In short, the "culture" that presumes to elevate and refine the brain of a cad with Greek roots and the pompous eloquence of Cicero, and sends him adrift to disport himself as an intellectual dude and an educated fool, is an imposition on the age.

The culture that does not train its recipients to do something for the world, either with hand or foot or head, is a vain pretence whether it be Harvardesque, Princetonesque, or backwoodsesque.

Had this university "Bottom" been taught the dignity of work while he was still an undergraduate, he would never have been crowned with the head of an ass by Parisian boulevardesque Titanias! Thaw is a failure, a renegade, a degenerate, despite his manifold millions, because when his alma mater had the opportunity to make a man of him she could do no better than build him into an asinine biped.

And the reflection is not so much on Thaw as it is on the existing type of socalled education after which the young men are patterned who, if haply they are unfortunate enough to be born rich, attend our famous universities.

And White, the victim, presents no better preachment.

When death revealed the naked body of his sins, it was but a proof that genius of the highest order halts not often to make its bedfellows of the vilest moral vermin among mankind.

If there be anything baser and more irredeemably depraved than the lecherous degenerate who lures to his den innocent and erubescent maidenhood, to deflower it of its beauty and honor, human experience has not yet revealed it.

I do not mean by this to excuse the toooften knowing "innocence," that covers itself with the gown of chastity in order that it may blackmail its alleged abductor, and relieve his purse of its contents.

If White was that incarnation of iniquity and defilement that the papers paint him to have been, then he was but a human basilisk, the splendor of whose

charm blinded the innocent who fell into his embrace.

Of what avail, then, was the glory of his brain, the magnificence of his genius, the monumental resplendence of his achievements, if he had not learned to hold his passions in a leash-to save himself from the dry-rot disease of the degenerate ?

Fie upon the feeble plea, that asserts we must gaze alone upon his physical and intellectual works, and shut our eyes at the moral rottenness of his character!

The matchless glory of Greece, Palmyra and Babylon shriveled and decayed beneath the deteriorating elements of ethical and social depravity that environed them.

The building of a character that can stand against the destruction of time is a greater work of genius than the most immortal triumph in art or literature statesmanship.

However, the amazing and revolting tragedy in “high-life” teaches us perhaps above all things else the folly of the thing commonly called "love" for which men and women foolishly and too often lose their senses if not their lives.

True love is never associated with jealousy, hatred or vengeance. In selfdefence a man may slay another; or in defence of the honor of a defenceless kin, as in the pathetic story of Virginius.

But such cases are rare, extremely rare. Mostly, love is romantic, neurotic, carnal, lustful. It is the offence and disgrace of our civilization. But it is true.

As society is at present constituted, every woman is forced to have her price; for she sells herself, under the strain of existing civilization, either into matrimonial bonds or open prostitution.

This is a hard saying; but it is true. How many young women to-day seek marriage for the sake of the glory and joy of the soul the union of two happy hearts creates? How many marry with the single desire of finding in another the soul-mate that shall make a spiritual paradise of the nuptial matings?

Do not most girls marry chiefly to escape the dreariness of a monotonous home-life, or to free their parents from the necessity of supporting them, or because of the implied disgrace of becoming an old maid?

The intensest pressure of all is the pressure of economic necessity. The girl, or the woman, to-day, is not possessed of the capacity, properly developed, or granted the opportunity, of making her own living as freely as the boy or man, or to live out her own independent aspirations and purposes as her male fellows

can.

Therefore, she marries to get someone to earn her living for her, while she is not permitted to do it for herself.

Hence, she sells herself in marriage. Here we put our finger on the sorest ot of civilization.

ut I hear some stout defender of the present conditions shout derisively in reply: "Vain and vapid nonsense! Are there not thousands and thousands of girls and women actively engaged in the industrial world, who are making their own living, and who, therefore, if they marry, must marry for some other reason than you assert ?"

Granted. They are employed. But at a living wage? Ay! There's the rub! Work; they do. But as white slaves; countless numbers of them forced to earn enough outside, by devious and discerning ways, to save their frail cadavers from the potter's field.

Evelyn Nesbit was a model. Alas! A physical, but how gross a moral model! Her life but proves the necessities to which countless models of cloak and gown factories must stoop, if not the more Ariel-like models of the studios, to earn a sufficiency wherewith to keep the flesh clinging to their almost exposed skeletons. Hers, it is true, was a life of wilful abandonment. Relaxing from the painful pose of an artist's demands, her gaze fell on the basilisk-eye of Stanford White, and for the nonce her fate was sealed.

But how many are there among the

toiling mass of women who are driven by gruesome necessity to court disdainfully what Evelyn Nesbit hugged so cheerfully!

Not until we learn that all alike we must be free in life, in industry, in privilege and opportunity, both men and women, to evolve the full and complete purpose of their own individualities, will society be void of the moral blemish of the oppo e poles of economic indecency, namely, men who, on the one hand, are force into hazardous marriage, and on the other are exploited in coerced prostitution.

evertheless, in the words of Hotspur: "plague on both their houses!" Who cares whether Thaw was justified in slaying White, or whether White deserved the crashing bullets that sent him' dishonorably to his untimely grave?

A plague on both their houses. For such as they are in their inner lives but a plague upon the world. They are all a "bad lot," these society queens, whose coruscating crowns of beauty overawe and defile the envious poor, and their lolling lords of idleness and leisurewealth, who pose as custodians of good manners and ethical propriety.

Society rots as the trees from the top down. Enough, that the ornamental branches have already begun to reveal their decay. Let them be hewn off; let the moral vineyards be pruned, that the harvest be a vintage of purity and sweetness, and not venomous and destructive.

Let this tragedy teach us that we need a radical revolution in thought, in education, in culture, in economics, in the social order!

If this harrowing murder shall but assist in exposing the hypocrisy and internal degeneracy of those who pose as the true teachers of the race; if it will teach us that the theory of a Baer and a Parry in industrial economics is as false and vicious as the moral economics of the personnel in this tragedy enacted by auriphrygiate anarchists, it will mayhap have been enacted not in vain.

Coming at a time, and the climax, of a series of social eruptions and moral upheavals, it may but emphasize the atrocity and perverseness of our superficial and self-satisfied civilization.

Corruptionists and legislative boodlers, insurance thieves and premium purloiners, frenzied financiers and kerosene capitalists, have all of late lent their lives to illuminate the enormity of our present moral misconception and the disparity of social amenities the existing order.

This savage, startling, sensational murder, is but a fitting climax. That pistol flash has at last laid bare the hollowness of "respectability," the indecency and purulent degeneracy of that class which should be the noblest and most exemplary because the most highly favored and carefully nurtured of the entire human family.

Thaw's madness is the reformer's opportunity par excellence! New York City.

HENRY FRANK.

In commoue

'N COLONIAL times our forefathers comprehended commerce and knew the sailing ship full well. At first, supplies of all sorts had mainly to be imported by small British vessels. Many generations passed before "America" could feel even partially independent of the factories and the shipping of England. To keep our country dependent has always been a British idea. As no dependent country can be prosperous or wealthy to the full, the true American idea is independence-to rule ourselves, to supply our own wants, to build and sail our own vessels, transact our own commerce, and owe nothing to the world. Forbidden to manufacture; at one time not allowed to carry cargoes to England, except in "sloops" (of 70 tons or less); restricted to British markets, mainly, the American colonies were exploited right and left. Generations lived and died as toilers for British predominance. British Tories were our merchants; British ships were our carriers with few exceptions. Export freights of tobacco took one-third, and of lumber, one-half, of the cargo. Import freights ranged from fifteen to forty per cent. of

the cost of the goods. This state argued the importance of manufacturing and navigation; for it could be seen that, if these industries, besides farming, were carried on by our own people, our country could not help getting rich.

The day came when relations with Great Britain had to be broken off. The War of the Revolution compelled our people to help themselves in many ways -to diversify employments and furnish their own supplies; and, especially, to trade more and more between the States. This, together with fishing and privateering, called for the use of shipping. The advent of peace found the country prepared to consider the sea, as well as the land, an arena for enterprise and the pursuit of wealth. Having attained political independence, it was seen, more clearly than ever before, that navigation and commerce must cut a large figure in American business, ere there should be industrial independence. The British had a maxim that the control of trade and transportation was a means of ruling the world. They made a treaty of "peace," but refused to make one of commerce and navigation, with the "Uni

ted States of America "--such as France, Holland, and Sweden cheerfully gave us; and down to the present day have not done so. They meant to get back the carriage of our commerce, and thus regain the control of our external business, and one day to be in position to resume their rule of the "States "-one or more -which had been their "rebel" colonies.

AMERICAN SHIPPING A NECESSITY.

Thrown upon our own resources, whither could we trade? With shipping of our own, the world was open to us. Without our own marine, we could not command a single market. The British intended to have our trade; but, under their navigation act (1651-60), their ports were not open to the ships of any country of America (Asia or Africa). Our ports would, logically, before long, be closed to British vessels, unless ours were admitted reciprocally. In 1783, the King issued a proclamation opening to us the home ports, but closing all in the loyal Provinces and the West Indies.

Into these harbors, the vessels of our

rival flag could not venture on penalty

of confiscation. We could not land a

box of herring from a boat. British ships would kindly bring our importsall of them-and take away our exports -some of them-no others should. Thus considerable of "Yankee" trade would be grasped and held by our covetous "kith and kin." (Of our rights in this trade, the British deprived us unjustly until 1830, when we passed a special act for them.)

To meet the situation, the Confederate Congress asked the several States for leave to enact and enforce regulations of commerce, calculated to encourage the shipping of all the States, and to protect it from imposition of all kinds by foreign nations. This authority was not fully given, but the States, themselves, set about the work. Discriminating duties, both of tonnage and of tariff, were resorted to. We had a dozen different

66

sets of "navigation laws"-all aiming to protect against foreign shipping, but acting also against the vessels of the several States-making it very important to regulate commerce "among the States," as well as with foreign countries." While little good was accomplished, the plan of every State protecting its own vessel-interest-an interest that was of general concern-soon condemned itself. But our experience paid. It demonstrated to the country the absolute need of national law on the subject; and thus the protection of shipping became recognized as one of the principal factors in the

closer union," which followed the founding of the Federal Government.

One of the five principal objects of the Constitution thus declared to be the regulation of our foreign and domestic trade

in other words, the establishment of a system of protective "navigation laws"

it was natural that in the Convention, this sentiment should be general. Some have supposed that the extreme Southern States, having but a scanty shipping, took no interest in provisions for a merchant marine. This is a mistake. Mr. Charles Pinckney's plan for a Constitution had a clause for the regulation of commerce; and Mr. Rutledge, in a speech, "reminded the House of the necessity of securing the West India trade to this country, and a navigation act was necessary for obtaining it." These dele

gates were from South Carolina. The only question was whether a two-thirds' vote should be required for the passage of shipping acts. Against this point, Mr. Gorham, of Massachusetts, thus closed the debate:

"If the Government is to be so fettered as to be unable to relieve the Eastern

States, what motive can they have to join it, and thereby tie their own hands from measures which they could otherwise take for themselves? The Eastern States were not led to strengthen the Union by fear for their own safety. He deprecated the consequences of disunion, but if it should take place, it was the Southern part of the continent that had the most reason to dread them. He urged the improbability of a combination against the interest of the Southern States, the different situations of the Northern and Middle States being a security against it. Middle States being a security against it. It was, moreover, certain that foreign ships would never be altogether excluded, especially those of nations in treaty with

us."

In pursuance of this vote, clause 3 of section 8 of Article I. of the Constitution, empowers Congress

"To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes."

Thus, we have the solemn guarantee of ship protection, by navigation laws, in the Constitutional compact, that established the existence and function of Congress itself. We have more. From the debate it is clear that this enumerated power"-(clause 3)-was one of the bonds and conditions of the Union. Without its insertion in the Constitution, that instrument would not have been

66

There is ample evidence that no little of the popularity of the Constitution resulted from the shipping engagement. When the adoption of the Constitution was before the country, an orator of Pennsylvania held this argument:

"Every person must long since have seen the necessity of placing the exclusive power of regulating the commerce of America in the same body-without this it is impossible to regulate their trade. The same imposts, duties, and customs must equally prevail overall. . . . Whence comes it that the trade of this state, which abounds with materials for shipbuilding, is carried on in foreign bottoms? Whence comes it that shoes, boots, madeup

clothes, hats, nails, sheet-iron, hinges, and all other utensils of iron, are of British manufacture? Whence comes it that Spain can regulate our flour market? These evils proceed from a want of one supreme controlling power in these States. They will all be done away with by adopting the present form of government. It will have energy and power to regulate your trade and commerce-to enforce the execution of your imposts, duties, and customs. Instead of the trade of this country being carried on in foreign bottoms, our ports will be crowded with