and telephone monopolies, or the municipalization of gas and electric lighting supplies and local transit systems. These ideas stand for a real movement, much of which is sound and progressive; but Mr. Bryan's proposed social remedies lie along the fallacious lines of cheap money and advocacy of the virtue of the worn-out competitive system as such.

One of the subjects Mr. Bryan is now urging as of first-rate prominence is the income tax. He declares that a specific plank strongly favoring the enactment of a new income tax law was prepared for the Kansas City platform, and that it was omitted by accident or inadvertence; and he regards it as Democratic doctrine for the present year. The reaffirmation of the Chicago platform carries with it, of course, an indorsement of the income tax plank of 1896. In the campaign of 1892 the income tax was not mentioned by Democrats either in their platform or on the stump; yet when they came into power by virtue of their success in that year, they enacted an income tax law. That particular enactment was declared unconstitutional; but it is very possible that some form of income tax might be sustained by the Federal courts.

While much may be said theoretically in favor of an income tax as an equitable way in which to fill the public treasury, the people of the United States do not show any evidence of desiring it. If there had been any great zeal for it at Kansas City, it certainly could not have been dropped out of the platform "by inadvertence." If there had been any popular desire for it in 1892, it would have occurred to somebody to seek to have it mentioned in one of the great party platforms, and it would have been talked about upon the stump. It has not, in fact, been a subject of any considerable discussion since the judicial nullification of the income tax law of 1893. So far as we have observed, no one is prominently advocating it on the stump excepting Mr. Bryan. The increased taxation of great corporations, on the other hand--as, for example, that which has been brought about with the earnest encouragement and aid of Governor Roosevelt under the Ford Franchise Tax Law in the State of New York-is a subject of very wide and animated discussion; and it points in the

direction of practical improvement in tax methods that is at present far more feasible than an income tax.

Among the various things that Bryanism means are, then, to be mentioned most conspicuously the free coinage of silver, an indiscriminate warfare against monopolistic corporations as such, and the re-enactment of an income tax. These propositions, I believe, are all of them objectionable to the business community.

Now, if it were not for the aggressive introduction of Bryanism into this campaign, we should have a purely normal political situation. The careful political observer was justified in believing that the people of the country had sufficiently disposed of the silver question and the income tax question for the present, and that they were not intending to permit the so-called trust question to become the mere football of political parties. But for this untimely reassertion of what I may call "Bryanism," for the sake of a condensed form of expression, we should have had a campaign conducted squarely upon what, for like purposes of condensation, I may call "McKinleyism." Republicans at Philadelphia expressed their unanimous approval of the policies and administrative methods of President McKinley and his official colleagues, and asked the country to keep Mr. McKinley at the helm for another four years.

The

In the conduct of ordinary administration there seems to be no very serious criticism of Mr. McKinley and his Cabinet. I have observed a number of Presidential campaigns, and never before have I known a time when there was so little attempt by the opposition to fasten scandal upon the party in power. Much the largest item of domestic expenditure is for pensions. and under Mr. McKinley's administration I believe that the work of the Pension Office has been conducted with as high a degree of intelligent efficiency as at any time since the Civil War. The disbursement of $150,000,000 a year to about a million pensioners requires the utmost vigilance and skill to avoid losses through laxity or fraud. Even the zeal of fierce partisanship brings no charge whatever against the present Republican conduct of this immense business; nor do the Democrats take the slightest exception to the country's present liberal pension policy.

They endeavor, on the contrary, to outbid the Republicans in their advocacy of ample pensions. There are always outstanding several hundred thousand applications for pensions, many of which are pushed in questionable ways by a class of claim agents whose interest in the whole question of pension administration has always been open to grave suspicion. It is creditable to President McKinley that he has firmly sustained the present Commissioner of Pensions as against attacks emanating from these speculative pension attorneys and agents.

One hears little complaint, if any, about the conduct of the Indian Bureau and the general Land Office. The territorial administration of Oklahoma, Arizona, and New Mexico is not under criticism. The comparatively new Cabinet department of Agriculture, under Secretary Wilson, has shown a most commendable enterprise in many directions, and does not appear to be tainted in any manner with party politics or personal scandals. A good deal of improvement in the postal system of the country is possible, but the greater part of it must await the action of the lawmaking body. The most noteworthy fact about the postal scandals in Cuba was the honest, prompt, and efficacious way in which the Administration corrected the abuses as soon as their existence was discovered. The administration of the Treasury Department has been upon a high plane of financial intelligence and administrative efficiency.

A distinction must be made, of course, between the policy of the country respecting finance, the army, the navy, and foreign affairs, and the ordinary work of the four departments in charge of those subjects. No criticism of a very serious nature, I believe, has been brought against the ordinary administration of the Treasury Department under Secretary Gage, or of the Navy Department under Secretary Long. Earlier in Mr. McKinley's administration there was criticism of the War Department under Secretary Alger, whose health was not equal to his responsibilities; but under Secretary Root it must be agreed that the departmental work is well carried on. At the beginning of Mr. McKinley's administration there was criticism of the Department of State on the ground that Secretary Sher

man's health made it impossible for him to bring his normal energies to bear upon the duties of his office. Subsequently, Secretary Day's work was highly commended by almost every one, and, in the main, there has been confidence in the work of the department under Secretary John Hay.

Looking, then, at the great administrative mechanism of the United States Government as engaged in its regular and ordinary duties, I find a great deal to merit confidence and approval, and comparatively little to condemn. It may not be of much importance that I, speaking as an independent Republican and a member of the Civil Service Reform League, should express these views; but it is certainly significant in the highest degree that the Democratic party, at the very height of the Presidential campaign, eagerly seeking every opportunity and excuse for attack upon the Administration, has not been able to arouse the apprehensions or suspicions of the country as respects the manner in which the vast public revenues are collected and disbursed and the work of administration carried on.

The Democratic Campaign Book, it is true, devotes a chapter, called "Corruption in the War Department," to Egan and the so-called “ embalmed beef." But it is to be remembered that the organization and work of the supply departments of the army at the outset of Mr. McKinley's administration were part of a system for which the preceding Democratic administration might as justly be blamed as its Republican successor. And these attacks in the Democratic Campaign Book are more significant in what they omit than in what they include; for they do not find a word to say against the present conduct of the army supply services, which are still upon a scale of magnitude. The simple truth is that early in 1898 we created a great army on a few weeks' notice, and it required several months to bring up to a state of high efficiency the business of supplying arms, ammunition, food, clothing, hospital and medical facilities, and the like. It is enough to say that the Democrats, in all their eagerness to make an issue out of so-called "militarism," have no army scandals to retail except those assignable to the very early

In strict fairness, I must allude to two other Democratic attacks against the conduct of public business by the McKinley administration as distinguished from matters of public policy. Both of these relate more directly to the Treasury Department. One is the modification of the Civil Service rules, principally at the instance of Secretary Gage, by virtue of which a number of positions were exempted from the competitive examination system. I certainly did not at the time think this order was either necessary or wise. On the other hand, I was able to see that it made for convenience, and I am perfectly ready to accept Secretary Gage's assurance that neither in its motives nor in its results has the change lowered the standard of efficiency in the public service. The other charge was that of undue intimacy between the Treasury Department and certain New York banks, in the sale of United States bonds and in other large financiering transactions. Neither of these topics is playing an important part in the campaign, and I do not in the least believe that either of them involves anything more than a question of practical judgment.

Next, as to policies. Taking up first the question of finances-the Republicans have managed the public debt exceedingly well. They have refunded a good deal of it at a very low rate of interest. They have given us the Dingley tariff and the war tax law, under which, by virtue of the great growth of our foreign trade and the prosperous times at home, there has been abundant revenue. If Mr. McKinley should be re-elected, we would know at least what to expect as regards taxation.

Most thoughtful men are, I believe, of opinion that the tariff question ought not at present to be reopened in such a way as to add to the uncertainties of commerce. Certain schedules in the Dingley tariff should undoubtedly be modified, and certain imposts included in the war tax measure might well be abolished. But apart from these gradual modifications of the existing system, prudent business men would prefer to have the present modes of National taxation retained for several years to come. While it is true that the Democrats are almost abso

campaign oratory, it is highly probable that we should have a general tariff agitation in the case of their coming into power. My own opinion is that the distinctively protective system has almost run its course in the United States, and that it will be desirable, perhaps, four or six years hence, to subject the existing tariff to sweeping revision. But tariff-tinkering, of the sort perpetrated by the Democrats when they attempted to revise the McKinley tariff of 1890, far from hastening the day of a logical and sweeping reconstruction of our system of levies upon imports, only delays the real work of tariff reform.

The Democratic party ought not to be intrusted with the control of the finances of the country until it can bring forward some definite and responsible policy. The Republicans are united upon the various questions of money and taxation. The Democratic party, on the other hand, is hopelessly at variance within itself.

As to naval policy, the question has fortunately, for a number of years past, been quite successfully kept out of party politics. The two Democratic Secretaries of the Navy, Mr. Whitney and Mr. Herbert, have been as much in favor of naval expansion as the Republican Secretaries, and party lines have not been drawn on naval questions in Congress. We have never before had so much work on hand as now in the building of new ships, repairing old ones, development of shipyards. and equipment of naval stations. It is difficult to believe that these matters would have better attention if Mr. Bryan were elected than they are now having under Mr. McKinley and Secretary Long.

The Democrats have fallen into the habit of charging the Republican administration with militarism in a general sort of way, but it does not seem to me that the subject constitutes a real issue apart from that one phase of it which has to do with military work in the Philippine Islands, and to this I shall allude in a later paragraph.

Somewhat more than two years ago, when the war with Spain began, there were, near at hand, in the island of Cuba, about 200,000 Spanish troops, the great majority of them regulars. We had a nominal army of 25,000 men, scattered in

small squads and detachments all over our continental area. It was necessary to create armies in a short space of time; and this work was tolerably well done, when all the circumstances are considered. We have been bringing troops back from Porto Rico and Cuba as rapidly as could have been expected; and surely Mr. Bryan could not have managed that part of the work of our army better than Mr. McKinley has done. Whether or not it was necessary at the outset to send large bodies of men to the Philippine Islands has now become a purely academic question. Most people at the time believed that the thing had to be done. I am not aware that Mr. Bryan held to a different opinion. If one concedes that it was necessary to send the men there, the question remains whether or not it has been feasible up to the present time to bring them back home.

There is no disposition on the part of any influential element, whether Republican or Democratic, to maintain permanently a large standing army in this country. Our responsibilities will in the very early future extend over a population of approximately a hundred million people, dispersed over wide areas. An army of a hundred thousand men would mean one soldier for every thousand of the population. I should hope we might be able to get along with a smaller army than that; but we shall at least need more of an army than we were maintaining at the outbreak of the Spanish war.

To discuss the so-called imperialistic or colonial policy that the Democrats are endeavoring to keep at the front as the paramount issue in this campaign, it is necessary to go back to the peace treaty which concluded the war with Spain. So far as the Peninsular Government was concerned, what we did was to take over some of her island possessions. Such technical title as was hers in Porto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines she made over to us; and it mattered very little to her what sort of arrangements we should subsequently choose to make with the Porto Ricans, the Cubans, and the people who live in the Philippine Islands. This arrangement was best for Spain, because otherwise we should probably have exacted from her a large monetary indemnity. Spain was no longer in position to

regain control of the Philippines, and if we had not secured the relinquishment of her title in our favor, she would have sold it to Germany.

It was a very excellent treaty for everybody concerned, honorable in every way, and generous toward the Spanish Government. Unfortunately, the interval between the signing of the protocol which stopped hostilities and the signing of the permanent peace treaty at Paris was longer than wisdom or prudence should have permitted. The Cubans had for three years carried on a heroic war to obtain their emancipation from Spain; but the Filipino insurrection which had sprung up in 1896, when the Cuban struggle was absorbing Spanish energies, had been completely suppressed as a mere incidental matter. The circumstances demonstrated completely that there was in the Filipino people no ripened capacity for efficient. political or military action. Otherwise, the Filipinos, who are far more numerous than the Cubans, ought easily to have gained their independence in the years of 1896 and 1897.

It happened that the status quo at the signing of the peace protocol locked up the bulk of the Spanish troops at Manila, and also compelled the troops of the United States to remain in that immediate vicinity. It was this situation, and nothing else, which enabled Aguinaldo and his followers to overcome the small and detached Spanish garrisons that were at a distance from Manila, and to set up pretensions which they had never previously entertained. As I have said, the period between the signing of the protocol and that of the permanent peace treaty was unfortunately long; but it was a terrible fatality that this period should have been further extended by the failure of the United States Senate to do promptly what it was bound to do in the end. It should have ratified the treaty first and debated it afterward.

There was nothing in the treaty of peace incompatible with our doing anything we liked by way of subsequent arrangement with the Filipinos themselves. The treaty simply eliminated Spain and put us in a position to deal directly with the Filipinos without the intrusion of a third party. I will not say that the Senatorial gentlemen who "held up" the