ment plan for curtailing the power of the magistrates in granting, renewing, or refusing the renewal of public-house licenses. The Bishop of Colchester urges that the power of the magistrates is the only power for the protection of the public which exists, and if that power is removed, the liquor trade can do almost as it pleases. Fifteen bishops have made their opposition known through the Church of England Temperance Society. No equally convenient organization exists for making known the opinions of Churchmen on the Chinese compound question-the other moral question in politics which just now is agitating England. Several of the bishops, however, and many clergymen have recently announced their intense dislike of the Pretoria ordinance. By these various expressions of the bishops and clergy, all the ChurchesEstablished and Free-are now represented in the movement against the retrograde change in the licensing law, at the dictation of the liquor interest, and against the introduction of an army of indentured Chinamen into the Transvaal. Mr. Lyttelton, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, has quite recently reiterated his statement that the agitation against the Chinese ordinance is a partisan movement. But it is impossible that he can long adhere to this assertion in face of the fact that representatives of all the organized religious bodies-Churchmen and Methodists, Congregationalists and Baptists, Unitarians and Quakers-have now put them selves on record against Lord Milner's iabor policy. Congregationalists, Baptists, Unitarians, and Quakers are usually Liberals in politics by association and tradition; but the Methodists in England are generally as unready to throw themselves into any movement against the Government as is the Church of England.

pressed her unwillingness that the territory of her neighbor and vassal should be invaded by any foreign power, and this opposition has been so vigorous that it has indicated a possible reinforcement of Tibetan troops with Chinese troops. It is probable, too, that in the pursuance of his policy to establish thoroughly friendly relations with all the Great Powers, King Edward VII. has received assurances from Russia which have removed the painful impression produced by the statements in the Tibetan Blue Book, and have made it plain that there is no real conflict of British and Russian interests in Tibet. A third and perhaps most influential reason is the unwillingness of the King and of the English people to repeat the slaughter at Guru. The impression made by that massacre of Tibetans, arrayed for defense of their country, was very painful throughout England. Colonel Younghusband's expedition under military escort did not reach Gyangtse without a second conflict; and it became very clear that any attempt to open Tibet to the world at this moment will meet with the most determined opposition. Under the circumstances the Ministry has wisely concluded to withdraw the expedition and to abandon the attempt to keep a Resident at Lhasa; and Tibet will be left to manage her own internal affairs until she sees, as she will in the end, not only the impossibility of closing her doors against the world, but the great advantage to herself of coming into relations with the rest of mankind.

On Thursday of last Congress: The End week the second ses

of the Session

sion of the Fifty-eighth Congress was declared adjourned. It was an unusually early date for adjournment. Often in Presidential years Congress has continued in session until July, and it has in one case not adjourned until October. The fact that the special session last fall brought Congress together a month earlier than usual, makes the session just closed not quite so exceptional as it seems. There is hardly any ground for regret, moreover, that Congress has already adjourned; though there were measures of some importance left unde

cided, they were no more important than measures which have been abandoned under similar circumstances in other years. As the session drew to its close the members became less and less concerned about legislative matters and more and more engrossed in partisan politics. Occasionally a gathering of grown men will act like children, and the Congress of the United States is no exception. A peculiarly stupid wrangling occurred in the accusations and recriminations that passed between Republicans and Democrats, with Mr. Dalzell and Mr. Cockran as chief spokesmen. Nobody in the country is really concerned about either of these men, but almost every American enjoys a fight. The same instincts which bring a crowd of people to gether in the street whenever there is the cry of "Dog fight!" led the newspapers to publish and the public to read with evident relish the accounts of the encounter between these two men. The fundamental sanity, however, of Congress was recovered in time to enable it to dismiss the affair without an investigation. The present session has been made notable by two men and two measures. Mr. Cannon, the Speaker of the House, self-made, kindly, honest, with an equal mixture of drollery, ruggedness, frankness, and common sense, has established a personal relationship with the members of the House of Representatives quite unique. Mr. John Sharp Williams, leader of the Democrats, has supplied what his party has for years sorely lacked-sane, competent direction. A highly educated man, with American and European university training, at the same time in the broadest sense a democrat and man of the people, he has won the respect of his opponents as well as the confidence of his own party. He has been sane enough to see that it is not the business of the leader of the Opposition necessarily to oppose everything that the majority wants done; and has had the discernment to concentrate his opposition upon the weakest points of the party in power. The measures of note have been the passage of the Cuban Reciprocity Bill and the settlement of the Panama question. The enactment of the Philippine shipping

bill, amending the present law, also stands to the credit of Congress.

Pensions Once More

Several correspond

It

ents seem to be still under the impression that The Outlook's attitude on the matter of the service pension involves disregard of the claims of the men who bear the scars of the Civil War. The Outlook has stated many times its opinion that the country cannot treat too generously its disabled soldiers; that in its judgment not a dollar ought to go for service pensions, but that any increase which the country can afford to make to its already great appropriations for pensions ought to inure to the benefit of disabled or injured men. The Outlook is opposed to the service pension because it believes that it involves a mischievous principle and lowers the quality of the service which the soldier renders and the estimation in which those services are held. shows a gross lack of discrimination in the value of services to put on the same basis men who served three months—in many instances without going near a battlefield, in some instances without leaving the town in which they enlistedand men who served through four years. and are bearing the scars and disabilities of their service to this day. Pensions ought to be awarded on a basis of service rendered and disabilities endured as the result of those services. Senator Scott, who appears to be anxious to hold the very questionable honor of being the greatest "pension boomer" in the country, recently declared that he would pay a pension of $25 a month to every soldier, whatever his term of service and whether he was rich or poor. It is this sort of talk which discourages the serious-minded man and brings the pensioner into disrepute, because it separates the pension from the service rendered, and in many instances makes it a mere gratuity to a man who has had only formal relations with an army. It is absurd to deny a pension to a man who has served the Government all his life in a civil capacity, and give it to another mequally able to take care of himself, erved the Government three months

in the capacity of an enlisted soldier. The whole matter of pensions, for the sake of the soldier, the country, and the ideals of the people, ought to be taken in hand by intelligent, clear-minded, resolute legislators who want to confer the highest honor upon the real veteran disabled by his services, but who have not the least fear of his vote.

in Ohio

The struggle for The School Compromise the political control of the public schools in Ohio has ended in a compromise. Apparently, however, the honors are with the politicians and the school book publishers who are interested in getting control of the management of the schools. In the Legislature the Representatives passed, by a decided majority, a bill to create small school boards elected at large. The Senate passed a bill favored by those who wished the members of the boards to be elected by wards or districts. Boards of the latter sort are very much more liable to political influence than the former, as has been shown in Cincinnati as compared with Cleveland, which has the small board system. For some time there was a deadlock between the House and the Senate. Finally, after a conference, in which Senators representing the city of Cleveland used their influence against the Cleveland system, a compromise was effected, by which cities under fifty thousand in population would have the small board system, while the cities above fifty thousand would have the size of their future boards determined by vote of those boards now in existence. Thus it is possible for the present board in Cleveland to decide that its next board shall consist of thirtyseven members, seven of whom shall be elected at large and thirty elected from sub-districts. In the former class there are sixty-six cities. In the latter there are five. These five are Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo, Columbus, and Dayton. It seems likely that Cleveland will continue to have a small board, though it cannot escape from having a board partly elected by districts. The constitutionality of this law is questioned on

two accounts: First, that some of the present boards, having been themselves created by unconstitutional legislation, cannot constitutionally determine what the future boards of the cities shall be. Second, that the law itself is special legislation. Laws have already been set aside by Ohio courts on the ground that, being confined to cities of a certain population, they come under the head of special legislation, and are, therefore, unconstitutional. Since the cities of the State are divided by this elastic school code into two classes according to population, the code itself may therefore be invalidated. The cure for the abuse of schools in the interest of partisan politics lies with public opinion. When the people of any State think of their schools as the people of most-if not all of the States think of their courts, they will not tolerate any use of the schools except for the advantage and interest of the children.

in Kansas City

Kansas City, Missouri, A Business Mayor is trying the experiment occasionally made in American municipalities, of selecting a Mayor solely for his business qualifications. The town had wearied of an inefficient political administration. Accordingly, a few weeks before the time set for the city conventions this spring, several Republican business men organized a committee and induced Mr. J. H. Neff, ' publisher of a live-stock journal, to become a candidate for the Republican nomination. It was believed that there was a greater prospect of success through the capture of the Republican machinery than through the nomination of a nonpartisan ticket. Mr. Neff was universally regarded as a capable business man, but his candidacy was opposed by many Republicans on the ground that he was lacking in the popular traits usually deemed essential to the successful politician. The business men's committee, however, secured his nomination. Normally the two parties in Kansas City are about evenly divided, and a split in the Democratic organization gave him the recent election. The Civic League took an active part in the canvass. It

secured a civil service reform plank in each of the party platforms, and obtained written pledges for the merit system by charter amendment from a majority of the incoming Aldermen. It also stationed watchers at the voting-places where frauds were feared, and to such purpose that the vote cast in the sus pected "river wards" fell considerably short of the padded registration. The new Mayor's appointees have been generally approved, and an efficient administration is anticipated. The question remains, of course, whether a Mayor selected solely as a business executive will be popular enough to secure a second term; whether common honesty and efficiency, as Mr. Lincoln Steffens would say, are all that the public requires in its officials. At its election two years hence Kansas City may contribute data bearing on this American municipal problem. Meanwhile, it expects to secure a permanent gain in the adoption of a merit system by charter amendment in every department of the city government.

The State of South CaroThe South and lina has been considering Italian Farmers the immigration question and has created a State Department of Agriculture, Commerce, and Immigration, with a Commissioner whose duties shall be to collect and publish information concerning the advantages of South Carolina for agriculture, mining, timbering, and manufacturing purposes. The object of South Carolina in creating this new department is to stimulate the immigration of thrifty and desirable home-seekers, preferably those who will aid in the agricultural development of the State. One section of the act establishing this new department of immigration provides that "immigrants shall be confined to white citizens of the United States, citizens of Ireland, Scotland, France, and all other foreigners of Saxon origin," although no definition of the phrase "foreigners of Saxon origin" is contained in the bill. Of course the bill does not make it either illegal or impossible for immigrants of the Latin races to become home-seekers in South Carolina, the purpose of this section being simply to point out to the Commissioner

while for some of our Southern States to consider carefully the possibility of introducing the better class of Italian small farmers to take up the work of fruit-growing, milk-farming, and similar phases of the work of the small farm in a climate to which they are well suited? What an industrious Italian may do is illustrated by the story of one which we find in a recent report of Mr. Gino C. Speranza, Recording Secretary of the Society for the Protection of Italian Immigrants of this city:

A fine-looking Neapolitan, Caccevo by name, living at Portsmouth, Virginia, came to this country twenty years ago and has carried on the work of stevedore for the greater part of that time. The Consular Agent at Norfolk took us over to see him one evening at the house which he himself had built. The house is substantial, built with an impressive stone front, and seemed to be furnished with every comfort, including a piano, upon which his bright little daughter played for us the Star-Spangled Banner and the Garibaldi Hymn. I was informed that a few days before our visit Caccevo had bought at auction for $960 a coal-laden schooner which had been apparently wrecked on the near-by coast. After a great deal of hard work he managed to float the wreck, which had not been as bad as it seemed, put it in trim, and between the sale of the coal on board and of the ship itself it was estimated that he would realize about $140,000.

This successful business man could neither read nor write. I have never heard of an Italian immigrant here with an academic degree after his name who ever achieved even one-half of this man's success.

And yet South Carolina, by the terms of her new homestead-immigration act, expressly discourages settlers of this nationality upon her soil.

tionality of the act of the Legislature of Kentucky passed on the 12th day of March, and that the legal rights of Berea College be determined by action of the courts. It will be remembered that Berea has been admitting both white and colored students for nearly forty years; that the College was founded by Southern men of anti-slavery proclivities; that it has been from the beginning a rallying-point for free speech and liberal sentiment; that while it has given free admission to both colored and white students, its chief and most important service has been rendered to the mountain people; that no attempt has ever been made to establish social equality between the two races at Berea, and that the relations between the races have been free from scandal and almost without friction during its whole history, students meeting one another in the class-room with mutual respect; and each race rooming by itself and maintaining its own social life. Berea has never advocated the mingling of white and colored students in public schools, but has not believed that it was necessary to exclude in all cases colored students from the schools in which white students are taught, in order to preserve the purity of the races. The attack on the College, which takes the form of a bill passed by the Legislature of Kentucky forbidding the maintaining or operating of any college, school, or institution where persons of both the white and negro races are received as pupils for instruction, was caused, therefore, by no failure of Berea College to maintain wholesome relations between the students, but entirely by a revival of race antagonism, which has lately shown many evidences of its strength. It is significant that the bill was introduced by a represent ative of what is called the "bloody county" of Kentucky, and that no opportunity was given to the representatives of the College to answer the objections which were made by the friends of the bill to the committee in private. It is also charged that the Legislature, which is overwhelmingly Democratic, is not unwilling to cripple an institution which was rendering such an important service to the mountaineers, who

are mostly Republican. The trustees. of Berea College think it wise to test the validity of a law which enters into private relations and declares in regard to private institutions supported by endowments received from private persons that members of the two races shall under no circumstances be allowed to pursue education together. In the opinion of the trustees this act is an invasion of the private rights of pupils, of the rights of teachers to give instruction as they please, and of the rights of institutions to use their property according to their own pleasure, and they think that the bill is, therefore, unconstitutional.

National Importance of Berea's Work

Of the nearly one thousand students in attendance upon the College, one hundred and seventy-four are colored. If the College is obliged to provide a separate establishment for these students, it will involve a heavy addition to the expense of managing the institution. In any and every case Berea proposes to stand its ground and go forward. It is dealing not so much with the negro problem as with the white problem. At the Conference for Education in the South, held in Birmingham, Alabama, last week, Dr. Dabney, President of the University of Tennessee, declared that the Appalachian range of mountains contains nearly five millions of persons, of whom less than three per cent. are foreign born, while the percentage of illiterates is almost one-half. It is to this large pure-blooded population, now coming into active relations with the country for the first time, that Berea College ministers as no other institution has ever ministered. The work of President Frost and his associates in opening the doors of education to these people is not only of the highest importance to a great population, but is of the very highest importance to the welfare of the Nation. It is a great misfortune to the country that the Legislature of Kentucky has proved so shortsighted and has failed to recognize that in Berea College the commonwealth has an institution of National significance and value.