traying the party, to take sides at this early date, which will render them powerless to do great injury to the cause of democracy in the coming presidential election. These things, it seems to us, are of especial importance to the cause of radical democracy.

The Political Situation in Massachusetts. THE BATTLE between the plutocratic Democrats, led by the state machine under the guidance of Chairman Josiah Quincy, Mr. Gaston and Congressman Sullivan, and the democratic Democrats under the leadership of the incorruptible and fearless district-attorney of Boston, John B. Moran, has been waged with all the intensity that marks a struggle between two powerful factions battling for a coveted prize. The Quincy-Gaston machine has been as wholly committed to the corrupt public-service companies and monopolies as are Senator Bailey of Texas, Belmont, Ryan and Jerome of New York and Taggart and Sullivan of the National Democratic Committee. Indeed, the two men that this unsavory organization or machine insisted upon foisting on the Democratic party of Massachusetts spoke more eloquently than words and as impressively as their former acts had spoken of their brand of Democracy. This state organization upon nominating for governor Henry M. Whitney, so well known to the citizens of Massachusetts by the sinister power he has long wielded as the head of public-service companies and great corporations interested in special legislation, and widely known to the American people through the merciless exposures made by Thomas W. Lawson. The machine leaders were equally consistent in selecting as the ideal candidate to run with Mr. Whitney Congressman Sullivan. Sullivan's record, from his youth up, proves beyond question that he would have made an admirable running-mate with Mr. Whitney. He, it will be remembered, displayed his real character when he voted in Congress to pay himself or turn into his own personal pocket the fare to and from Boston on account of President Roosevelt's constructive recess," a recess which only existed in the fertile imagination of Mr. Root and Mr. Roosevelt. Thus Sullivan voted to rob the American tax-payers of the amount of his fare to and from Boston.

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It is needless to say that all the corporation

controlled "safe and sane "Democratic journals of Massachusetts clamored for the nomination of Mr. Whitney; while the machine, with the backing of all the public-service companies, labored to its utmost to defeat the nomination of Mr. Moran, who is justly dreaded by the criminal rich, owing to the between crime when committed by the powfact that he refuses to recognize any difference erful pillars of society and when the work of men not bulwarked by ill-gotten wealth.

Mr. Moran and his friends had no money to spend in the campaign-not enough, indeed, to properly present his cause to the people, and, except the Boston American, no great newspaper advocated his nomination. He had, however, something of far more value to a political leader than the cash of men who were seeking to acquire wealth at the expense of the people. He enjoyed the confidence of a large majority of the most thoughtful men in his party. His record as district-attorney had proved that he not only promised, but that he fulfilled his promises; that he was independent, loyal and unafraid. Therefore at the Democratic primaries, held on the 25th and 26th of September, a majority of the delegates chosen were pledged to the nomination of Mr. Moran; so it seems highly probable that in spite of all the machinations of the corruptionists, the grafters and the machine Democrats, the fearless district-attorney will be the nominee for governor on the Democratic ticket.

Mr. Moran has already been nominated for governor by the Prohibitionists and the Independence League of Massachusetts, and whether or not he receives the Democratic nomination he will be a candidate at the polls.

Of course Massachusetts is overwhelmingly Republican, her majorities ranging from in the neighborhood of 50,000 to 100,000, and this year, if Mr. Moran is nominated by the Democrats, the Republican party will have the covert aid of all the corporation-owned Democrats as well as the powerful support of the alarmed plutocrats. Still, we believe the vote cast for Mr. Moran will indicate that in the old Bay State there is yet to be found a vast throng of men and women of courage, conscience and aggressive honesty who are faithful to the cause of the people and the principles of free government in the great battle now being waged between plutocracy and democracy.

THE REPUBLICAN contest in New Hampshire, to which we recently referred at length, afforded an inspiring illustration of what one young man, impelled by a lofty moral purpose, is able to do in a single-handed battle against one of the most powerful and corrupt combinations known to modern politics.

When Winston Churchill entered the battle in New Hampshire and began to expose the imperial sway exerted by the Boston and Maine Railroad over the government of the state through the money-controlled Republican machine, the old-line politicians no less than the railroad magnates displayed considerable amusement. They refused to take him seriously and determined upon the usual tactics of the corruptionists, ignoring the charges when possible, and in other instances entering a general denial. Mr. Churchill, however, fortified his position by a vast array of incontrovertible facts, and the people rallied to his standard with such enthusiasm that the indifference and contempt of the masters of the multitudes was soon changed to uneasiness that ripened into alarm. It was not long before the railway and machine power was doing its utmost to neutralize the influence of Mr. Churchill. In this, however, it signally failed. The young leader soon had the conscience of New Hampshire awakened as it had not been awakened in decades. When the convention met, so great was the clamor for reform that the party felt compelled to adopt a platform substantially such as had been demanded by Mr. Churchill, and after the balloting for candidates began the young author-statesman steadily gained in strength, until it became thoroughly manifest that unless there was a union of the field against him he would be triumphantly nominated. Then it was that the tools of the Boston and Maine Railroad and all the predatory bands united and nominated a corporation candidate.

The work achieved by Mr. Churchill, however, has been greater than his most enthusiastic friends dared to hope when he entered the campaign. He has become unquestionably the most influential statesman in the commonwealth of New Hampshire,—that is to say, the man whose word on political questions would influence more voters than that of any other individual.

Congress.

NOTHING has been more noticeable in the Congress of the past few years than the vigilance displayed by certain senators and congressmen for the interests of the railways, the trusts and other privileged interests that are fattening off of the earnings of America's masses. Our readers will call to mind how quick were Foraker, Knox, Spooner, Aldrich and other of the railroad senators to fight against the attempt even to secure a very partial relief for the American people from railway discrimination, extortion and evasion of law during the past winter. So also they will remember how quick were Senator Hopkins and Congressmen Cannon, Lorimer and Madden to labor with Mr. Roosevelt against legislation that the President's own commission had conclusively shown to be absolutely essential in order to protect the people from diseased and filthy meat and drugged concoctions sent out under fraudulent names. Moreover, when they failed to secure the defeat of the measure for the beef-trust, it will be remembered how Cannon and other henchmen of the poisoned-meat trust saddled the enormous annual expense of three million dollars on the voters of America, which every honest man must admit the beef-trust should have been compelled to pay, and which it would have been compelled to pay had not the so-called people's representatives been the real representatives of the poisoned-meat trust. These examples are purely typical. Every winter witnesses a number of similar examples of the supposed representatives of the people battling against the interests of their constituents and defeating needful legislation desired by the voters, simply because the real masters of the legislators-the publicservice companies and monopolies-wish the people's interests sacrificed.

But while the interests are strong in that they possess a number of faithful watch-dogs ever alert, vigilant and active to serve their masters by preventing necessary legislation in the public interest, congressional life in recent years has shown few men in either house who could be properly termed watchdogs for the people. Among those in Congress, however, who in recent years have been ever alert and watchful for the true interests of their constituents, no man has made a more splendid record than ex-Congressman Robert

with these plants and do business with them every day, while the Seattle Times is about six thousand miles away.

Hundreds of other instances could be given. There are about 1,000 municipal electricplants in the United States, and nearly all of them are laboring under the impression that they are successful. There are thousands of public water-works in the country, and they are strangely ignorant of the fact discovered by the Times that municipal ownership spells wreck and ruin. Great Britain, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and other countries have multitudes of public lighting and transit systems, and they are mistaking these masses of wreck and ruin for prosperity and progress and are adding constantly to the lists of public plants. In the last dozen years some fifty cities in Great Britain and thirty in Germany have adopted municipal operation of streetrailways. No one except the Times has heard that all these are wrecks and ruins, or that any one of them is a wreck or ruin. Some few of them do not pay in dollars and were not expected to, being established under conditions that private companies would not undertake to meet, because there was no prospect of profit. But the public need was there and the municipality entered upon the work, not for profit, but for the public good, just as it builds and maintains streets and sewers, knowing also that they will pay in other ways far more than an equivalent of their cost.

Most of the public plants pay in dollars as well as in service, and most of them are well managed. Not all, of course. Municipal plants have to be managed by human beings as well as private plants, and both are liable to failure. The Times instances a few cases which it calls failures of municipal ownership, the leading example being the Richmond gas works. We are told on high authority in New York that the reason the Richmond gas-works were allowed to get out of repair was that George Gould, who controls the street-railways in that city, wanted to get possession of the gas-plant and acquired sufficient influence in the council to prevent the appropriations for repairs that were asked for by the superintendent of the works. Even if all that the Times and other corporation papers say about Richmond were true, it would only show a case of partial mismanagement, not wreck or ruin, for the works have more than paid for themselves in profits turned into the public treasury besides greatly

reducing the price of gas and paying double the wages per hour paid by the private gasworks in other southern cities, which latter fact is one of the main complaints of the corporation press.

The Toledo gas-plant, the New York ferry and the Glasgow telephone are also instanced by the Times. The Glasgow telephone has been a great success, resulting in great improvement of service and lowering of rates, as we shall show in a future number. Even in its sale to the post-office, which has been misrepresented by the corporation press, it won a great victory over the private telephone company, which was trying hard for precedence in the sale to the government. It was a race between the two to sell to the national government, which aims to absorb all the telephones in a few years, and the municipal plant won out.

We believe that telephone competition is a mistake, but it is entirely untrue to represent the Glasgow telephone as a failure or an instance of wreck and ruin.

The Times does not make good in any respect. We could give it points for its argument better than any it makes. It does not even mention the Philadelphia gas-works, or the Boston Fenway or printing-plant. But with all possible points the argument amounts to nothing; for there are vastly more failures under private ownership than under public ownership. The highest commercial authority in this country is quoted as estimating that ninety-five per cent. of all private enterprises fail. That seems almost unbelievable, but any one who will follow the lists of failures year after year will not be able to retain a doubt that the proportion of failures in private enterprises is far greater than in public enterprises.

Suppose we should write up the Baring Brothers and Black Friday and the long list of railroads that have been in the receiver's hands, etc., and top the thing with big headlines: