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were happy and contented, despite the almost universal state of disease and poverty. Shortly after the transfer of the island I asked a number of peons what they would like most of all, with the understanding that the range of the inquiry was limitless. In every case the wish was for something material, and the most ambitious was for a set of furniture. I could not find any desire for education, perhaps because they knew practically nothing of it, and must confess to surprise at the quick response to the opportunities we have put in the way of these extraordinarily illiterate people.

Spain turned over to us one public school building. Now the whole country is dotted with schoolhouses, so that one is within easy reach of every soul in the island. And the pupils, as a rule, show remarkable aptitude and inclination to learn. The census of 1910 will show that we have wiped out the reproach of superlative illiteracy under which Porto Rico has lain for generations. But education is a sorry adjunct to an empty stomach. The combination breeds agitators and anarchists. Happily we are working quite as effectually to improve the material condition of the Porto Ricans. The steamroller and the schoolmaster were brought into play simultaneously and the good works of both are bearing early fruit.

No other factor is comparably potent with transportation facilities in promoting the welfare of an agricultural people. The physical peculiarities of Porto Rico will tend to confine its railroads to the coastal line designed to encircle the island, and short loops and branches of it. The lines of communication and transportation in the interior must always be mainly cart roads. The cost of constructing these averages $10,000 a mile and their maintenance is proportionally expensive, but the commerce and industry generated by their existence would make them worth while at a quadrupled outlay.

Spain left 171 miles of main highway in use. We have already added more than three hundred miles as part of a system which is planned to supply the needs of every part of the island. The treasurer of Porto Rico recently disposed of $1,000,000 of the island's bonds at a premium in New York. The entire pro

ceeds of this transaction will be devoted to road-building.

An American company has succeeded the French corporation in the control of the railroad. The disjointed sections have been connected and there is now a continuous line from Carolina, through San Juan, Arecibo, Mayaguez, and other important towns, to Ponce. Several branches to interior points have also been constructed. American locomotives have replaced the toy engines which were incessantly breaking down, and the permanent way and general equipment have been greatly improved. The line has only completed half the proposed circuit and it is far from being perfect in operation or fully adequate in service, but it marks a great advance in transportation facilities over the old conditions.

San Juan and Ponce both have modern electric street railway systems, the latter extending out two miles to La Playa, the port town. An electric line is in course of construction to run from the capital over the route of the military road to Aibonito.

Those who are thoroughly familiar with the island and its resources express the opinion that it will easily support a population of two millions when the road system is completed. As fast as the highways are opened to traffic, the lands adjoining rise greatly in value and are immediately put under cultivation. There has been a general enhancement of real estate values, and land that lacked buyers at $10 and $15 an acre now sells for $50 an acre. Following the increase in transportation facilities, marked improvements in plantations were made at many points, and it is noticeable that the narrow-tire, two-wheeled ox-cart is gradually giving place to the American wagon.

With the expansion of agricultural industries, in which nearly all the people are interested, wages have more than doubled and the masses have adopted a higher standard of living. In 1906, Porto Rico took from us three hundred thousand pairs of shoes and this represented a great advance in consumption. year the shipments included just twice as many pairs and the general quality was better. The imports of the last few years show enormous increases in foodstuffs, clothing, tools and furniture, much the

Last

greater part being in response to the demand of the peasant class.

The prosperity, or otherwise, of an agricultural people may be unmistakably read in the records of their commerce. During the last half century of Spanish rule, there were but four years in which the balance of trade was in favor of Porto Rico. In 1900 the value of the exports to the United States from the island were slightly in excess of $3,000,000, and of the exports from the United States to Porto Rico, somewhat more than $4,500,000. The shipments from the United States to Porto Rico for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1907, were $25,686,285 as against $19,224,556 for the previous year. The shipments from Porto Rico to the United States for the same years were $22,070,133 and $19,142,461 respectively. The total export trade of the island for 1907 was $26,996,300, a gain of $3,738,770 over 1906.

The most remarkable changes have taken place in the industrial economy of the island during the past few years. In the final period of Spanish rule coffee was by far the principal product of Porto Rico. Nearly half of the entire area under cultivation was devoted to it and in the exports it represented a value more than twice as great as that of all the other shipments combined. Of the eight hundred thousand peons, one-third, at least, were dependent, directly or indirectly, upon the coffee industry.

Upon annexation to the United States the protected markets of Spain and Cuba were closed to the Porto Rican planter and the utmost endeavors have failed to secure a sale for his product in the United States. The insular coffee is better than the Brazilian bean and fully equal to the Costa Rican "Mocha and Java," which constitute the bulk of our supply. But Americans have almost as poor taste in the matter of coffee as they have in that of tea, and the only hope for the island industry would appear to lie in such intensive cultivation as will greatly increase the yield to the acre and allow of the output being sold in competition with the cheap, low-grade products of South America. The proposition to put a fivecent duty on foreign importations and so protect the Porto Rican berry at an annual expense of $50,000,000 to the Ameri

can consumer is not likely to be considered by Congress.

The problem of the resuscitation of the coffee industry is an intricate and a momentous one. It is safe to say that one-fourth of the population would be benefited by a revival of the old-time source of prosperity, and a large proportion of these are people whom it will be difficult to make prosperous in any other way. Coffee may be cultivated with comparatively little outlay of capital and it is grown to advantage on the interior elevations, which are adapted to no other product. This will account for the fact that, despite the severe depression, the plantations have not been abandoned, as much as one hundred and eighty-five thousand acres still lying under the bush. The total value of the coffee exported in the last fiscal year was $4,693,004 as compared with a valuation of $12,222,599 in 1897. Planters are almost unanimous in the opinion that the salvation of the industry depends upon securing the United States market, or in some form of protection, but the investigators at the experiment station of Mayaguez are sanguine of finding a solution to the difficulty in improved methods of cultivation and preparation for market.

Fortunately, we have effected an offset to the coffee collapse in the expansion of the sugar and tobacco industries, with the prospect of a profitable fruit trade in the near future. American capital and methods have worked wonders in these respects and the principal products of the island now enjoy an assured position.

The sugar business is undergoing an entire reorganization on the most scientific and economical lines. Formerly sugar, as an article of Porto Rican export, was far behind coffee. Now it has considerably passed the highest mark ever attained by the berry. Practically all the land adapted to the growth of the cane is under cultivation, but it is believed that the crop may be trebled under improved conditions. Porto Rico, like the Hawaiian Islands, has its wet and dry sides. The southern valleys, which embrace a great part of the sugar belt, need irrigation, and the United States Reclamation Service is investigating the subject with promise of satisfactory results.

Under Spain the tobacco crop of Porto

Rico was hardly worth consideration. Last year the export of cigars alone approximated $5,000,000 in value and there is every indication of a large expansion of the industry. The most approved methods of cultivation and manufacture are in practice. Around Caguas, which is the center of the tobacco district, one finds hundreds of acres under one cover in several instances. High-grade wrappers are thus grown in large quantities.

A new but promising industry is that of fruit growing, which, as in Cuba, is mainly in the hands of Americans. There are now upward of six thousand acres in oranges and a considerable area devoted to pineapples and grapefruit. Oranges grow wild in the hill region and on the west and south coasts. They are very sweet and of fine flavor but require careful packing. This has prevented their exportation until our own people took the task in hand. At present about two hundred and fifty thousand boxes are shipped annually, but with improved cultivation and greater transportation facilities, both inland and ocean, the shipments will be very largely increased. Pineapple culture has become quite extensive during the past two years. The plantations are chiefly on the north coast and in the Mayaguez district. In connection with these, several large canning factories have been established. The industry has proved very profitable to the planters. Many of them who paid $50 an acre for their land

were able to show a profit of one hundred per cent on the investment the first year.

Porto Rico is not at present, whatever it may be under greater development, a country for the small capitalist. He may go to Cuba and do very well, securing land at one-third the price that he would have to pay for it in Porto Rico. Nor can the mechanic or farmer be advised to emigrate to this one of our insular possessions. The former could not live on the wages paid for skilled labor and the latter would find the venture unprofitable until after the interior is better supplied with roads, and markets are more extensively established. Ultimately Porto Rico may afford homes to a large number of our agricultural population.

Many promising industries have not yet been incepted. The systematic cultivation of the cocoanut palm for copra would undoubtedly prove profitable, and the necessary land can be had cheaply. Porto Rico only needs a line of fast and regular steamers to supply the United States with a large quantity of vegetables, and in a dozen different directions new industries may be expected to arise as the constantly improving economic and agricultural conditions warrant.

Even allowing for the splendid natural resources of the island and its previous stagnation, we have made a splendid record in Porto Rico, and one that probably is unparalleled in the history of colonization.

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THE WEST

SAN DOMINGO

L

PORTO RICO

GOVERNOR CHARLES EVANS HUGHES

T

BY

HOWARD B. GROSE

▼HAT is the strangest man I ever met. You can't make any sort of trade with him; you can't approach him on the side of personal advantage; you can't seem to touch his political ambition. He is beyond me. The fool simply does right the whole time!"

This was the verdict of a noted politician who had vainly tried to secure Governor Hughes' support for a personal scheme. That last sentence tells the story.

I.

It is the story of American possibilities told once more. Here are the outlines: Born in Glens Falls, New York, April 11, 1862; son of a Baptist minister who came to this country from England in 1855; father Welsh; mother Dutch-Scotchmother Dutch-ScotchEnglish-Irish; a precocious child, reading at three and a half; presenting to his father a full-blown course of home study at five, because so much time was wasted by repetition in the kindergarten; taught mathematics and elementary studies by his mother, and a master of fractions at seven; taught the classics by his father; fitted for college at fourteen; graduate of Brown University with high honors at eighteen; academy teacher for a year; Columbia Law School graduate in 1884, capturing fellows' prize of $500 a year for three years; at twenty-two in a law office, and presently made partner, later marrying senior partner's daughter; thorough student with unusual powers of acquisition and application; for two years (1891-3) professor of commercial and contract law at Cornell; again in active practice in New York, this time head of a firm; known among lawyers for amazing knowledge of contract and constitutional law, and keen discernment of the pith of a case; earning a good income, in part as consulting counsel; domestic, with charming family; mountain-climber in summer vacation time;

quiet, devoted to his profession, working member of his church, with special fondness for a class of young men; utterly unknown to the great public — that brings us down to 1905.

II.

That year 1905 gave a terrific shock to the world-conscience in its revelations of business corruption and the betrayal of fiduciary trusts by men in high positions. The gas investigation, which came first, was but a prelude. It marked Counsel Hughes, however, as the man who knew how to ask questions. Behind the questions lay a knowledge of the intricacies of gasmaking and gas-stock manipulating that made gas magnates gasp, while the enforced answers gave away their iniquitous and plundering schemes. The result was the first notable victory of the people over monopoly, and the enactment of laws, drafted by Mr. Hughes, which created a gas commission and put the state in proper control of the situation.

This matter out of the way, Mr. Hughes went to Switzerland to climb mountains and among their heights forget the depths of metropolitan financiering. Meanwhile, the Equitable disclosures had stirred the legislature, and the Armstrong Insurance Investigating Committee needed a counsel. The chairman knew whom he wanted, and cabled Mr. Hughes. He accepted on the one condition that the probing was to be thorough, and not to be stopped by any consideration whatever, financial, social or political, regardless of where it led. It was fortunate that he made the condition, for as he foresaw, the time came when he had to hold the committee to it. It was when he had discovered the book kept by Mr. Perkins, containing the secret contributions of policyholders' money to the Republican campaign funds through Mr. Odell and Senator Platt. This was the crisis. Ex-Governor Odell, political boss,

friend of Harriman, tried to stop things at this point, intimating broadly that to go on might lead even to the White House door. Mr. Hughes compelled the production of the book. Then he prepared to put Mr. Odell and Senator Platt on the witness stand, and Mr. Creelman describes what followed in this way:

A member of the committee demurred. "I think it would be a mistake to call either Mr. Odell or Senator Platt," he said.

Mr. Hughes smiled and showed his upper row of big, flat buck-teeth.

"Of course the committee is always in control of its counsel," he said, in a steady, even tone, "but it must not be forgotten that it was expressly agreed that if I should find myself unable to carry out the committee's instructions I might resign my fee and make public my reasons for so doing."

No member of the committee ever again suggested the sparing of any individual or the covering up of a fact; and the tracing of campaign contributions to Bliss and Cortelyou, of the National Committee, made no difference to the pitiless man with the probe. Odell and Platt had to take their place among the others on the witness stand. The blasting of reputations was appalling, and public confidence was shaken as perhaps never before in our history. Merciless as death seemed the calm, immovable, imperturbable Questionmark incarnate.

His powers of physical and mental endurance were almost beyond belief. Night after night he would work with his assistants and stenographers until two, three and four o'clock, following up the clues gained from the testimony of the day preceding, mastering the involved bookkeeping which expert accountants had failed to comprehend, framing the interrogations and course of procedure for the following session; then snatching a few hours of sleep, and appearing at the investigation cool, collected, alert, every faculty in full play. He was a marvel to all who witnessed the scenes in that committee room. He spared no witness. Yet there was no passion, no personal animus.

This period can not be passed over with less detail, because in that investigation came out all the qualities of the man, including a sturdiness of moral character

and a determining sense of duty so rare as to attract scarcely less attention than his wonderful power of probing after concealed facts. While the investigation was in progress he was nominated for mayor of New York, but declined because, as he said, "I have simply to do my duty as I see it. In my judgment I have no right to accept the nomination. A paramount public duty forbids it."

The public hailed this decision with gladness. It was no light thing to turn down a nomination to an office greater in power than many a governorship. But here was a man not to be diverted from doing his duty. That sounded a new note, for which the newly aroused conscience of the people was ready. The result was that when Mr. Hughes had made his report, the reformatory laws which followed placed New York in the front rank for effective control of the life insurance business, and the interests of the policyholders were safeguarded.

III.

Nothing was more natural than that the people should name him for Governor of New York, when it came time for nominations, and it was seen that Hearst was to represent the radical element. The party leaders were against Hughes, and it looked as though he had no chance, when overnight the opposition sentiment vanished, and he was nominated by acclamation. He had lent no help to the movement in his favor. He said with absolute sincerity that he preferred his profession to public office, but if the people summoned him, his duty as a citizen was paramount to his preferences. Further than that he would not go.

Notified of his nomination, as he sat in his library on West End Avenue, he telegraphed to the convention this acceptance:

"The Republican party has been called to defend the honor of the state and to represent the common sense of the people and the cause of decent government. I shall accept the nomination without pledge other than to do my duty according to my conscience. If elected, it will be my ambition to give the state a sane, efficient and honorable administration, free from taint of bossism or servitude to any private interest."

That very night he mapped out a cam

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