The Duke of Wellington at the passage of the reform bill of 1832 was a good type of the conservative. He said: "The representative system, just as it stands, is a masterpiece of human wisdom." And yet this system excluded from representation the vast mass of the people, permitted Scotland only three thousand voters in a population of two millions, made more than two-thirds of the House of Commons direct nominees of single individuals, gave representatives to remote hamlets and denied them to flourishing cities like Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield and Leeds, and was, as Macaulay stated, “a monstrous system of represented ruins and unrepresented cities."

There is a fourth type of mind, neither constructive nor radical, but constructive. Alexander Hamilton was conservative in his respect for the institutions which had stood the test of ages. He was constructive in his measures to confer ample power on the national government that those institutions might have vigor and permanence. Jefferson was conservative in his efforts to preserve decentralization in government and the sovereignty of the He was constructive in his ad

states.

ministrations and measures to extend

and strengthen the principles and institutions of democracy. La Follette is conservative in his profound regard for law and order, the rights of property and the rights of persons and for the fundamental institutions of government. He is conservative in his stand for government of, by and for the people. But he is constructive in his efforts to secure farreaching legislation that will enable the people to make government the instrument by which to secure legal and economic rights.

His opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States is shown by the following, uttered in the Senate in April, 1906:

in February, that by Mr. Justice Harlan in the Chicago Corporation cases, in March, and the opinion by Mr. Justice Brewer in the Michigan Tax case, rendered within a few days are illustrations of the conservation by the Supreme Court of the inherent rights of the people against the encroachments of corporate power. For the great honor of the court and to the preservation of Government, this final tribunal remains as unsullied and ideal to-day as when created by the Constitution. The great interests have not hesitated to corrupt legislation and propose its attorneys for judicial appointment; but its taint has never reached the Supreme Court of the United States."

His respect for the rights of property was expressed in the same speech in the Senate:

"Honest wealth needs no guarantee of security in this country. Property rightfully acquired does not beget fear-it fosters independence, confidence, courage. Property which is the fruit of plunder feels insecure. It is timid. It plunder feels insecure. is quick to cry for help. It is ever proclaiming the sacredness of vested rights. The thief can have no vested rights in stolen property. I resent the assumption that the great wealth of this country is only safe when the millionaires are on not the guard. Property rights are special charge of owners of great fortunes. the everlasting bulwark of property The ample power of the Constitution is rights."

EXAMPLES OF INTEGRITY AND COURAGE IN PUBLIC LIFE.

Senator La Follette is an absolutely honest man. During his first term in Congress he refused to aid a millionaire senator from his state in plundering from the Indians valuable timber lands. He rejected the advice and demands of leading men in his party when they proposed to have the government guarantee the bonds of a private company. In a

committee he defied the railroad interests and was threatened with defeat by the chairman of his state central committee. But the most offensive attempt at corruption was in his legal practice in Wisconsin. This made an impression never forgotten or forgiven by him. His training in the law department of the university and his practice at the bar had given him a high opinion of the value of judicial integrity on the bench. His own character tended to idealize the incorruptibility of the courts. He was called from Madison to Milwaukee by the same millionaire senator whom he had met so many times in Washington. A perfectly legitimate case was presented to La Follette and a large roll of money was displayed during the conversation. After considerable indirection, he was given to understand that besides his legal work he was expected, owing to personal relations, to influence the circuit judge. La Follette left that room as Lincoln left the slave-auction room in New Orleans, with an oath like a prayer, to strike the system a hard blow some day. It should be said that this circuit judge, more than ten years later, was a justice of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin when the regularity of La Follette's nomination came before the court. It was the turning point of La Follette's career as the National Committee had decided against him. But this eminent judge, owing to his close personal relations with La Follette, left the supreme bench at the time of the trial. No wonder La Follette has a high opinion of judicial integrity.

The next offer was more adroit. He was known to be in debt. He was a friend of President McKinley. His enemies, Senators Spooner and Quarles, were in Washington. From that city came a tempting offer of a lucrative position in the treasury department to get him out of the state. The place was an honorable one and was offered by a friend. But La Follette, keen to this covert indirection, declined the office.

After his first nomination as governor in 1900 he was subjected to a new form of attack. The railroads placed at his command special trains for the campaign and no word of opposition came from the thousands of railway men in the state. The old corrupt political forces were all on his side when they knew his nomination and election were beyond their reach. He found himself in high favor with delegations of the men who had controlled the state for years. They were now willing to give him everything in the way of office and honor. But there was now a governor elected whose regard was steadfastly fixed upon the great mass of the people who could not send up delegations and to whom promises had been made. La Follette fought the good fight and kept the faith.

LA FOLLETTE AS AN ORATOR.

As an orator he appears at his best. His gracefulness in delivery, the strength and vigor of his thought, the purity of his English, his high ideals, and his lofty conception of the integrity and courage of the public official indicate unmistakably the character of the man.

This orator quotes no poetry or literary gems of any kind, uses no figures of speech, has no climaxes, tells no stories, indulges in no humor. Though familiar with all the masterpieces of literature, and lectures on certain plays of Shakespeare, he never refers to them in his political addresses. He uses no historical examples or illusions. He takes the driest subjects,-taxation and election methods-and holds the rapt attention of farmers, laborers, merchants and professional men. If there is any climax in his impassioned addresses, it is when he mentions the public official who neglects or refuses to do his duty.

He has no carefully wrought-out exordium or peroration. His opening is rather in the nature of a courteous greeting merging quickly into the dignified earnestness of his argument. After

the first half-dozen sentences his voice, rich and varied in quality, becomes clarion, resonant, yet musical and farreaching. His delivery at times is marked with great rapidity and is always dramatic. In grace of manner and action, and in dignity and ease of position on the platform, he satisfies the most critical, yet all in his audience are rather intent on the ability and earnestness of the orator. He is scarcely five feet four inches in height, squarely built, with a large head and a high, square forehead, from which the hair rises partly pompadour. His face is powerfully expressive and earnest. His flashing eves and square jaw show determination and high ideals. That face, when aroused to action, becomes indescribable, and when once seen can never be forgotten. The leonine head, the body bent slightly forward or held rigidly erect, the hand clenched, the delivery rapid and impassioned, the resonant, clarion voice, and the intense and sincere earnestness, claim more than unrivaled interest. They stir the emotions and form the judgments which control caucus, convention and election.

THE LOGICAL LEADER IN THE COMING CONTEST.

Robert Marion La Follette is an American of incorruptible integrity. He is American in character, in ideals, in energy, in democracy and in courage. He cherishes the priceless heritage of our national life. His constructive ability has been demonstrated after a long contest. He is the ideal American Senator, intellectual, aggressive for the rights of the people and with the highest conceptions of duty in public life. He has passed by regular steps towards the highest position: he graduated from the university and from the law department, was district attorney four years, member of Congress six years, had a wide legal practice for the next ten years, was Governor five years and is now in the United States Senate.

More than a third of a century ago, Garfield foretold in a college address the coming contest between the people and the railway corporations. He then said: "It is painfully evident from the experience of the last few years, that the efforts of the states to regulate their railroads have amounted to but little more than feeble annoyance. In many cases the corporations have treated such efforts as impertinent intermeddling, and have brushed away legislative restrictions as easily as Gulliver broke the cords with which the Liliputians attempted to bind him. In these contests the corporations have become conscious of their strength, and have entered upon the work of controlling the states. Already they have captured several of the oldest and strongest of them; and these discrowned sovereigns now follow in chains the triumphal chariot of their conquerors. And this does not imply that merely the officers and representatives of states have been subjected to the railways, but that the corporations have grasped the sources and fountains of power and control the choice of both officers and representatives."

Since the delivery of that scholarly, dispassionate, non-partisan address at the Western Reserve College, the power of the railway corporations has been vastly extended. The consolidation of separate companies has rapidly gone on. A trained body of able railway attorneys and lobbyists has been organized. Their control of state legislatures and of Congress has effectually prevented the just regulation of these highways of commerce. Besides this control of representative government, two new forces against the rights and interests of the people have been built up in the last quarter of a century: Local public-service corporations of great wealth and political power have captured the government of cities and the resulting corruption and bribery in city councils have become notorious. Around the gigantic railway system, over which are whirled the myriad pro

ducts of industry, have grown up the industrial trusts such as the coal trust, the oil trust, the sugar trust, the beef trust and others. These three forces, the railroads, the city utility companies and the industrial trusts, interdependent, related, have not merely entered the field of politics, they hold the field. Real representative government is in danger.

But there is abundant evidence showing that a new spirit is abroad in the land. One state has had a prolonged contest with the public-service corporations, and, under rare leadership, has been victorious. In five other states at least, a like strugle is in progress. The President of the United States has begun a national movement on the same issue. It would seem that this cause would appeal to all good citizens without regard to party. Just as we look back now and wonder how men during the Revolutionary War could have opposed independence; just as we look back and wonder how men during the stirring days of the Civil War could have been in favor of human slavery; so will those in the future look back to our times and wonder how men, otherwise good citizens, could oppose this inspiring struggle for good government. It seems as though every soldier of the Civil War ought to be in favor of this new contest for liberty. It seems as though all the voices of freedom in the past are speaking in this struggle. If Abraham Lincoln were living, he would be on the side of good government and justice and the common people. When Burke recalled the dauntless courage of

the beautiful queen of France, he said: "I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult." When we recall what this contest has been and what it will mean in the months to come, it seems as though the best citizens must leap forward to carry it onward and upward. It must go on and on, "still high advanced," and realize the best hopes of the noblest citizens.

Who has been the effective leader in this vast and growing movement for representative government? Who has made that movement first successful in a great commonwealth? Who has given a real meaning to the term "constructive legislation"? Who is to-day in the United States Senate the representative of a rising party in every state in the Union? This party is the new Republican party, redeemed and regenerated by patriotism and high ideals. Who is the logical leader in this widespread and earnest contest for governemnt of, by and for the people? Whom will Wisconsin gladly present to the next National Convention as the standard bearer of the Republican party, once more endeared to the people by such a nomination in accordance with a halfcentury of great achievements? Who will restore that party to the same spirit of liberty as in the days of Lincoln ?Senator Robert M. La Follette.

Madison, Wis.

WILLIAM KITTLE.

A

S PRACTISED in the United States to-day capital punishment is illogical and inconsistent, both in the manner of its administration and in the reasoning by which it is ostensibly supported. These infirmities are especially apparent in the following, among other important particulars:

1. We are accustomed to justify the death penalty as a deterrent example, but we take pains to render the example as inconspicuous as possible by dispatching the victim with the utmost privacy. Public executions are generally abolished, and are now conducted in the obscurity of a jail-yard with out a very limited number of spectators present. In our day few indeed are the persons who are permitted to behold the gallows, even in its repose. It is safe to say that the majority of men do not know what it looks like, excepting from hearsay. Not one in ten thousand has seen one.

If the gallows is to serve as a warning against the commission of crime, it should be placed as conspicuously as possible. Men and women should be allowed to inspect it, and to point it out to their children as a thing of terror. It should be a visible manifestation of the majesty of the law, a standing monition of the wage of sin. When culprits are put to death thereon, men women and children-especially the children-should be present, in order that they may imbibe the full measure of terror which the example should inspire in the hearts of the people; to the end that, having witnessed the example, they may be impelled by its inspiring force to walk in the ways of righteousness and peace. Yea, more; the victim himself, after his taking off, should be made to subserve the same benign purposes, as was formerly the

case, when the criminal's dissevered head was set upon the gates of the prison and his limbs distributed among the principal cities of the kingdom. In such manner was the treason of the Duke of Monmouth punished; but, unfortunately, the example even then was not sufficiently potent to prevent the overthrow of King James but a few years later in the Revolution of 1688. In the executions of that elder day it was also an incident of inspiring solemnity to stick the head of the victim on the end of a pike-staff, as a gruesome reminder of the portentous truth that the way of the transgressor is hard.

By such means the example may be seen and felt, and made so plain that he who runneth may read. If capital punishment be of any value as a public example the public should be made fully cognizant of that example. A head that is set on a pike-staff, like a city that is set on a hill, cannot be hid. It is futile to undertake to set an example that none can see. An inconspicuous warning is an ineffective warning.

Why then, was publicity done away with? Why does the hangman shun the light? For this reason only, and none other: Men concluded that such scenes tended to engender sentiments more barbarous than those which they were designed to suppress; i. e., that public executions were brutalizing. Private executions are said to be less brutalizing; the spiritual welfare of Jack Ketch, to be sure, being placed out of the reckoning. It is finally agreed, then, that these public killings are in themselves debasing and immoral, and instead of setting a good example they set a bad one. And the private execution? tion? Does it set any example at all?