The Remnant of Boer Resistance. The Confederate Reunion at Louisville.. With portraits of Matthew S. Quay, Senator Hanna, China Under the Dowager Empress.. Should the Monroe Doctrine Take in Asia?. Our Attitude Towards the Chinese... Is the "Open Door" Guaranteed?.. The Problem of Central Asia... Mr. Bryan on the Issue in the Campaign The Democratic Convention City. Hunting in the Indian Ghauts.. Separatism in Spain..... 102 41 With portraits of Edmund Barton, Wu Ting Fang, With portrait of President William McKinley. THE AMERICAN MONTHLY VOL. XXII. Review of Reviews. NEW YORK, JULY, 1900. NO. 1. The THE PROGRESS OF THE WORLD. If Vice-President Hobart had not Philadelphia died in office, the National Republican Convention. Convention at Philadelphia last month would have been by far the most unanimous and most uneventful in the history of either great party since the Republicans nominated their first President at Philadelphia in 1856. The entire party had acquiesced in the opinion that the McKinley administration ought to be given another four years' lease of power. If Mr. Hobart had lived, his renomination for the Vice-Presidency would have been as unquestioned as Mr. McKinley's for the first place on the ticket. As for the platform, it was not really necessary to go through the form of adopting one. This we say, not because the Republican party at the present time has no principles or policies, but rather because its recent record has made its principles unmis takable, while its policies for the immediate future are of necessity fixed inexorably by exist. ing conditions and by its committal to the furtherance of programmes already initiated. The platform, as adopted, does not attempt to be brilliant, ringing, or incisive. It has no catchphrases. It is rather a review and a statement that - somewhat informally, but nevertheless guardedly-expresses the claims and general in tentions of a party sobered by the consciousness that it is likely to remain in power and to be held responsible for all that it ventures to promise. Republican Its real platform as to money, taxaPrinciples tion, public indebtedness, and those in 1900. kindred subjects which relate to the internal business welfare of the country, is best found in the record of its recent actions. It is now a gold-standard party. It is rather vaguely committed to a consideration of some plan for a more flexible currency; and its indirect allusion to bimetallism by concurrence of other powers is a mere touch of politeness, and nothing else. Upon no new topic had the Republican party any deliverance to make, in its grand quadrennial No gathering, that involved either discussion or difference of opinion. Not a voice was lifted against the Philippine policy of the administratión. one had anything to say in advocacy of the doctrine that the Constitution, of its own force, follows the flag and covers all territorial acquisitions. If any one of the more than two thousand delegates, alternates, and other prominent Republicans who were in the assembly had by chance a passing word to say about the Porto Rico tariff, there was certainly not even the hint of two opinions on that subject. Harmony Unprecedented. Four years ago, at St. Louis, there was the utmost intensity of feeling upon great public questions, as well as upon candidates. This year, at Philadelphia, there was a pleasant air of harmony and confi dence that was disturbed only by the gentlest ripples of excitement due to the question of a choice for the Vice-Presidential nomination. The placidity of the whole affair seemed to par take of the characteristics of Philadelphia itself. The prosperous "City of Brotherly Love," with. its population of contented people who own their own homes, its manufacturing industries, its shipbuilding and its foreign and domestic commerce, has always been the most Republican of the large American communities, and seems in many respects to embody very fairly those Republican ideals with which Mr. McKinley's name is especially identified. It was a typical gathering of able and well-behaved American citi zens. The great audiences of some fifteen thou sand people in the convention hall were worth going a long distance to see. The occasion, from beginning to end, was altogether a model of its kind. Since, however, men had not come there to contend about anything, neither to strive greatly for any principle that they thought to be in danger, nor yet to press with fierce zeal the claims of any idolized leader as against those of his rivals, it was not to be expected that the |