than steam. A less definite scheme of the same nature, but fully as extensive, has been credited to the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway, for the lines crossing the Bitter Root Mountains in northern Idaho.

Engineers and the great manufacturing firms are undertaking plans of this kind for extensive installations of electric motive power with the greatest assurance, and their doing so makes it evident that they feel justified by their confidence of success. As thus outlined, the promises for the future are very satisfactory, and the scope of the new power is equal to the dreams of its most enthusiastic advocates. But nothing is to be gained by exaggeration of the matter, and the fact is to be faced soberly that in carrying out the schemes much time and money must be

before the electrical engineering associations, and the question has been found so great that the meetings were marked more by contention and argument than by definite results or conclusions. Figures presented show the estimated expenditure involved should every mile of railroad in the United States be reconstructed for operation by electricity, and the rolling equipment changed to correspond. The total cost of such a change is given at about $1,500,000,000. Electrical powerhouses to give a total of two million one hundred thousand kilowatts or two million eight hundred thousand horse-power would be required. Fifteen hundred millions of dollars is a sum so vast that it means nothing to the average person, and yet it represents an investment so stupendous that only an extremely small

What the Juvenile Court is to Omaha, Denver and other cities where that institution has been established, the Juvenile Police Force is to Council Bluffs. The Juvenile Court rewards a good boy by not sending him to the Detention Home; the Juvenile Police Force rewards a good boy by making him a member of the force.

The very highest honor that can come to a Council Bluffs boy is to be chosen a member of the juvenile force, and upon the foundation of a natural desire on the part of every boy to be a policeman, wear a star and swing a club, the chief of police

of Council Bluffs has built the structure which has become famous as the "Kid Police Force of Council Bluffs."

The "Kid" force is not maintained the year round, but only on the occasion of a holiday: New Year's, Christmas, May Day, Independence Day, Halloween, April Fools' Day, is the force in evidence. On those occasions when boys band themselves together to have "fun," does the "Kid" policeman get in his work. When the boys begin to ring door bells, shoot cannon crackers, steal apples, pull flowers, and play jokes the points of which are too coarse, then does the boy policeman sally forth and gather in his harvest of culprits.

If a boy, caught in the act by one of the youthful policemen, resists arrest, the young officer of the law secures his name, reports it to the chief of police, and the next day a full-sized policeman will call for the young man who refused to obey the boy policeman. Gradually the boys of the city have come to know that when they are placed under arrest by a boy policeman, the best thing to do is to accompany him to the police station and take their "medicine" like men.

A separate force is appointed for every holiday and in this manner the chief can reward those boys whom he wishes to place on the squad. A week before the day upon which the patrolmen are sent off on their beats, there are hundreds of applicants for the twenty-five positions. These applicants come to the chief in person and undergo a sort of examination. No boy who has been reported for misconduct within twelve months is allowed on the force. His record must be clear on that score, and that very fact kecps many Council Bluffs boys from straying a little bit to one side or the other of the path laid down by the chief. Every boy wants to be on the force. That is a settled fact and beyond dispute. And to be bad is not to be appointed. Therefore, in the very hope of receiving his appointment to the coveted position, the usual boy will be good. And the chief, who is a mighty good judge of boys in general, usually sees to it that a boy does not have to wait too long before his time of service comes around. In other words, the chief does not permit a boy to grow discouraged.

The "Kid" force originated five years

ago when one Halloween a regular policeman brought to the station one of the toughest boys of the town. He was a leader of "de gang" in his ward, and was a "holy terror" to everybody and everything.

Chief Richmond is fond of boys. He sat down and had a long talk with this one in particular. Finally, he asked the urchin to assist him in keeping order.

"If you find any boy doing things he. should not do, you bring him down here to me," said the chief.

This the boy agreed to do. But in half an hour he was back again and walking into the chief's office, he said:

"Chief, de gang won't believe that I can arrest 'em if they don't do right. Can't you gimme a star?"

He got the star and again left the office. But evidently there were Doubting Thomases in that "gang," for soon the young policeman came back again, this time with two of his followers. He explained to Chief Richmond that the boys would not believe him, even when he had the star.

Richmond explained to the two strange boys the arrangement he had made with the leader, and got them so interested that soon they also wanted to be "cops" and carry a club and star.

Right then was born the Juvenile Police Force. The news of the new organization soon spread, and the next morning the streets for blocks around the police station were filled with boys who wanted to join the force.

Chief Richmond picked out twenty-five boys, gave them stars, and made them full-fledged policemen. To the disappointed ones who were not chosen, he promised that in the future they should all have a chance. But he told them that as prospective members of the Council Bluff's police force, they should be careful of their conduct, carry themselves like men, and let their behavior be above reproach.

The boys promised. Many of them have "backslided," however, and the juvenile force is necessary to take care of these and to prove a stimulant to those who are waiting their turn to be given a

star.

And after five years' trial of the Juvenile Police Force, it is beginning to be noticed that there are fewer saloon

loafers in Council Bluffs than in probably any city in the country. Pool halls do not flourish in that city as they do in so many places. Tobacconists do not sell so many cigars and cigarettes to young men as are sold in other cities. The young men who ordinarily patronize those places began several years ago to "train" their habits so as to get on the police force. They have outgrown that police ambition

by this time, but the habits formed during the time of their probation have remained with them as they grew to young manhood. And the younger "cop" is forming the same good habits.

So that the Juvenile Police Force of Council Bluffs, in addition to furnishing protection to citizens, is about the best moral training school it is possible to imagine.

HERE are few wharfs along the west coast of Africa, from Gibraltar to Cape Town, where steamers can land to discharge passengers and cargo. This line of coast must be over seven thousand miles, if we follow the paths of the merchant ships which trade along its borders. So it happened that when our vessel cast anchor before Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, we were in the open sea, nearly three miles from the Government Wharf. The distance was longer because of the extended sand bar around which we had to row. This is my eighth visit to Liberia since 1897, the visits lasting from several days to nearly two months, and my interest in this little republic has grown each year, not only in intensity, but I trust also in intelligence.

Multitudes of people in America, and many as well in other civilized countries, have a special interest in the Republic of Liberia. Although my official travels. each year take me to other parts of the African continent, when I am in America or Europe more people ask as to the status and outlook of Liberia than concerning any other country on the continent. The reasons for this are manifest. Liberia has now been before the world for sixty years as an organized government controlled entirely by negroes; in which a white

man can not vote and may not hold property. It is an experiment in what the negro can do in founding a permanent and independent nationality.

The republic was the outgrowth of African colonization movements in America from 1816 to 1847. During those thirty-one years the American Government sympathized and coöperated. In 1847 Liberia was organized, modeled after the United States. Since then, while America has had no official responsibility for the new nation, it has in all its diplomatic relations with the world. recognized its paternal interest.

The motives which induced leading men both in the South and the North to coöperate in the African colonization work were various; extending from extreme selfishness in the South which sought to get rid of its free negroes as an element of danger in the midst of slavery, to a philanthropic purpose to help the negro back to his fatherland. In 1816 there were about two million slaves in America and nearly two hundred thousand free negroes. Many of the latter class were men and women with large infusions of Anglo-Saxon blood in their veins. There were many who were fairly well educated people of high spirit and purpose, who had grown up in the years before American slavery had become so fully set in the laws of the country, before the complete surrender of the nation.