done by himself and others in the cultivation of vacant lots. In short, Mr. Hall attempts to show what is needed for a city man or woman to support a family on the proceeds of a little bit of land. Although the author does not attempt in this article to deal with the technique of agriculture, his work has been revised by specialists, and the author has been particularly assisted by Messrs. R. F. and George T. Powell. Even to those who do not purpose to make practical use of the book's suggestions, it is interesting on many accounts as an exhibit of what actually has been and is being accomplished by industrious city-bred men and women. "Farm Management," by Fred W. Card (Doubleday, Page & Co.), is an essay in a neglected field of agricultural literature. The author takes the ground that to market a product advantageously is as essential as to produce it economically; in short, that business methods are as important as productive methods, and far more likely to be neglected. In this volume, therefore, special attention is given to business accounts, suggestions for watching markets, the time for marketing various crops, adaptation to local conditions, and so forth. Dr. Henry C. McCook's new volume, entitled "Nature's Craftsmen" (Harpers) is an outgrowth from a series of nature articles printed FROM "NATURE'S CRAFTSMEN." in Harper's Magazine during the last four years. BALLOONING SPIDERS IN THE ACT OF FLIGHT.These studies deal with ants and other insects, and represent many years of investigation. Dr. McCook has made a specialty of the more popular phases of insect life, particularly ant and spider life. There are several chapters, how (The lower figure shows attitude immediately after vaulting. The upper figure shows manner of floating after adjusting the foot-basket.) EDITED BY ALBERT SHAW. Governor Charles E. Hughes, of New The Progress of the World Statesmanship in a Governor's Chair............. The Philippine Election.. Our Inland Waterways. Peace in Central America.. A Japanese Ambassador in Turkey?. With portraits. 643 686 643 Dr. John Watson (Portrait)... 687 644 Dr. Theodore Barth (Portrait)...... 646 To Europe, by Way of Hudson Bay. 688 647 With maps and other illustrations. 647 648 Western Canada: Its Resources and 648 Possibilities..... 649 650 650 652 Another Useful Gift to Southern Education. 652 653 653 Some Significant Articles on Canada. 653 654 654 657 658 658 659 659 660 660 661 661 663 663 Wireless Telephony by the De Forest System... 664 By Herbert T. Wade. 673 By John W. Dafoe. With illustrations. 681 The Relations of Canada and the By P. T. McGrath. 654 655 655 President Roosevelt on Railroad In655 • 725 655 656 656 Leading Articles of the Month- A Military View of the Panama Canal. A Pioneer in International Arbitration.. What Is Required of a Modern Diplomat. Turgenev, and the Golden Era of Russian The Mineral Industry of Canada.... 710 By Frank J. Nicolas. 697 vestments.... 717 729 731 731 732 733 734 735 737 Literature... 741 Christ's Program for the Hague Conference.. 742 Drugs and Their Abuses.. 743 A Government Department of Charities... 744 The Pretended Difficulties in Disarmament... 747 751 753 754 755 Making Paris a Seaport.. Slow Progress of Education in Spain... ... 756 With portraits, cartoons, and other illustrations. By A. E. Kennelly. TERMS: $3.00 a year in advance; 25 cents a number. Foreign postage $1.00 a year additional. Subscribers may remit to us by post-office or express money orders, or by bank checks, drafts, or registered letters. Money in letters is at sender's risk. Renew as early as possible, in order to avoid a break in the receipt of the numbers. Bookdealers, Postmasters, and Newsdealers receive subscriptions. (Subscriptions to the English REVIEW OF REVIEWS, which is edited and published by Mr. W. T. Stead in London, may be sent to this office, and orders for single copies can also be filled, at the price of $2.50 for the yearly subscription, including postage, or 25 THE AMERICAN MONTHLY REVIEW OF REVIEWS VOL. XXXV. NEW YORK, JUNE, 1907. No. 6 THE PROGRESS OF THE WORLD. In these pages last month we reStatesmanship in a Governor's ferred to the isolated position of Chair. Governor Hughes at Albany, who was compelled to fight almost singlehanded for reform measures which he had promised the people in his campaign last fall and which only a minority of the Legislature seemed at all eager to promote. This isolation of the Governor was strikingly illus trated in the vote of the State Senate to retain in office the insurance superintendent, whose removal the Governor had emphatically recommended. That official was admitted on all hands to be personally honest and incorruptible, but his conduct in office had not shown the high standard of efficiency which, in the opinion of the Governor and the press of the State, is demanded at this time of a man in his position. The Governor felt keenly his responsibility to the people of the State for the administration of the insurance department, and he insisted on the right to remove an official who in his judgment was incompetent to conduct the affairs of this important department as he had promised that they should be conducted. The State Senate, however, had not yet reached that point of view in its political philosophy from which mere efficiency could be regarded as a real test for office-holding. In the opinion of a majority of its members, nothing short of absolute malfeasance in office would justify removal. In the exercise of its constitutional prerogative, therefore, the State Senate refused to accept the Governor's recommendation, and its action was very generally interpreted as signifying a determination to nullify the Governor's entire reform program. But those who predicated thus were deceived. Public sentiment made itself so quickly felt on the subject of the Public Utilities bill, which we discussed at some length last month, that both houses of the Legisla by enacting this measure in the form desired by Governor Hughes and his supporters. This was really a significant triumph won against great odds. The vote on the question of retaining the insurance superintendent was a matter of slight consequence compared to the effect throughout the State of the passage of so comprehensive a measure as the Public Utilities bill. Other State governors, notably those of Connecticut and Missouri, have felt obliged to rebuke the legislatures of their respective States for neglect of the public interests, but in no other State has the victory of thoroughgoing sincerity and efficiency in the executive chair been more marked than in New York. Governments. In our State governments it is beEfficiency in State and City coming more and more evident that the people will have to rely almost exclusively on the governors that they select to secure any appreciable increase of administrative efficiency. The average legislator is too much engrossed with the affairs of his own district to have much thought for the concerns of the State as a whole. Most of our States, if not actually badly governed or corruptly misgoverned, are certainly administered in accordance with low standards of efficiency, as compared, for example, with our great industrial enterprises. To say this of our city governments is to utter a truism. Graft is not the sole evil to be rooted out of our municipal governments. After we are rid of the grafter, comes the question, Is the man who takes his place competent as well as honest? There has lately been published a little book bearing the significant title, "Efficient Democracy." Its author, Mr. William H. Allen, of New York, believing that ill-informed officials are necessarily wasteful officials, has for several years conducted a silent but fruitful campaign in the methods of certain of the public offices and laid low. A wonderful achievement in citydepartments. He has succeeded in showing building, this, and worthy of California's most effectively how misleading are official best traditions. reports as commonly compiled, and how few officials really know what they are doing, from year to year. Twelve months of quiet investigation as conducted in New York by a few men banded together in the Bureau of City Betterment, in connection with the Citizens' Union, resulted in disclosures concerning the borough government that led to the removals and enforced resignations of several incompetent officials and the installation, it is hoped, of common-sense business methods. The Bureau of Municipal Research, of which Mr. Allen was one of the incorporators, has a great work before it. The proposed methods of this new organization are outlined in "Efficient Democracy," which we commend to those among our readers who realize the crying need of this line of reform and have heart to undertake it. Record. San Her Wonderful The fire following the earthquake Building of April 18, 1906, burned over 497 blocks, being about four square miles. Within that area there was practically not a building but was rendered uninhabitable, and but few that were not totally destroyed. A careful canvass of the burned district has been made just one year after the fire. This shows that almost onehalf of this area is now under roof. While not all of the new buildings are of permanent construction, a large part of them are, and the permanent work which has been done is of the best, the character of the buildings being such as to guarantee that the new San Francisco which is springing up so rapidly on the ruins of the old is to be more beautiful and substantial than that which was destroyed. It is estimated that the actual cash In San Francisco, however, the outlay in reconstruction during the year has Francisco's revelations of the past few months been about $80,000,000, of which more than Shame. point to a condition of municipal $60,000,000 went for the construction of rottenness that requires the most radical buildings, nearly $10,000,000 for labor in treatment. There the need of the hour is the removal of débris, and a similar sum for summed up in the simple, old-fashioned vir- the restoration of public utilities. To the tue of honesty. After that is attained it will members of labor-unions alone it is estimated be time to agitate for efficiency. Individuals, that $20,000,000 was paid in wages. Bank within and without official circles, were clearings for the year reached the enormous charged with bribing the Board of Supervis- total of $2,074,299,568. The map on the ors to grant franchises to public-service cor- opposite page affords striking evidence of the porations. In one day the grand jury re- year's activity. The blackened spaces repreturned sixty-five indictments of this nature sent buildings in the burned district now against Abraham Ruef, one of the leading actually under roof. politicians of the city, who has since pleaded guilty and promised to do what he can to overthrow the iniquitous system of corruption that has reached such startling proportions in the city by the Golden Gate. Mayor Schmitz was reported to have offered to make a full confession of his participation in municipal graft, but it was denied that immunity was promised him in consideration of such a confession. All these disclosures are extremely humiliating to the proud metropolis of the Western slope, which only a year ago was the recipient of the nation's sympathy and bounty in the hour of her distress. But we should, of course, remember that the true bone and. sinew of San Francisco's citizenship have been and will be unaffected by these scandals in high places. The mass of the population has been going about its daily tasks, building up in a remarkably short space of time what earthquake and fire Chicago's Limited. After a decade of agitation and New Charter, strenuous work, Chicago has secured a new charter from the Illinois Legislature. She has been governed by an antiquated "city and village" act, and has been restricted in a hundred directions and prevented from making necessary municipal improvements or from introducing method, efficiency, and system into her administration. To clear the way for a new charter suited to Chicago's needs and conditions, a constitutional amendment had to be proposed by the Legislature and adopted by the people. This was done in 1905, and the approval of the amendment was followed by the organization of a large and representative charter convention composed of Chicago citizens. The convention labored for eighteen months, carefully studied all recent charter legislation in America and Europe, |