E. E. CLARK, Editor.

Since the assassination of President McKinley there has been, perhaps, more drastic legislation suggested for the suppression of anarchy and the punishment of persons attempting the lives of government officials than upon any subject that has arisen in the history of our nation. Other nations have suffered similar calamities, yet no blow ever fell with quite the force that fell upon us when the representative of a free people, whose government is their own and whose laws afford a safe refuge from crowned oppression, was stricken down. A more ungrateful act could not have been committed, nor greater contempt shown for the very institutions which in themselves are a bulwark against oppression. It is hard to understand how anarchy can thrive in a country whose opportunities are so great and whose laws are so liberal, and whose institutions bear such a marked contrast to the deplorable conditions which give rise to nihilism. Anarchy says, "Life is worthless without liberty-liberty to pursue one's happiness in one's own way my demand is for liberty-liberty unrestricted and unhampered by law and creed-liberty for each to live and love and labor for that which to him seems best." We imagine that the history of Sodom and Gomorrah would sink into insignificance as compared to such a freefor-all carnival as this doctrine provides. Someone attempts to assert as a fact that any individual who boldly stands

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up to assert his rights in the face of opposition is an anarchist at heart whether he admits it or not. It is a safe proposition that anarchy has no more claim to this spirit than it has to a patent on the Lord's Prayer, and if it be that this spirit is a part of their creed we are glad to say that its further adoption stops right there with the true American.

Moderation and justice, tempered with mercy, has, and we hope always will, prevail in conducting our government affairs; yet, under the stress of excitement and yielding to the impulses to resent defiance of our laws or contempt of our institutions, some of us frequently find ourselves wanting for the moment in those qualities which are necessary to maintain conservative government. It is the calm, dispassionate thinker who finds a path out of a dilemma. There were calm minds that controlled the situation at Buffalo, when an excited populace was clamoring for the blood of the assassin, yet reason prevailed, and justice at the hands of the law meted out a deserved punishment. There are none but will say that after all, the assassin's crime was atoned for in the right way-that the proper course was pursued to insure the dignity of our institutions and the perpetuity of our laws. Brutality and barbarous punishment meted out at the hands of an excited people has a more disastrous effect upon a community than a pestilence. Laws, too, of a drastic nature, intended as pro

hibitory measures against those crimes, which themselves are punishable under the laws, should be guarded against. Our laws are broad enough to cover every crime in the category, but when we attempt to legislate for the abstractthat which is no more clearly defined as a crime than the belief, expressed or inexpressed in anarchy, we are entering a tangled forest, whose labyrinth presents endless difficulties. Russia has attempted to stamp out anarchy by employing an extensive surveillance system, whose function is to ferret out all who profess faith in its doctrines. We all know that however complete that or any other system may be so long as the conditions that foster and give rise to anarchy exist, that it will not be possible to root it out. The most effectual method of discouraging its growth seems to lie in treating it as we would treat any other absurd doctrine, whether Mormonisn, Dowieism or some of the other isms which seem to appeal to only a certain class, who are ever ready to take up every hobby that is originated. Nothing cools a crank's ardor half so quickly as to remind him that he is a bore, or, in the expressive slang sentence tell him to go away back and sit down. We as a craft have but little time to spend upon those we meet in everyday life who have their "scheme" to unload upon us, yet there are those who lend a willing ear to every proposition and not a few who are always ready to absorb the teachings of every new doctrine just as there are suckers who bite on everything else.

Men receive impressions differently and act upon them differently. It is a safe proposition that there are men who maintain ideas on various subjects and who are inconvertable to any ideas opposed to their own, who never burden others with their opinions. These are the harmless cranks, whose presence in any community does not spread an influence for better or worse. It is the enthusiastic crank who absorbs every new doctrine and imagines that he is the Elijah come to save the world; and among this number anarchism finds its devotees.

Radical or drastic legislation cannot change the nature of these fanatics. We believe that any teaching that diseases the mind or which developes a mind to believe that all law and government is inimical to the happiness of mankind, should be interpreted as the act of an individual who seeks to destroy all who stand in his way, and that action should be taken by law to provide for his detention on lines similar to that employed in caring for those who suffer more acute dementia. We very humanely place these where they have no power to do harm to those who surround them. If there be a degree of comparison between the man who is crazy on anarchy and the man who imagines he is the ancient Abraham looking for an Isaac to sacrifice, the latter, to our mind, is the least harmless. The lunatic is willing that you should stay in the same country with him whatever your politics may be, or, at least, he does not as a rule express any objection to your staying here; but the anarchist wants the earth without any restrictions of government whatever. We are forced to deal with one just as we are forced to deal with the other-place them beyond power to do harm either by inoculating the virus of anarchy or by the bullet.

Henry Holt in American Monthly Review of Reviews submits a rational plan on how to punish anarchists. He says in part:

Of course we can seldom emulate Nature with absolute success, but that is no reason why we should absolutely disregard her example, as we do with the merely brutal repressive punishments which are arbitrarily tacked on to the criminal's acts, without in any natural sense growing out of them. Ă parent whips a child simply from being too ignorant or incompetent to impose a more rational punishment. The state acts in the same way when it kills, imprisons, or fines for offenses which have no more relation to killing or to confinement or to money than they have to the motions of the stars. The legislature of Georgia, the only State legislature which has acted between the assassination of President McKinley and the time of this writing, started in the old hammer-andtongs way-dealing out only imprisonment and death, the former even for

preaching anarchy. President Roosevelt's message, and the bills of Senators Hoar and McComas, have done much better, though Senator McComas likewise deals largely in imprisonment and death. But he also, as do the other two, pays due respect to the two naturalconsequence punishments - exclusion and exile, which have been widely discussed, and are both generally advocated in the press. Both are absolutely logical consequences of proclaiming anarchistic opinions. The law can say, with irrefragable logic: You declare yourself at law with organized society. Very well; you can't expect organized society either to move away and leave its territory to you, or to retain in its midst a pronounced enemy whose like have proved themselves dangerous the world over. If you don't clear out, or if you ever return, of course you leave us the only resource of putting you out by methods that will make return impossible. Moreover, if you go alive, we are not going to be put in the position of unloading you on other organized societies, but shall send them means of identifying you. If they are wise, they will also exclude you, and the only place where you can actually stay is the only place where you can logically stay,-where. there is no organized society-the desert.

To outlawry and exclusion and exile for the man who has only spoken, of course, the objection will be raised that the man has committed no crime, and that you are punishing him in advance. The gentle and industrious Chinaman has committed no crime; you exclude and exile him. President Roosevelt went so far in his message as to say: "No man preaching anarchistic doctrines should be at large." Moreover, the objection illustrates the primitive ideas still prevailing regarding "crime." Of the many queer things that have been called crimes, all the way from celebrating the mass to kissing your wife on Sunday, there remains but a little residum called crimes today, and they all have the common feature of being acts considered detrimental to the general good. Judged by this standard -the only one now generally accepted by sound authorities-the preaching of anarchy is a very serious crime, and legislation is rapidly recognizing it as such. But even pick up the gauntlet as flung-are you going to punish in advance? As reasonably ask: When you hear the snake rattle, are you going to wait for him to strike?

Of course there are many more arguments both ways than I have given, and many questions of detail, but if the main proposition is sound, the details can be adjusted. The scheme is not advanced as a cure-all, nor does it pre

clude the use of other remedies. At the worst, if it were found productive of more harm than good, as so many laws are, it could be repealed before it had done much damage.

To sum up, the suggestions advocated here are:

1. Exclusion of immigrants of avowed anarchistic sentiments. And I would exclude Kropotkin and Tolstoy as much more carefully than I would exclude "Jerry the Red" (or whatever the gentleman's name may be) as their vaporings exceed their fellow-prophet's in subtlety and eloquence. Kropotkin's lecture tour here was making anarchy respectable in the season preceding McKinley's assassination. There is much nonsense talked about the difficulty of exclusion. Of course it cannot be done perfectly, any more than any other human function can be; but the Berthelot system can make it worth doing as well

as we can.

2. Taking the anarchist at his wordobliterating his relation to the government so far as permitted by his unavoidable use of government facilities and by his power of self-defense, which power involves the reciprocal power of defense against him. To arrange the details of this proceeding-the conditions of information, indictment, testimony, court findings, etc.-is no easy task, but it is far from an impossible one.

3. The exile of all persons treated under 2, who should continue recalcitrant after a reasonable time for profiting by the educational facilities of that treatment.

4. For the exiled anarchist returning without permission, imprisonment for life.

5. For the anarchistic assassin (and he is as much the assassin if he tries and fails, as if he succeeds), the asylum.

When Mr. Holt says "for the anarchistic assassin the asylum" he practically admits that crime committed by the anarchist and crime committed by the madman are identical so far as responsibility goes for that crime. We have the means at hand to care for the poor unfortunates whose minds under mental strain or other extraordinary excitement become a blank, but we could not care for the number of mental degenerates, who are equally dangerous, in the same manner. Fortunately we possess territory far enough from our shores to create an asylum for their detention where we can feel that they are safely out of the way to do us harm. There they could worship under their own vine and fig

tree and practice to their hearts' content the doctrines of anarchy without fear of Georgia laws, and could flourish

in as exclusive a set as the lepers of the little island in the Sandwich group.

Justice to Cuba has lost none of its weight in the hearts of our people during the whole time that our promise has been in the hands of Congress.

President Roosevelt said that the country is bound by "every consideration of honor and national interest" to give relief. He spoke of "the vital need" for this relief and of "the weighty reasons of morality and national interest" that should compel us to grant it. Behind these statements stand a practically unanimous people demanding that justice be done as we promised. Congress has been in session two months, but "the vital need" has not yet been recognized. Probably we are incompetent to judge of those matters which should obtain first place on the calendar usually provided for pressing measures, still it appears that this is one, if the opinions of President Roosevelt have any significance.

The Indianapolis News says on this subject:

The only men who are opposing the performance of this plain duty are those who will make money out of our failure to perform it-the beet and cane sugar people and the tobacco people. They are exerting themselves to the utmost to prevent a reduction of the tariff taxes on Cuban products, and they alone seem to have the ear of the ways and means committee. President Palma, of the new Cuban republic, is quoted by the New York Herald thus:

"It will be impossible for me, or for anyone else, to establish a strong and stable government in Cuba unless tariff concessions are made to us by the United States. I say this after having studied the situation in all its phases. It is a statement of facts that I believe to be absolutely correct, and it is for the American people to realize their full significance.'

General Jas. H. Wilson says:

I say in no captious spirit that

there is not one single attribute of government that can be suggested by man which has not been exercised over Cuba by the United States in the last four years. Yet we have done absolutely nothing to repair the ravages of the war and build up the industries of the island. The revenues of the island, which amount to more than $16,000,000, have been under our control, and they have been honestly expended, but the people are in the same straits today as they were when hostilities ceased. My

What can we do to help them? proposition is to give them free trade with the United States. I never have met a Cuban planter who did not favor annexation as the only thing to save the island, but that is a proposition that cannot be entertained in view of the action of Congress. Since we cannot take the island into our political system we should by all means take it into our economic system.

Cuba cannot put its sugar down in the United States without losing money, and it asks us to lower the duty. The beet sugar men in this country say that lowering the duty will ruin them. Will it? Without going into figures I am prepared to dispute the assertion. Last year Cuba bought $68,000,000 worth of foreign goods, $30,000,000 of which were purchased in the United States.

If we should give Cuba free trade its business with this country would expand to $300,000,000 annually within five years. There is no foreign market so easily obtainable as that of Cuba. There is no product of this country which is not in demand there, and nothing produced there which is not needed here. Open the way for free trade and the island will prosper at our profit.

The American people do realize their full significance. They know that Cuba must be prosperous if her government is to succeed, and they know that she cannot be prosperous if this government starves her in order to please the comparatively insignificant beet sugar interest. Indeed, all this is so painfully clear that it is hard to resist the conclusion that action is deferred for the express purpose of making the new government fail, in order that the Cubans

may be forced to ask for annexation. President Roosevelt might accomplish something by a more direct use of his influence. But the better way would be to apply pressure to the representatives. Perhaps they can be frightened into doing their duty. There should be immediate action on this question. The bogus revenue reduction bill can wait. General Wilson says that since our occupation of the island we have done nothing to repair the ravages of war; that we have re-established no families in their homesteads and have not even attempted to re-stock farms and plantations. Nor has there been one step taken to extend the commerce of the country and thus enable it to recover from the devastation of war. It has been almost four years since the breaking out of the Spanish war and for most of that time we have been in practical control of the island. Reminding us of our pledges made at that time he said:

We pledged ourselves at the beginning of the war against the intention of exerting any sovereignty over the island and promised to withdraw our army as soon as peace was restored. In spite of this pledge we have exercised every conceivable attribute of sovereignty over Cuba. We have absolutely controlled the domestic affairs of the people, and, although perfect order has existed for two years, our army is still in possession of the country.

On this point the Indianapolis News continues:

Further than this, we have, while in this complete control of Cuba, compelled its people to adopt a scheme of government which surrenders much of the sovereignty to the United States. Cuba cannot go into debt except with our approval, and her government can negotiate no treaty except with our consent. Yet the representatives of our protected interests insist that we have "done enough" for Cuba, and talk of Cuban ingratitude!

The fact that we drove Spain out of the island does not give us a right to starve its people. Having deprived them of a European market, by making it impossible for them to enter into trade conventions with European powers, we now propose to shut them out of our own market. Undoubtedly, we did a great service when we broke the power of Spain, but Cuba was not the sole beneficiary. The step was thought to be a good one for us. We abated a nuisance at our own doors, and ended a situation which had grown "intolerable"

to us. So we were serving ourselves as well as the Cubans. But even if the welfare of the Cubans had been the only end we aimed at, the fact that we had attained it would not justify us in a policy the application of which would make the success of the new government impossible. The Platt amendment and the Dingley tariff combined are enough to break the back of any gov. ernment established in Cuba. And when they have had their effect we shall have the failure of the government pointed to us as evidence of the inability of the Cubans to govern themselves.

Of course, General Wilson is for reciprocity with Cuba on liberal terms. So is everybody else except a few beet sugar and tobacco men and their special friends in congress and out of it. The President, Secretary Root, General Wood, **** are all favorable to a re

duction of the duties on Cuban imports. Yet congress fails to act. The question is whether we are going to do the right and honorable thing, or whether we are going to continue to tax the people of the United States for the benefit of a few insignificant interests, and cripple the industrial development of Cuba. We cannot believe that this is going to be the result. The senate is yet to be heard from, and there are indications that its sympathies are on the right side.

As a matter of general interest bearing upon the subject of tariff concessions we reproduce herewith an interview between Hon. Thomas Estrada Palma, President-elect of Cuba, and a Tribune correspondent, who says:

The general has been watching closely every move that is made in Washington that bears on the subject. On the action that Congress will take, General Palma believes, depends the entire future happiness and prosperity of the island. No other Cuban is more directly interested in the disposition of the question, for on the first chief executive will devolve much of the responsibility for a successful free government, and without the desired tariff concessions on tobacco and sugar he fears the latter will never be a success. General Palma said yesterday:

The prosperity of Cuba depends to a great extent upon the attitude of the United States toward the now forming republic. The full moral obligation of this great nation to Cuba will be discharged when the United States has opened the only market that is possible to Cuban products. We must have this market.

Unless we receive a reasonable reduction on sugar and tobacco, prosperity