ways. It was a Republican postmaster-general who urged the establishment of a postal telegraph. The whole tendency of Republican legislation is toward a socialism which is spurious in fact, but one which at least appeals to the less well informed people of socialistic instincts. It is, of course, not true socialism to build up an industry by governmental aid, trusting to its owners to see that some share of the benefits shall be distributed among its workingmen; but it is unquestionably a step toward the extreme socialistic ideal which would make all industry dependent upon government. It savors of the paternal kindliness of the coöperative commonwealth, and has been the chief reason for the prolonged continuance of the Republican party in power.

The Democratic party has always been non-socialistic. In certain districts it is violently anti-socialistic. This is notably the case in the Southern States, if the attitude of the accepted party leaders may be taken as indicative of the sentiment of the voters. That it is so is doubtful. The strength of the Populist party in the South a few years ago and the power of the Prohibition party in certain Southern States to-day suggest that the Southern people are not so wedded to Jeffersonian individualism as their leaders believe. But the Democratic party has never given adequate expression, in its national platforms, to the growing popular conviction that it is a legitimate function of government to protect the people from the extortions of monopoly by taking over and conducting for the public good those enterprises and industries which by the workings of natural law tend irresistibly to become monopolies. One phrase only in the Kansas City platform can, by a very liberal construction, be regarded as looking toward the ideal of the moderate social reformer. "We pledge the Democratic party," said the convention, "to an unceasing warfare, in nation, State, and city, against private monopoly in every form."

However, when the form of this warfare was defined in setting forth the proposed remedy for trusts, it was seen to be distinctly individualistic. Opportunity was there to strike at the force which has been the chief buttress of the trusts by declaring for the principle of government ownership of railroads; but the anti-socialistic temper of the Democratic leaders prevailed. It is difficult, probably impossible, for any individual to estimate accurately the comparative influence exerted by the different planks of a platform; but, judging by the comments which I heard from men of all classes and

localities, the Democratic remedy for trusts, though incomparably more explicit than that of the Republican platform, was the most disappointing feature of our party programme.

Such radicalism as appeared in the Chicago and Kansas City platforms, while marking a forward step on the part of a party long wedded to a stunting conservatism, was in no sense socialistic. Direct legislation, or the right of the people to pass directly upon proposed laws, as in Switzerland, and, indeed, in many of our States and cities; an income tax, or the demand that citizens contribute to the expenses of government according to their respective means; and hostility to monopoly in private hands, and to two of monopoly's most dangerous weapons, government by injunction and the black list- these are the so-called radical planks. None is socialistic in tendency. With one exception none was attacked during the campaign, and it is wholly improbable that a hundred voters were estranged by all, while thousands were attracted by them. Yet these are the issues which the party is now adjured to abandon, that it may return to the ideals of dead and gone political generations.

No, it was not any radicalism in the Democratic platform which led to party disaster. The lesson is not that the party policy

was too advanced for the voters. Rather is it to be considered whether a wider measure of radicalism, a heartier recognition of the widespread demand for the public ownership of natural monopolies, shall not next time contribute to certain party victory.

Not since the days of the anti-slavery agitation has a purely moral issue sufficed to turn a party out of power. Mr. Bryan failed with the paramount issue of anti-imperialism as the Republicans failed with the paramount issue of anti-slavery in 1856. Whether the issue of last November shall live to invite another test at the polls four years later, as did the anti-slavery issue, will depend on the course of the McKinley Administration; but, in the form that it assumed last November, it can scarcely persist, because by that time the protesting Filipinos will have been pacified or slain. Again, the question of the currency, which played a certain, though not a prominent, part in the late campaign, is not assured of place four years hence.

One lesson certainly taught by the recent election is that political importance cannot be given to the money question in a campaign unless in a period of great financial and industrial distress. I believe this is true also of the tariff question. Taxes collected by means of a tariff are so subtly exacted that the people do not recognize their

contributions as a tax. If times are good they pay them uncomplainingly. If times are bad the tariff extortions are lumped in with the general indictment of "hard times." So far as the currency question is concerned, if the present enormous production of gold continues there will be no demand for a change in the existing system; while if dissatisfaction should arise there are a multiplicity of signs to indicate that the demand will be for curbing the power of the national banks and restoring to the government its historic power of issuing its notes, rather than for a return to the free coinage of silver.

Now, while it is possible, even probable, that neither imperialism nor silver will be an issue four years from now, it is virtually certain that the question of monopoly will then be even more insistent for settlement than it is to-day. Its evils are felt in every household of moderate means in the land to-day. Its blight is upon every form of industry, except when controlled by its beneficiaries. It touches the farmer, the mechanic, and the professional man. Το the onward march of monopoly there is to-day no check in sight; but the imagination can scarcely picture the end, if it shall be permitted to continue for four years more its triumphs of the past decade. lesson of the late election was not that the people are indifferent to this evil, but that in the political discussion it was overshadowed by other things, and that neither party offered for its cure a remedy sufficiently radical to arouse at once popular confidence and popular enthusiasm.

The

Certain Democratic nominees for Congress took ground far in advance of their party platform, and frankly advocated the destruction of monopoly by governmental assumption of those enterprises which are now being employed to build up and to buttress monopoly. In every case such candidates ran far ahead of their party ticket. The people are more radical than was either the Chicago or the Kansas City convention; but they want radicalism to have its application to those things which touch their immediate interests.

The year 1904 will be big with opportunity for the party which shall recognize and rightly interpret the lessons not only of the last election, but of political history since social and economic problems growing out of increased population, the concentration of wealth, and the development of monopoly, have taken first place in the minds of the people. The party which will be clear, concrete, and fearless in its proffer of remedies will be the one that will deserve well of the voters. The four years to intervene will see marked progress in

the work of turning over to municipalities the natural monopolies within their bounds. The extension of the same principle to the public functions of State and nation is logical and necessary. Let the nation own its telegraphs and telephones, as England does. Let it own and manage its railroads, as almost every country of continental Europe does, and we shall have done with the secret rebates and the friendly discriminations which have created trusts and still help to maintain them. Let the postoffice carry parcels of reasonable size, despite the opposition of express officials, so as to end the present absurdity which permits the sending of a package by mail from New York to Venezuela and thence to California for less than one can send it to California direct. Let the nation spend its millions in building irrigation plants in the arid West, rather than in killing people in Luzon; and when the desert shall have been made fertile let it be leased to settlers who will live upon it rather than be sold outright to speculators who will hold it idle for a profit. Let us have direct legislation, postal savings banks, and the in

come tax.

Not all of these things can be done at once; to do any in the face of the selfish opposition of vested interests will be a giant's task. Yet there is not one of these reforms, which here are termed revolutionary, but is in successful operation in some foreign land, whose people we, with American self-sufficiency, are inclined to commiserate as less intelligent and less free than ourselves. In no nation where they have been given effect have they been abandoned by reason of failure; and the political party which shall take the first step toward the fulfilment of this programme in the United States will not be permitted to lay down office and authority until all is completed. That is the lesson of the election.

WILLIS J. ABBOT.

THE ANTI-SCALPING BILL.

THE SO-called Anti-Scalping Bill was passed by the lower house of the last Congress, and it was pending in the Senate when that Congress adjourned. The subject was first formally brought up in the preceding Congress. A bill to prohibit the sale of railroad tickets by any person except the railroad companies was favorably reported to that Congress by the House Committee on Inter-State Commerce, and the Senate Committee agreed to report a bill to the same effect.

This action was the result of months of effort on the part of the railroads. The ablest and most influential men in their employ were present at Washington; magnificent headquarters were opened at one of the leading hotels there; printed matter in great quantities was distributed; and many of the officials of the railroads of the country used all their powers of persuasion on members of Congress in an effort to obtain the desired legislation. The only organized opposition was that of the associations of ticket brokers, whose business the bill would have destroyed. These associations, by their indefatigable efforts, aided by the unfortunate popular prejudice against railroads, which this latest aggression on their part has tended to aggravate, succeeded in staying the strong arm of the Government, which threatened to sweep away their occupation and curtail the liberty of every American citizen. Though both the above-mentioned Congresses adjourned without enacting this legislation, it can hardly be doubted that before long the railroad interests will again besiege Congress in force, and, more determined than before, try to prevail on that body to give them what they have so ardently sought and so earnestly worked for.

That, for the time being, the bill, if enacted, would enormously increase the revenues of railroads, is true. That their officers are so strenuous to have the bill passed; that so much money has been spent to push it; that a most powerful and persuasive lobby has been stationed at Washington-powerful in intelligence, persuasive in standing is enough of an argument to convince the doubter that