THE OUTLOOK is a Weekly Newspaper and an Illustrated Monthly Magazine in one. It is published every Saturday-fifty-two issues a year. The first issue in each month is an Illustrated Magazine Number, containing about twice as many pages as the regular weekly issue, and many pictures. PRICE. The subscription price is Three Dollars a year, payable in advance. Ten cents a copy. POSTAGE IS PREPAID by the publishers for all subscriptions in the United States, Hawaiian Islands, Philippine Islands, Guam, Porto Rico, Tutuila Samoa, Canada, and Mexico. For all other countries in the Postal Union add $1.56 for postage. CHANGE OF ADDRESS.-When a change of address is ordered, both the new and the old address must be given. The notice should be sent one week before the change is to take effect. DISCONTINUANCES.-If a subscriber wishes his copy of the paper discontinued at the expiration of his subscription, notice to that effect should be sent. Otherwise it is assumed that a continuance of the subscription is desired. HOW TO REMIT.-Remittances should be sent by Draft on New York, Express-Order, or Money-Order, payable to order of THE OUTLOOK COMPANY. Cash should be sent in Registered Letter. LETTERS should be addressed: THE OUTLOOK COMPANY Chicago Office, 1436 Marquette Building 287 Fourth Avenue, New York Copyright, 1904, by The Outlook Company. Entered as second-class matter in the New York Post-Office. The Outlook SATURDAY, JULY 2, 1904 The Republican ConvenThe Republican tion at Chicago did little Convention more than register the will of the Republican constituency throughout the country, previously declared by signs which could not be mistaken. The nomination of Mr. Roosevelt was a foregone conclusion. There has been at no time any opposition to that nomination which could be taken seriously. Those who attempted to create such an opposition could find no one willing to act as their leader. Mr. Cortelyou's appointment as Chairman of the National Committee we have already interpreted. It gives an assurance of a clean, intelligent, courageous, and educational campaign. The platform may be dismissed with few words. It is an indorsement of Mr. Roosevelt's public acts and a reaffirmation of his official utterances except on the tariff question. On that subject it is more enthusiastically in favor of a permanent protective system than he is, and less explicitly in favor of reciprocity; but it leaves the door open to such a revision of the tariff as can be made by friends of the protective system and will leave the protective system intact. Among other more specific recommendations for the future policy of the party and for legislation were these: PROTECTION :-Protection, which guards and develops our industries, is a cardinal policy of the Republican party. The measure of protection should always at least equal the difference in the cost of production at home and abroad. We insist upon the main. tenance of the principles of protection, and therefore rates of duty should be readjusted only when conditions have so changed that the public interest demands their alteration; but this work cannot safely be committed to any other hands than those of the Repub lican party. TRUSTS AND LABOR:-Combinations of capital and of labor are the results of the economic movement of the age, but neither must be permitted to infringe upon the rights and interests of the people. Such combi nations, when lawfully formed for lawful pur poses, are alike entitled to the protection of the laws, but both are subject to the laws, and neither can be permitted to break them. THE RACE QUESTION:-We favor such Congressional action as shall determine whether by special discriminations the elective franchise in any State has been unconwe demand that representation in Congress stitutionally limited, and if such is the case, and in the electoral college shall be proportionally reduced, as directed by the Constitution of the United States. An interpretation of Mr. Roosevelt's nomination will be found on our editorial pages, and an interpretative account of the Convention from the pen of Mr. Francis E. Leupp on page 489. Cabinet Changes The choice of Mr. Cortelyou as Chairman of the Republican National Committee, and the selection of Secretary Knox to be Senator from Pennsylvania, have led to three new Cabinet appointments, announced by President Roosevelt two or three days after the Republican Convention adjourned. Mr. Knox's portfolio as Attorney-General is taken by William H. Moody, of Massachusetts, now Secretary of the Navy; the office of Secretary of the Navy falls to Mr. Paul Morton, of Illinois, the Second VicePresident of the Santa Fé Railroad system, and a man of acknowledged executive ability and organizing power; while Mr. Cortelyou's place as Secretary of Commerce and Labor is to be taken by Mr. Victor Howard Metcalf, a member of Congress from California, one of the best-known lawyers and politicians. of that State, whose independence in political matters was shown by the fact that he refused to oppose the Cuban Reciprocity Bill although strongly urged by many of his constituents to do so. The appointments, so far as we have observed, have met with general approval by press and people, with rare exceptions. Investigating the Slocum Disaster On Monday of last week a coroner's jury began an inquest into the destruction of the steamboat General Slocum. For four days testimony was taken, and then the sessions were suspended, to be resumed this week, when the case is to be in the hands of the jury. The witnesses called have told a story of negligence and hardened indifference to responsibility for human life that is almost incredible. The testimony went to show that out of a crew of thirty-four only ten had had experience on board ship; that there was absolutely no discipline maintained among them; that there had been no fire drill, no instruction of the deck-hands either in the lowering of boats, in the management of fire hose and buckets, in the distribution of life-preservers, or in the control of passengers. This is the coldblooded story which the Assistant District Attorney elicited from a deck-hand: Question. What did you do when you saw the fire? Answer. I pulled down some life-preservers and jumped overboard. Q. Did you put any life-preservers on anybody? A. One on me, then I jumped. 2. Did you try to lower a lifeboat? A. No. One man couldn't lower them. 2. Did you hear the fire alarm rung? A. No. I don't know. I wouldn't know one if I heard it. One hose when used burst. Another hose proved to be useless because inside there was a false washer which could not be extracted in time. It was admitted by representatives of the steamboat company that there were no life-preservers on board less than nine years old. The testimony was overwhelming that these life-preservers were rotten. One cool mother at the time of the accident selected from her children one who could not swim, and, attaching to her a life preserver, dropped her overboard. The child sank like lead. The rest of the family, unencumbered with life-preservers, escaped. Ground cork from torn lifepreservers, several witnesses declared, floated about in quantities. And yet the General Slocum had been approved by the steamboat inspectors. Mr. Cortelyou, within whose department the bureau of steamboat inspection is included, has announced that he has not only named a commission to investigate the disaster, but that he had already anticipated Mayor McClellan's request for a reinspection to make sure that other vessels are properly equipped. The list of dead has been steadily growing. The bodies actually recovered now number over nine hundred. The total of dead and missing is estimated to exceed a thousand. The enormity of the disaster will have one good effect if it impresses the public with the enormity of the criminal neglect that caused it. An order for the assembling of the Federal Grand Jury this week has been sent out by the United States District Attorney. It will have before it the evidence brought out at the inquest, and will be asked to bring indictments as the evidence may warrant. Whatever the ultimate duty of society may be in this matter, the immediate duty is to see that those who are responsible for this disaster shall be visited with such punishment that hereafter heedless, heartless cupidity may be regarded as it is a hideous form of treachery, a crime against the defenseless. A Practical Warning The hardness of some human hearts was illustrated on the day following the General Slocum disaster by the appearance on the scene of another excursion steamer crowded with people eager to view the wreck. Happily, this was an exceptional instance. Many excursions have been abandoned, and others have been but lightly attended. One church in Brooklyn has not only declared that so long as excursion steamers are built of inflammable material it will have nothing to do with them, but it has also urged other churches to follow this course, that the managers of such steamboats sensitive to financial pressure, if insensitive to impulses of humanity, may find it profitless to navigate floating firetraps. The "Engineering News" declares that the General Slocum was a "fair representative of the prevailing type" of river or sound or harbor passenger steamer, and that a similar disaster "may befall to morrow any one of the thousands of such craft plying on Ameri 1904] The Week If this is so, the can inland waters." contention of the " Engineering News" that radical reforms in the construction of such vessels are necessary should be reiterated until it becomes a matter of public opinion. Especially horrible to contemplate is the suggestion of fire on a night steamer in which the passengers lie sleeping, surrounded with combustible wood and highly inflammable decorations. In urging that steamers be built of wood treated with fire-retardant chemicals, and constructed with a view to fire prevention, the "Engineering News" declares it is urging what has It leaves the been proved practical. reform to " a few progressive owners of vessels, a few marine architects, and one or two builders of steamboats." We should prefer to see this saving remnant encouraged by vigorous Federal legislation. Failure of the Porto Rican Loan Bill The Legislative Assembly of Porto Rico has adjourned without reaching any agreement as to the terms of the proposed $3,000,000 or $5,000,000 loan, which will therefore not be negotiated, unless one house or the other should recede from its position at the regular session next winter; and of that there is at present little hope. The question at issue between the two houses referred to the use to which the proceeds of the bond issue should be applied. The act passed at the last regular session, appointing the Loan Commission with Treasurer Willoughby at its head, contemplated a loan for permanent public improvements, such as school buildings and roads; and both the Loan Commission and the majority of the Executive Council favored a loan for that purpose. The House of Delegates, however, seemed unable to give up the idea of an agricultural loan, which has been proposed in various forms at recent sessions of the Legislature, with the special purpose of enabling the coffee-planters to overcome the disastrous results of the hurricane of August 8, 1899. A compromise bill provided for the use of a small part of the loan for public improvements each year, and for loaning the balance on good real estate security in the meantime; this would Where Borrowing Would be Good Economy or It was a source of some pride to Dr. Hollander, Mr. Willoughby's predecessor as Treasurer of Porto Rico, that the insular government was wholly free from either funded or floating indebtedness; but the need of funds for both public and private improvements is so great, and the rates of interest charged to individual borrowers are so excessive, that it would seem to be good business for Porto Rico to borrow money in New York at three per cent., whether for loaning to agriculturists at seven eight per cent. or for the building of roads and school-houses. The Spaniards built few roads and no schools; and while the progress in both lines of development since the American occupation has been as rapid as could be expected, the good roads reach comparatively few of the coffee plantations, and the insular government is at a considerable annual expense for the rent of indifferent quarters for school purposes, although only about one-sixth of the population of school age can be provided for in all the schools owned and rented. The existing property tax of one per cent. on a full valuation, in much addition to the excise, license, and inbe reasonably heritance taxes, is about as the people asked to pay under present conditions; as can |