THE TOMB AND MONUMENT OF WILLIAM WHEELWRIGHT, The Yankee Pioneer of South American Commerce and Industry, Oak Hill Cemetery, Newburyport, Massachusetts. The inscription on the front of the monument is as follows: IN LOVING REMEMBRANCE OF WILLIAM WHEELWRIGHT, ESQ., BORN IN NEWBURY PORT. MARTHA C. BARTLET, WIFE OF WILLIAM WHEELWRIGHT, DIED AUGUST 30, 1888, AGED 84. On the left façade of the monument, there is a scroll with a wreath of flowers hanging over on the right side, and the words: MARIAN WHEELWRIGHT, BORN IN VALPARAISO, CHILE, OCTOBER 18, 1835. GEORGE WILLIAM WHEELWRIGHT KRELL, BORN IN NEWBURY PORT, NOVEMBER 23, 1860, DIED AT SEA, ON BOARD THE ROYAL MAIL STEAMER MAGDALEN, DECEMBER 17, 1862. MARIA AUGUSTA WHEELWRIGHT, WIFE OF PAUL KRELL, BORN IN VALPARAISO, DIED AT OATLANDS, ENGLAND, FEBRUARY 11, 1886. On the left façade, there is a broken white marble pillar, twined round with ivy leaves and WILLIAM WHEELWRIGHT, JR., BORN IN NEWBURY PORT, MAY 29, 1840, DIED AT KEW, mus could swiftly reach Europe itself, thus bringing South America into intimate and frequent touch with all the great European commercial emporiums. The project he proposed seemed so impracticable, in those days, that even the British minister resident in Lima, Peru, instructed his servants not to admit "that wild visionary Wheelwright" if he should call again. It would be difficult to enumerate the obstacles he encountered. All this has been exhaustively explained in Señor Alberdi's Spanish biography, an excellent English trans lation of which, under the title of Life and Industrial Labors of William Wheelwright in South America, was published, in 1877, by the late Hon. Caleb Cushing, of Newburyport, Massachusetts. The outlook for support among South Americans, who would be incalculably benefitted by the innovation proposed, was most unpromising. They inherited a deep-rooted conservatism, the result of centuries of the old Spanish régime, which made them cling tenaciously to their traditional, slow methods of doing things. Moreover, only recently eman cessions he solicited for his exceptional enterprise. He now proceeded overland through the lofty Andes, at imminent risk of his life, to Potosi, Bolivia, witnessed a battle, and won the reluctant assent of the government of that republic to his proposed line of Pacific steamers. A concession from Ecuador was obtained in 1837, but it was to last only four years, and a restriction was added, forbidding the company from engaging in the coastwise trade. Wheelwright was planning to have his new Pacific line touch at all South American ports, from Valparaiso to Panama, where a corresponding steamship line, on the Atlantic side of the Isthmus, should carry commerce to and from Europe. The cooperation of Colombia, then owner of the Isthmus, was indispensable. This seemed a matter of course, as that extensive country is bathed by both the Pacific and Atlantic. Colombia is, however, a republic the greater part of whose territory is inland and consists largely of the towering mountain-chains of the northern Cordillera of the Andes. Bogotá, the capital, is on an elevated plateau of 8,000 feet, and to reach it from the coast, even in STATUE OF WILLIAM WHEELWRIGHT Erected in Valparaiso, Chile, in 1876, by popular subscription. ually smoothed away all difficulties, and he had, moreover, a thorough command of both Spanish and English. He applied first to Chile, as that republic had the most stable and enlightened government. The Chilian authorities, by a law dated August 25, 1835, granted him all the con the present twentieth century, requires an arduous, rough-riding journey on muleback, of fully three weeks. In those sublime gigantic Andes, the liberator General Bolivar had gained, at a height of fifteen thousand feet above sea-level, some of his most brilliant victories over the Spaniards. On one public occasion, he declared that "the glory of having carried aloft the standard of liberty into these frigid regions totally outweighs all the gold that lies at our feet." Señor Alberdi justly remarks that this language, translated into that of the economist, simply means that provincial isolation is better than free intercommunication with the civilized world, and it furnishes the key to the singular conditions which ultimately rendered inevitable the secession of the present Republic of Panama from Colombia, so that the Panama canal might be constructed by the United States. mendous commercial advantages. An additional obstacle was the fact that a French company operated a fleet of sailing vessels and dreaded any curtailment of their SILVER TROPHY Presented to Mr. William Wheelwright, Chief Superintendent of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company, by the commercial community of Valparaiso, Chile, as a testimonial of their appreciation, January 15, 1842. The inscription on the trophy is as follows: PRESENTED BY THE COMMERCIAL COMMUNITY OF VALPARAISO TO WILLIAM WHEELWRIGHT, ESQ., CHIEF SUPERINTENDENT OF THE PACIFIC STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY, AS A TESTIMONIAL OF THEIR RESPECT AND ESTEEM OF HIS CHARACTER AND THEIR ADMIRATION OF HIS MERITS. Valparaiso, Jan'y 15th, 1842. Reproduced by the courtesy of Mr. James E. Whitney, Boston, Treasurer of the William Wheelwright Scientific School Fund. One can now understand why the narrow-minded congress of Colombia rejected, for several years, Wheelwright's proposals, although the president of that republic was sufficiently enlighented to perceive clearly their tre exclusive monopoly. Experience, however, the most costly yet efficient of all teachers, at length convinced the French company of the folly of opposing modern progress, and they consented to an amicable arrangeIment with Wheelwright. Still another difficulty had to be overcome as Colombia adhered to the old Spanish restriction of taxing very heavily the transport of mail and merchandiseoverland across the Isthmus of Panama; but at length the United States. succeeded in negotiating a treaty with that republic, by the terms of which free transit was perpetually assured. Wheelwright, by overcoming South American opposition to his revolutionary innovations, had gone a long step towards the consummation of his enterprise, but completely lacked the capital to carry it forward. The question arose: In what quarter could he find such financial backing? He turned at first to his own native country, but Americans, with the fatal blindness which has ever characterized them in their commercial dealings with Latin America, looked coldly upon a project which promised no immediate returns in profits or dividends. He was obliged, therefore, to endeavor to interest British capitalists. cation between Europe and the Pacific ports of South America. Wheelwright's ideas coincided so much with his own that Mr. Scarlett inserted into his book the former's pamphlet entitled Statements and Plans. Reflecting men throughout Great Britain were soon convinced that the advantages of the Panama route, by vessels propelled by steam, over the dangerous circuitous Straits of Magellan, effected in sailing ships, delayed by the calms of the Pacific, were too obvious to be longer neglected. It was self-evident that it was not worth while wasting from one hundred to one hundred and twenty days in reaching Valparaiso, Lima and Guayaquil when the voyage could be accomplished by steam, by way of Panama, in from forty-six to sixty-two days. Armed with official concessions, not great to be sure, but indispensable for his purpose, and with a carefully prepared, luminous pamphlet, illustrated by his own map of the Pacific coast of South America, Wheelwright, in 1838, crossed the oceans and presented himself in London and Glasgow. His winning personality and convincing arguments secured him at once a favorable reception throughout Great Britain, and he won the friendship of Sir Clements R. Markham, the eminent geographer, and of many other noted British public men. The entire press of London freely published his communications, which they cordially supported' in long leading editorials. It happened, also, fortunately for his cause, that the Hon. P. Campbell Scarlett had just returned to England from a long journey of several thousand miles across the pampas and Andes, from Buenos Ayres to Valparaiso, and had published a scientific book entitled South America and the Pacific. As an appendix to his work, in two volumes, Mr. Scarlett added a memorial, addressed to the Foreign Office, on the advantages of making use of the Isthmus of Panama as the most rapid highway of communi- Malden, Mass. As a result of his propaganda, Wheelwright soon secured the coöperation of leading British capitalists, and a company was formed, in London, under the name of "The Pacific Steam Navigation Company," which readily obtained a royal charter of incorporation, and of which the directors appointed Wheelwright Chief Superintendent. A capital of $1,250,000, divided into five thousand shares, was subscribed. Two sister steamers, the "Chile" and the "Peru," of 700 tons and 150 horsepower each, were built by Messrs Charles Young & Company, of Limehouse, England. (To be continued.) FREDERIC M. NOA. M GOVERNOR JOSEPH W. FOLK. BY THOMAS SPEED MOSBY. ORE peculiarly and distinctly, perhaps, than any other man of equal prominence in the public life of America to-day, Governor Folk of Missouri is known by his works. Folk is a man of few words and tremendous accomplishments. He seldom talks about what he is going to do, but does it and lets the world talk about it afterwards. Attorney of the City of St. Louis, where he convicted more men of political crimes than were ever before convicted at any one time and place in the entire history of the world, and such has been his subsequent record as Governor of the State of Missouri. News Such was his character as Circuit- United States declared that the work of renovating the politics of our great cities was a hopeless task. They hooted at the idea that convictions could be secured. But Folk plodded on, saying little and doing much, and he succeeded. paper comment began to change. Public opinion grew more hopeful. Then the moral wave began to spread; first through the State of Missouri, where it swept all before it, then rapidly across the continent, and even beyond the seas. Early in 1904 a law-enforcing official in Honolulu was referred to in a local newspaper there as "the Joe Folk of Hawaii." First of all, Folk is a firm believer in the force and efficacy of the constitution and laws of the State of Missouri and of the United States. Although a profound student and an advanced thinker, and not in any sense retrogressive or ultra-conservative, his policy throughout has been to first enforce the laws we have before casting them aside as worthless and rushing into the wilderness of new policies and systems of government. He has always taken his oath of office seriously, and, indeed, literally. Having sworn to uphold and enforce the laws and to discharge the duties of an office he has always performed those duties to the letter. Folk has become known to the American people not as a theorist or a political leader. He has, in the course of his speeches and lectures said many things which have been widely quoted; but his doings rather than his sayings have made him known. When he speaks he usually speaks from experience, not from speculation or hearsay. He never has "dreams" or sees "visions." Plain, practical, sober-minded; not fanciful, empirical or inconsiderate in thought or deed, this plodding man of the people has started a moral wave which has moved forward with the force of an avalanche in the political life of the United States. When Joseph W. Folk began his work for the purification of St. Louis he was laughed at as an impractical dreamer. Up to that time, indeed, the utterance of the late Senator John J. Ingalls of Kansas, that "honesty in politics is an iridescent dream," had been, consciously or unconsciously, accepted as a fact. Reformation seemed impossible. When When the the antiboodle prosecutions were begun in St. Louis many of the greatest journals of the Nominated and elected Governor of Missouri, Folk carried his gospel of lawenforcement into other States. He was prominent in the Ohio campaign which elected Governor Pattison and overturned the power of "Boss" Cox in Cincinnati. In the same campaign he entered Pennsylvania and in Philadelphia, erstwhile the "corrupt and contented," he was given the greatest ovation ever given a political speaker in that city. And the election returns showed that the hearts of the people had been aroused. Wherever he has traveled, from Boston to San Francisco, multitudes have assembled to hear him present the "Missouri Idea," which he has defined as “the idea that citizenship in a free country implies a civic obligation to enforce the performance of every public trust by holding every public official to strict accountability before enlightened public opinion for all official acts.' But the message he brings to the American people is no new gospel. It is as old as Sinai. He electrified the public conscience simply by showing that all was not lost; by simply showing that righteous government and righteous administralion of the affairs of government, was but a matter of honesty and courage. This was not a new gospel; it was merely a forgotten truth, which, in our struggle for the material things of life, we of America had forgotten. We knew that honesty was the best |