through. "Where's your pass?" The older woman showed her empty hands. "Can't go," was said laconically. "For God's sake let me see her to the boat," whispered the woman in black, trembling with anxiety. "Just to the boat," she pleaded. The young woman was pushed through the door, and, turning to the woman in black, the official said: "Get a pass; you can walk faster than she can." A hopeless look came into the eyes of each of the women, while the one in black went back to the desk. Later a blackrobed woman, with tears rolling down her face, waved a hand to a halting, wan figure in blue walking up a gang-plank. The white face was turned to the deck and the one friend she had in the world. Who says tears are sad? There are smiles that tear a man's heart. Later, one of five in the receiving ward at the almshouse, each with her little bundle of clothes in a blanket at her feet, was the young ,woman, in the blue denim dress provided by the city fathers, waiting to be assigned to her new home. "What is the matter with the young woman?" "Paralyzed all one side." "No; can never be any better."

A three-story gray stone building, with the air about it of being crowded with people that is the almshouse. Blue sunbonnets everywhere. Women in the sun, women in the shade; talking, dozing, sulking, just breathing, some; all sense of joy or pain, of sorrow or gladness, lost long ago.

An abundant dinner of soup, bread, beef, potatoes, baked beans, had just been eaten, and the benches were crowded with women sitting in the sun. Six hundred women-women so much alike they must have felt that they were greeting their own shadows! Six hundred women living in a world created for them, The three events of each day-getting up, eating, going to bed. Always the same; and yet there was an air of content that robbed the place of the horrors of the imagination.

The old ladies in the old ladies' home were really interesting. These old ladies are too feeble to care for themselves, Here is one in the corner busy making a

"crazy-quilt." The Spectator is not sure of his technical term, but it resembled a disordered mind. Bits of silk, neckties the old lady suggested, were among the ingredients-perhaps this is a word only used in connection with cake. Crazyquilts seemed to be popular with the old ladies. Here and there, where the occupant of a bed boasted room for a table, there were little ornaments and pictures and paper flowers. One old lady, wrapped in a shawl, with a small shawl over her head, had pinned on the wall a picture of the royal family of Germany. To these feeble folk meals were served in the ward. They were just waiting. All sting of dependence had been removed. There was all the freedom that body or mind could use; and the Spectator left them cheerful and with a new idea of what dependent old age meant. The men were more talkative; seemed to have more interest in life. They smoked, played cards, read when they had papers. They laughed. Then the Spectator remembered that he heard only one woman laugh; he knew he would always know what a "wintry smile" meant. He had seen it in the faces of the women in the almshouse. The Spectator would rather not remember the crowded wards of the helpless sick in the hospital of the almshouse.

The Spectator boarded the boat for the return trip. Striped suits are ugly, and when one is worn by a young man of active, athletic build, who seems willing to work, it seems to the Spectator as if the world had gone wrong. Yet here they are-on the deck, trundling freight at the storehouse, receiving it, everywhere, young men with this badge that for the time seems to shut them out from the world's sympathy. Standing on the dock as the boat made her first landing, there stood a man in a striped suit who had about him such an air of authority that the Spectator for the moment thought he wore the uniform of an official. The polo cap, of the same material as the suit, was pushed back over the scant red hair. The coat was thrown back and the thumbs caught in the suspenders, the fingers tapping gently on the broad, expansive chest, Beside him, in a neat blue uniform with a neat blue cap having a touch of gilt, was a most

sylvania Republican machine has exerted a dominating influence in every county in the State. It has been, from the nomination of Lincoln in 1860, a controlling force in Republican National politics. By its connection with the Pennsylvania Railroad it has always been a power in the railroad field. Through a long succession of years it has named the Governor, nominated State and local judges, and controlled the political destiny and decided the political ambition of every man of ability in the State of Pennsylvania through almost two generations, and this almost as much in one party as in the other. Only last year Senator Quay named the Democratic as well as the Republican candidate for Governor. In the campaign which followed, the Legislature was chosen before which Senator Quay came for re-election. It adjourned, without choosing him, in a deadlock-Quay, 93; B. F. Jones, “insurgent" Republican, 69; and Jenks, Democrat, 85-after a session in which the Legislature has given all its time and energy and such honesty as remains in its membership, and the State of Pennsylvania has given all its attention, to the contest. Now that it appears reasonably certain that he will finally be defeated, there is some promise that the result of the struggle will be not merely a change of bosses, but the end of a dynasty. The machine first organized in the Democratic party under Jackson, and shrewdly transferred bodily by Simon Cameron to the infant Republican party, as diseases pass from mother to child, has been maintained for two generations, so that during fifty years Pennsylvania has not seen the time until this winter in which power and leadership were not safely and securely transferred from one boss to another. Simon Cameron laid its foundations and held control. Twenty years ago the transfer was made to his son, Don Cameron, who maintained a more than dubious ascendency until, as the price of his re-election to the Senate, Matthew Stanley Quay took charge, and has held unbroken control since.

This control, like all political phenomena, rests on physical and social conditions. Two centuries ago Pennsylvania received a large German immigration, and the native German vote-a vote which is as American as any in the country so far as unbroken American ancestry can make a

man an American-has always moved in masses. In some counties it supports the Democratic machine, which always works with the Republican, and in some, as in Lancaster, the Republican. As, in Germany, the great mass gravitates, in spite of all constitutional provisions, to the absolute rule of a kaiser, so the German substratum in Pennsylvania has made the ascendency of the boss easy. The strong pietistic and religious character of the early immigration to this State, of Friends, Moravian, Amish, and others, added to this bent a population pure in life, high in purpose, full of good works and social reform, but not given to aggressive political defense of political rights. Lastly, the very early development of coal and iron industries gave earlier in this State than in any other, and in proportion more than in any other of the Middle and New England States, a mass of ignorant voters, who, during the first and sometimes during the second generation, followed their political leaders implicitly. By the third generation-and it is one of the great reasons for the passing of this political tyranny-these men began to think for themselves. These industrial conditions were concentrated and controlled by the circumstance that there was only one practicable outlet from the coal regions to Philadelphia and only one practicable path across the Alleghanies. While other States at the nascent period, 1850 to 1870, had two or more railroad corporations to balance one against the other, Pennsylvania had but two, and for aggressive railroad legislation only one, the Pennsylvania Railroad-on the whole, the best-managed corporation in the country, whose political acts ought not to blind us to its enormous economic service, nor its economic service make us condone its corrupt influence.

The practical result of all this coil, which has encircled Pennsylvania, has been that the Senator at Washington, who had supreme control of the Republican political machine for forty years dominant in the State, and since 1860 in an overwhelming majority, could always command the aid of the great industries by his influence on the tariff, the aid of the two great railroads by his grip on legislation at Harrisburg, and the silent acceptance of his rule by great moral masses in the

community so long as the Legislature contributed freely, as the Pennsylvania Legis lature always has, to the charitable objects, societies, hospitals, institutions, and schools of the respectable and religious. In addition, it must not be forgotten that the rule of the Boss has been essentially political. In its system of taxation, in its city charters, and in its solution of many difficult problems of the modern State, the legislation of Pennsylvania is decidedly superior to that of New York, with which it is generally compared. As a working municipal machine, for instance, as an instrument of city government, there is absolutely no comparison to be made between the compact, well-considered charter which rules Philadelphia, and the hetereo geneous instrument which misrules New York.

Given these conditions and this past, Matthew Stanley Quay has for nearly twenty years, openly for sixteen, ruled the political institutions of the State. The sole check upon his action has been that twice, when a Governor was to be elected, a Republican bolt has resulted in the choice of a Democratic candidate; but when Mr. Quay has appealed to the people he has always been elected. When ne has addressed himself to the Republican voters (and in a very large number of counties the delegates are elected at primaries in which from eighty to ninety per cent. of the Republican vote takes part), he has always been able to carry a majority of the delegates. He could probably today carry a plebiscite of the Republican party. The choice of this Republican machine for District Attorney under President Harrison is now under $20,000 bail on a charge of aiding the plot of counter feiters to bribe the United States Secret Service and to place his assistant, the recent candidate of the machine for the State judiciary, on the Federal bench. Nor is any one greatly surprised at these revela tions. A political machine is often looked upon as made up exclusively of a small group of disreputable politicians, conspicuous in its management. This is often true of a city machine. No State machine can succeed with such a force alone. Senator Quay and the dubious characters about him control and manipulate the politics of the machine, but its organization is really the connecting link and gear

by which a host of highly respectable men, institutions, and corporations get their grist ground at the State mill. The corporations act with the Boss, behind him and through him, because it is the most direct way of securing legislation and protection; but these political services have not prevented the development of a system of State taxation under which corporate franchises pay a larger tax, and one more just, than in any other Eastern State. The large number of men and institutions who want something done-often goodnew laws, philanthropic legislation, appropriations to universities, hospitals, schools, and charitable societies, all find their advantage in securing the aid of the Boss and his machine. He and his, content with political power and its perquisites, have been content to leave the man. agement of almost all else to three classes-business, corporate, and publicspirited. But tyranny always rots. The men in political control have sunk from level to level, and the flagitious scandals of some of their lives, the open corruption by which they profited, and the constant bribery by which the machine and its corporate allies have worked their will in State and municipal legislatures, exposed this winter, have sunk public life to a level low beyond description. low beyond description. Within a year, a notorious resort in Philadelphia was long protected because it included in its patrons men of political control and high office in and out of the machine.

This foul rule was cemented during the war years, '55 to '65, when anything was accepted to save the Union. It was given commercial coherence during the speculative era, '65 to '75. It has been able to maintain itself ever since on the basis of these two consolidations. Two different influences have been separately growing. There was, in the first place, a steady increase in the strength of the two local political machines of Philadelphia and Pittsburg-one of which, controlled by Mr. David Martin, is now opposed to Quay; while the other, controlled by Mr. Christopher Magee, first supported and at the close opposed him. But it is true of both local machines, and has been for some time, that they are handled as separate political powers, whose heads and members are more anxious to carry their own schemes than to aid in the general rule of

the State boss. In the second place, in Philadelphia and in Pittsburg, in the counties along the northern tier of the State, which received a large New England immigration, and at other points through the State, there has been growing a steady opposition to the absolute rule of one man heading a self-perpetuating body of political janizaries. This opposition, scattered through the State, has been, since 1882, making one unvarying struggle after another, always beaten, always costing the boss and the corporations that support him a larger sum each year to beat it, and always coming each year a little closer to success, and always, alas! seeing the men who led it in due time accepting place, position, nomination at the hands of the boss, and becoming a part of his

machine.

What was needed was some one man with the large means which the organization of a great State to-day demands. I do not suppose any sane man who knew politics would imagine it possible to carry on a State campaign, though not one penny were expended except for legitimate purposes, without dispensing at least $50,000, and $100,000 would be needed unless the most rigorous business economy was exercised. Besides large means, it was necessary that the leader should have ability, political reputation, and the capacity for organization in politics or in business. Such a leader has been furnished by Mr. John Wanamaker. He has been able to form the connecting link between the city machine in Philadelphia and the scattered elements of opposition throughout the State. His speeches last fall, while they wholly failed to accomplish their immediate object, first the control of the Republican Convention, and next of the Republican caucus, gave such exposition and illumination of the working of the machine as has educated Pennsylvania as no State has been in a political issue since the debate between Lincoln and Douglas in 1858. Mr. Wanamaker was greatly aided by a bankruptcy that laid bare the method by which the machine used the funds of the State treasury, and furnished the evidence which was made the basis of the indictment for conspiracy against Senator Quay just tried. His campaign elected enough "insurgent" Republicans to the Legislature to defeat Quay's re-election,

and it forced Quay's trial. The work now goes on with every prospect of increasing success. The bosses in control of the city machines are not immaculate; but they represent revolt, and revolt is indispensable to successful revolution.

Cuban Industrial Relief

Last week Mr. William Willis Howard told in our columns how the Cuban Industrial Relief Fund proposes to furnish the Cubans now in want with tools, seeds, and the use of land to work on, and thus to give them a chance to live by honest, productive industry. Our readers will, we are sure, help quickly and generously in this the only sensible method of dealing with the widespread distress still prevalent in Cuba. A despatch from Havana this week states that General Ludlow is still feeding 8,000 poor people, and that he wants to get them to work on the land

at once.

This is exactly what the Cuban Industrial Relief Fund proposes to do. If any one doubts the need, let him send to The Outlook for a copy of Mr. Howard's pamphlet just issued, "Cuba under Our Flag." It reproduces photographs of starving men and women taken as late as March-pictures so painfully presenting proof of shocking suffering that we shrink from printing them in The Outlook, although they properly and fitly furnish the circular an impressive object-lesson of the still existing results of the terrible "reconcentrado " era. As we have

already pointed out, there are thousands of men in Cuba able and willing to work and thousands of acres awaiting cultiva

tion. The imperative need of the moment is money to put these men on that land, to pay and feed them while the crops are growing, reinvest the proceeds of the crops, and thus set in motion a constantly increasing means of industrial relief, growth, and training. What is needed, in short, is quick and liberal help in pushing the plan to immediate results. and money-orders sent to The Outlook and made payable to it will be promptly applied.

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