalent. It comes government, it is time for well-balanced minds to bring about, therefore, that the workingman can buy more for to bear the always efficacious physics of sanity and self- his money than he ever could before in the world. What control.

tive enemy.

forced to pay double prices for their material, and con- fails to see that free silver coinage is his most destrucfronted with the confusion and uncertainty which an unstable and depreciated standard of value always brings, pay double wages also ? The idea is preposterous;

Silver's Worst Victims. yet, unless wages be doubled, these four million labor- THERE are three large classes of people in this country ing men will really have their wages cut down one half. who have special reason to dread the substitution of They can buy only half as much with them as they bought silver for gold as our standard of value. We mean, of before silver's advent. The next largest class of labor- course, silver at the ratio of 16 to 1; that is, 16 ounces ers are those in agriculture. There are over two and a of silver equivalent to 1 ounce of gold. This is an artihalf million of these, nearly all of voting age. As we ficial ratio, for in the markets of the world at this time have said, the farmers, who are their employers, do not of writing 1 ounce of gold sells for as much as 30 expect to double their wages when the prices of farm ounces of silver, so that the real ratio is 30 to 1. To products are doubled. Are these laborers ready to vote declare by law that a silver dollar on this basis shall be to give up half their wages ?

equivalent to a gold dollar is to seek by legislative fiat The third largest class of workingmen is that of to make 53 cents worth 100 cents. Repeated efforts employees on steam railways. There are nearly half a during the past four hundred years to effect miracles million of these. There is not the remotest possibility of this kind justify the unequivocal assertion that this of an increase in their wages under a silver standard, but attempt, if made, will be a failure. The certain results there is a strong probability of either a reduction or a will be the disappearance of gold from circulation, its total loss, for the railways would be the severest suffer- rise to a premium of nearly 200 per cent., the doubling ers, next to the workingmen, from a descent to silver. in price of nearly all commodities and of rents, a slight Railway fares and rates could not be doubled. The re- but tardy rise in wages, and the practical destruction ceipts of the companies would be cut in half, while at of one half of all savings-bank deposits, life-insurance the same time the interest on their bonded debt would policies, and pensions. have to be paid in gold. Every railway in the country Let us see what the extent of the loss in these three would have its profits wiped out at a stroke by the last-named directions would be. There are in the United change, and many of them would be driven into confu- States about 5,000,000 depositors in savings-banks. sion and bankruptcy. This has been the fate of Mexican Their aggregate deposits are estimated by the best railways under like conditions, and would be inevitable authorities at $1,800,000,000, a sum fully equal to the here. Nothing could prevent it except a doubling of all entire stock of money in the country. These deposits charges, and this would simply put the burden back upon are not made payable only in gold. If we were to pass the people, and still further raise the prices of commod- to a silver standard, to a dollar worth only 53 cents which ities. In any event, the railways would be seriously would be legal tender for all debts, these $1,800,000,crippled, and would be in no condition to pay higher 000 would shrink in a night to $954,000,000. Who would wages.

lose the other $846,000,000 ? Would they be capitalists, We have not included the farm owners in the agri- money-lenders, rich bankers, and millionaires ? Not a cultural laboring class. The census classifies these bit of it. They would be the hard-working heads of separately, and shows over five million of them. They families, devoted fathers and mothers saving for their are told by the silver advocates that with a 16 to 1 children and their old age, widows and orphans, and dedollar they will get double present prices for their pro serving and ambitious youth seeking to lay the foundaducts. But they will get, in payment, money which tion for active and useful lives. There would be no will buy only half as much as gold-standard money buys escape for them from this deprivation, which in many now. The Southern farmer at the close of the war was instances would turn a life of simple comfort into one able to get a wagon-load of money for a barrel of flour, of want and misery. We have here a single class of but was he prosperous in consequence? If a farmer 5,000,000 persons who have the best of reasons for could get a silver dollar that was worth 50 cents when looking upon gold as the true money of the people. he sold, and 100 cents when he bought, he would gain Yet these do not greatly exceed the holders and by the 16 to 1 standard; but that would be a system of beneficiaries of life-insurance policies. There are in currency which has never yet prevailed in any com- this country no less than 3,382,000 holders of life-inmunity.

surance policies and certificates, amounting in gross to It is impossible to find any aspect of the silver ques- $9,463,000,000, a sum nearly six times the entire amount tion which can make it attractive to the workingman. of money in the country. These holders have been paying He would suffer most severely of all persons, and his their premiums for years in gold or its equivalent, exsufferings would begin soonest and last longest. Even pecting to have it paid back to their families after their if his wages were doubled, which might be effected after death, or on their policies becoming claims. The policies a long time, what would he gain if everything he bought are not payable in gold alone. The companies and ascost double ? If he had any savings, they would be cut sociations did not agree to pay them in that coin only. down one half; if he had a life-insurance policy, that The average annual payment for claims is $120,000,000, would be reduced one half; while his rent would be so that if we pass to a 53-cent dollar this will be cut doubled, and his prospects for steady employment would down to $63,600,000, and the annual loss to the widows be impaired by all the additional risks which a shifting and orphans of the land through this source will be standard of value would bring to his employer. The $56,400,000. In this case, also, the loss will not fall American workingman cannot possess the superior in- upon the rich. It will fall upon the most helpless, and telligence with which he has always been credited if he will be robbery of the most deserving of all our citizens, for the man who insures his life for the benefit of died a soldier, fighting, as he believed, for the life of those who are dependent upon him must be a worthy the party that was his choice, and the honor and welcitizen. This is another class who have excellent reason fare of the country that he passionately loved. for looking upon gold as the true money of the people. Finally, there is our army of 970,000 pensioners,

Lifting the Lid from Central Africa. drawing annually from the national treasury $140,000,- WITH the third paper, printed in this number of The 000. Their pensions are not payable in gold alone, and CENTURY, our readers have been offered glimpses of the would be paid in silver. Their annual receipt would drop most arduous half of the late E. J. Glave's remarkable from $140,000,000 to $74,200,000, and the other $65,- journey from the mouth of the Zambesi diagonally north800,000 would not come out of the pockets of the rich, west across Central Africa to the mouth of the Congo. but of the poor veterans of the war, who have been given That he died on the threshold of home lends emphasis this aid because they are supposed to have deserved well to the self-sacrificing character of his motive, which was of the nation and are not able to support themselves. to uncover the haunts and methods of the Arab slaveAs a greater part of the persons affected in this case raiders of the interior. It was his privilege to witness are voters, it is interesting to see how they are distrib- the destruction by force of arms of the chief organized uted in the country, and how the loss will fall upon the bands of man-hunters in the region of the great lakes; different States. In Ohio there are 105,160 of them, and in the first paper (in the August CENTURY) was described their total loss would be over $7,779,000. In Illinois the war waged by the English on the Arab raiders of there are 68,678 of them, and their loss would be nearly the Nyassa region; and in this number the Belgian forces $5,000,000. In Indiana there are 69,850 of them, and from the Congo Free State are shown in the act of comtheir loss would be over $6,000,000. Surely this is an pleting their conquest of the disturbers of native peaceaspect of free coinage which rises above partizanship; fulness west of Tanganyika. In the second paper (in the for, as the late Congressman Harter of Ohio said of it, September CENTURY) an account was given of Glave's the nation's good faith to its living soldiers is not only discovery of the tree under which was buried the heart called in question by it, but if it becomes a law the of Dr. Livingstone, and which still bears the inscription widows and orphans of the nation's dead will be robbed cut by the great missionary's followers. by the laws of the land they died to save. This is a third These vivid extracts from Glave's journals seem to class, then, who have excellent reasons for looking upon lift the lid from benighted Africa. They reveal the gold as the true money of the people.

natives as generally peaceful tillers of the soil, as enAnd what is to be said of the great body of American gaged in rude arts, and occupied with intertribal trade; people outside these three classes ? Are they prepared they show that vast districts of the interior are adapted to say that they think such robbery as this would be is to planting, and point to a not distant day when the a desirable thing for a great and rich and free people great rivers will be the highways organized comto decree? We do not believe for a moment that they merce. Other travelers have emerged from the interior are capable of such inhumanity and injustice. They have of Africa as from a land of war and famine; Glave's only to comprehend fully the nature of the proposition intimate notes are of a world of primitive human life, to condemn it under overwhelming defeat.

and wherever he goes he shows a peaceful path wide open

behind him. An American Statesman.

A Little « Rift within the Lute.) EVERY country has numerous types characteristic of different phases of its life, and of different sections of In order to close the « rift within the lute,» we must first its territory. The variety in our national geography, and understand one more feature of its cause. That feature the diversity in our local origins and histories, give is the financial distress in the West. America many such types. But, also, each nation pro- so great that food, seed, and clothing had to be sent to

Two years ago that distress was due to crop failure duces certain men who are peculiarly significant of its & the Western sufferers. general conditions and temperament. The late William The years of plenty since have been years of such low E. Russell, ex-Governor of Massachusetts, was not only prices that the distress is hardly less. There is food, a representative of the culture and manhood of New but the surplus cannot be sold at a remunerative price, England, but he was a representative American. In the 80 as to pay taxes and interest and buy clothing. freedom and dignity of his mind, in the self-respecting actual condition, personal inspection alone can suffice.

A study of prices will show this; but to realize the democracy of his manner, in the purity and earnestness If part of the travel tide to Europe might be diverted of his character, and in his « saving common sense,» he to flow over our «uninteresting s prairie States, the was recognized throughout the Union, both by political money it would drop would help where help is most allies and adversaries, as one of those statesmen whom needed. And, more than money, there ought to result our soil and institutions are well fitted to breed. a more perfect understanding of and particular interest

A nation that produces such a man, that discovers in the condition and needs of our own land. him early in his career, and marks him out for present yourself become one of the bonds that shall unite all

This year let the word be, «Go West, traveler, and and future distinction, may take some honest credit to sections and heal the rift.) itself. Here was no trimmer, and no sensationalist; his

William Jones Gregory. appeal was always to reason, to the mood of judgment, not to that of prejudice or moonstruck madness. He THERE has been financial distress in more than one would have cut off his right arm rather than utter a quarter of the country lately; in some sections that have phrase that might array class against class, or section shown a good deal of free-silver sentiment, conditions against section. He loved honor more than success. He

See « Topics of the Time for August, 1896.

have been, however, not unfavorable. Statistics demon- other sections. Hence the Great South » and the «Great strate that in some parts of the West « farm lands are West» papers; the papers on farming in different localselling for much more than they brought half a dozen ities and by different methods, and on great features of years ago," and mortgages are being paid up. Uncer- natural scenery; the recent papers on forestry, irrigatain climatic conditions have had to do with the distress tion, etc. The magazine expects to continue in this in certain sections, also competition, over-production, line. For while actual travel cannot be forced, as the and other causes not allied to currency conditions. The writer of the open letter generously wishes to force it, questions for inquiry are as to the true causes of dis- it is possible, and it is a public duty, to cultivate mutual content and as to practicable and genuine cures. understanding and good will by means of those « fire

It has always been a desire of THE CENTURY MAGA- side travels » on which the illustrated magazine can ZINE to make each section of the country known to all conduct its immense company of tourists.

Sloane's Napoleon.

plete portraiture of other great characters of the time (SEE PORTRAIT ON PAGE 912.)

associated with or against Napoleon, and drawn with YOU

OU are to be congratulated upon the publication of the equal candor and accuracy. But within its constrained

most satisfactory life of Bonaparte which has yet been limits the book is a treasure, is almost the only life of presented to the public. Professor Sloane deserves the Napoleon to be safely submitted to the youth of the highest praise for his recent contribution, in the pages country as a part of its culture in history. Its characof THE CENTURY MAGAZINE, to the verities of history. teristic portraits add a charm to the text. He will receive it not only from the lovers of a vivid

John A. Kasson. and picturesque style of historical writing, but also from the scholar who searches the historic record with an im

" The Century's) American Artists Series. partial spirit, that the very truth of motive and of char

FRANK W. BENSON, (SEE PAGE 917.) acter may be ascertained. A still higher aim of the true FRANK W. BENSON, the painter of «Summer," was born historian is the interpretation of the underlying provi- in Salem, Massachusetts, thirty-four years ago. When dential order of cause and effect which science finds in eighteen he entered the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, nature, and which the historian should find in the pro- where he studied four years. In 1883 he went to Paris, gress of humanity.

and became a pupil of the Academy Julien. There he I have never read a story of Napoleon Bonaparte's life had the benefit of two years' study under the eminent or career which so nearly attains this sum of attractions masters Boulanger and Lefebvre. as does the work of Professor Sloane. While escaping

In 1889 he was chosen instructor in his former school, the influence of the blinding hostility of English criti- the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, a position he now holds. cisms of the Corsican adventurer, he equally refuses to

Mr. Benson is a member of the Society of American subordinate his judgment to the adoring enthusiasms Artists; a winner of the Shaw, Hallgarten, and Clarke with which the French surrounded their military em- prizes, National Academy of Design, New York; Jordan peror. He never loses sight of the man, whether his and Art Club prizes, Boston; and the third prize in the ambition is limited to the partizan seizure of a fortress recent competition for the decoration of the Philadelon his native island, or contemplates the partition of phia City Hall. He is one of the artists at present the world between himself and the Emperor of Russia. engaged in the decoration of the new Congressional The man is always revealed, within the lieutenant's uni- Library, Washington. form, or behind the embroidered robe of this ruler of

If what the distinguished French critic Albert Wolf kings. Nearly all previous writers upon this brilliant said is true, « What gives value to a work of art is theme-the twenty-five dramatic years of France-have the artist's own sentiment added to his science,» Mr. been thrown off their mental balance by the scenic glo- Benson's works are precious. His sentiment seldom rises ries of the stage as the curtain was lifted and revealed into poetry, but it is often akin to it. His science is the greatest actor of modern centuries. This author, excellent (by science I understand mastery over paints on the contrary, keeps his feet on the ground, and his and brushes, and knowing how to make a picture). He eye steadily fixed upon the central figure, and the composes with taste and rare decorative perception, and studied effects which he produces, from his first en

executes with charming freshness and delicacy of color. trance to his final exit. And so he has been able to tell us the true life-story of the most astonishing interna

W. Lewis Fraser. tional actor in all history. Such a book is needed in all our libraries. The author

Some Results of the Higher Education of Women. has evidently put his material under great pressure of Most readers of THE CENTURY are familiar with the condensation. I could have wished to read his more com- work of Toynbee Hall, in the east end of London, where

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