In

30 cities representing the finest parks of this country, the average annual tax rate per $1,000 for park improvement and maintenance has been, for the last five years, 40 cents. The rate for each of these cities varies from 13 cents in Cincinnati, with 422 acres of parks, to $1.33 in Peoria, with but 330 acres of parks. Choosing 10 cities that have especially fine park systems, and whose park commissions have been independent of corrupting influences, we find that their tax rate on $1,000 has been but 30 cents. these 30 cities the average annual cost per capita for improving and maintaining parks during the last five years has been 34 cents. It should be remembered that park commissioners, usually busy men of affairs, have given years of gratuitous service in this work, but have often received harsh and unjust criticism. While the position of park commissioner is everywhere considered an honorable one, and the organizers and members of park boards are generally men of broad and philanthropic aim, their official lives have been filled with many vexations.

The work of laying out and improving parks is being done in nearly all cities under the direc tion of efficient landscape gardeners. Commissioners accept the plans made by these men and endeavor to acquire lands and improve them as directed by their retained advisers. These plans require large expenditures of public money, and as years are necessary for plans to materialize, partly because of lack of funds and because trees and shrubs and good roads will not spring into existence in a year or two, some citizens are unreasonable and demand results that only time and fair appropriations of money can accomplish.

SIMPLICITY AND

RESTFULNESS IN LANDSCAPE
EFFECTS.

Because of the constantly increasing expenses of modern municipalities, and through an imperfect and crude understanding of legitimate park needs, it is difficult in many cities to secure annual appropriations large enough for anything beyond the bare maintenance of the parks. This condition of things in so many cities should lead to the making of parks where the strong features are quiet landscapes with great stretches of meadow, and where the naturalistic planting is rest. ful to all the senses. The cost of developing and maintaining great urban pleasure grounds. where the pastoral idea is uppermost is very much less than for the making of those that are more pretentious and artificial. Park roads and walks must be made and a few buildings erected; but the true artist limits their number to the bare necessities of the case, and conceals them as far as possible by skillful planting. Rare trees,

shrubs, and plants in profusion are costly and too frequently are out of harmony with their sur roundings. Large plantings of a limited variety of hardy trees and shrubs, naturalistic in their broad effects, cost very much less to grow and properly care for than the rare and striking ones. In some of our most attractive parks effective plantings have been made of great masses of dogwoods, viburnums, sumacs, and other native shrubs; these are easily, quickly, and cheaply grown, and are always pleasing. The parks that the American public enjoy best are those that have cost the least to improve and sustain.

HARMONY IN DESIGN THE GREAT DESIDERATUM.

In

These are the great public pleasure grounds created by men who have worked lovingly and wisely on Nature's canvas, having clearly in their minds pictures of one harmonious whole that could only be realized after many years. some cities it has been difficult to prevent the placing of many things in public parks that were not considered in the original designs, and the question is continually arising as to whether there shall be a strict adherence to the carefully prepared plans of those who have for years studied the essentials of great parks. There should be no difference of opinion in this matter. When plans drawn by professional landscape gardeners of acknowledged ability are accepted, they should be closely followed. From a business point of view, nothing less can be done.

THE POLICING OF PUBLIC PARKS.

In many large park systems the police forces are small. On Sundays, holidays, and special occasions immense throngs gather in the parks, yet the order generally maintained is good and the harm done to everything that beautifies is slight. The development of a strong public sentiment which frowns upon depredations and hoodlumism in public parks has apparently kept pace with the growth and embellishment of the parks. When park property has been injured, the of fenders have not always been found among the socalled lower classes." Women riding through parks in their luxurious carriages have been known to order their coachmen to gather flowers, and have calmly directed the despoiling of shrubs and trees.

A little more than one-half of the parks of this country are policed by men under the control of and paid by the park departments. In the other cities regular policemen are detailed for park duty. In four good-sized park systems there are no regularly detailed police, but from the employees of each park are chosen a sufficient number who are commissioned as special peace officers.

AT

T the last meeting of the American Historical Association that body was invited to ineet in Nashville next time, whereupon the question was at once raised, "What interest is there in history in the South?" The question was put in all sincerity, and some members of the association manifested a desire to go South for one of the annual meetings, if only assured that the interest there would justify it. However, it was felt that the rule of rotation laid down for the locality of the meetings, East, West, Washington," could not be departed from to the disadvantage of the East, and that Nashville would have to take her chances with the West in future. In the meantime the writer would like to put forward a few facts in answer to the above inquiry.

The question is one which had already presented itself to the writer, himself a Southerner, nor had he found the most satisfactory answer. He had often heard the complaint that the South had been misrepresented and misunderstood by some historians; that the part she played in the formation and building of the nation had been minified, while that of the North had been magnified; and that the representation of her course in the events leading up to the Civil War had been grossly unjust. Of late a protest has been heard from a State so far north as New York against the partiality of writers from a section still farther east. If the charge is true, where lies the fault? Why has no one come forward with a scientific array of cold and convincing facts? Not all his torians are lineal descendants of the unjust judge; they seek the truth and endeavor to confine themselves to it. Unfortunately, however, a few men who, mainly for purposes of revenue, have essayed to write histories, the smaller histories concerning which the charge referred to is most frequently heard, will need to clear themselves of the suspicion that they are related to the person just mentioned. When men, North or South, for that matter, in any age or clime, start out with preconceived notions and pet theories, and ruthlessly reject everything which tends to subvert them, or with a determination to please a particular constituency, they will never become historians, no matter how many so-called "histories" they may write. The muse of history is the companion of Truth, whatever the cost of

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keeping her company. But the truth with regard to history is not always an open book, seen and read of all men; it must be sought in the byways and hedges. Dropping the metaphor, history is a matter of record, made up of facts, not opinions and theories alone. If the historian cannot find the record, his account must be mythical; if he finds only a part, his account is likely to be distorted, be his intentions ever so honest. If the South should be bidden by the oracle, as was Phaon, the Sophist, to consult the dead, whither could she turn for the record of their wisdom? What has she done to put that record before the world?

In explanation, but not justification, of the paucity of historical works in the South, Mr. Thomas Nelson Page has said, in substance, that she has been too busy making history to stop to write it. Then, if the schoolboy is perfectly familiar with the Mayflower, but never heard of the Discovery or the Good-Speed, who is to blame for it? For many years the South studied the problems of government with a passion, and con. sequently has left a lasting impress on the constitutional law of the nation, but her work in writing the story of those studies and their application, and of her struggle with nature and the savages, is yet to be done. Unfortunately, the materials necessary for this work have not always been carefully preserved, and many of those still in existence have not been made easily accessible to the student. What is more natural, then, than that occasional mistakes should be made by those attempting the story? But a brighter day is dawning.

In a few instances sufficient interest has been aroused to induce the State governments to lend a helping hand. As far back as 1882, the Legislature of Maryland began to make biennial appropriations of $4,000 for the publication of her Colonial and Revolutionary Archives. The appropriations have amounted to $36,000, and have resulted in the publication of nineteen volumes. In 1896, $15,000 was given for the work of preparing a roster of her volunteers in the Civil War. Virginia has published a calendar of her "State Papers." One might reasonably have expected their publication in full from a State which played so important a rôle. She also has copies of the documents in the Public Record Office,

lightly esteemed by the nations of the earth. A short six years, and what do we behold?-prosperity in business surpassing all former periods, unequaled national credit, all our workmen employed at better wages than ever before in our history, the people contented and happy, our voice the most persuasive and potent in the councils of the nations. In wise administration, in substantial development, in international influence, we lead the world to-day. What other issue does the Republican party need to present? How can it better commend itself to the support of the people of the United States than by patient continuance in this well-doing? Nor is our national prosperity and glory accidental. Our country has always prospered under Republican rule; it has always languished when so unfortunate as to come under the sway of the Democratic party. The one overwhelming issue of this campaign is the endorsement of the Republican administration of William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt.

Recognizing the force of this, our opponents are indulging in a most frantic hunt for some other issue on which to go before the people. There is a fascination in hunting when there is game to be found and secured, but it is dull and tiresome sport where there is no game to be either found or secured, and this hunt of the Democratic party for a new issue must be both dull and tiresome. When we restored the gold standard and reëstablished the credit of the nation on solid foundation, its free-silver issue disappeared with the clouds. When we gave Porto Rico popular and representative government, when we put down rebellion in the Philippines, established civil government there, clothed its inhabitants with all the rights guaranteed to our own citizens by the Constitution, we started it on the road to popular and representative government; its paramount issue of imperialism became but a dissipated fog.

We have wrought a grand and glorious work in the Philippines, and the people now know it. No nation in the long annals of history has ever accomplished so much for justice, for civilization, for the advancement of humanity, in a conquered territory as we in the Philippines. It is mar'velous beyond the dream of the philosopher or the prediction of the prophet. The example of a semi-barbarous and warlike people pacified, and in four years transformed into a people seeking to regulate their own affairs under the sovereignty of the United States, and under our promise of self-government to the full limit of their capacity, is not to be found elsewhere in the world's history. That it has been accom. plished against virulent opposition and attack

upon both our military and civil administration only attests the wonder of its consummation.

For once in its history it is apparent that the Democratic party is ashamed of the issues upon which it has so recently sought power. The mere mention of free silver, anti-expansion, and anti-imperialism, which but a few short years since constituted the entire stock in trade of the Democratic and Populistic partnership, is most distasteful, and so it now has started on its vain and vexing hunt for other issues with which to delude voters into its support. Thus in all Demo. cratic journals, and from all Democratic platforms, we now hear the cry revise the tariff, down with the trusts." On this subject the Republican party has something to say, and says it frankly.

The Republican party stands for a protective tariff. The Democratic party is against a pro. tective tariff. Protection has brought prosperity and filled our land with happiness, and when the time comes for either a complete or partial revision of the tariff, the interests of the country require that it shall be revised along the lines of protection and not for the establishment of free trade. Whenever and however there shall be tariff revision, it should be a revision which will not destroy our home market or take away work from our own workmen to give it to the workmen of foreign countries. Tariff revision should be attempted only when it will not seriously disturb the business of the country, or check our developing activities. When that time shall come, and the need shall be apparent, the Republican party may be relied upon to undertake this work. Tariff schedules are not sacred. The principle of protection should be held sacred in the United States. The Democratic cry for tariff revision which is sounding through the country is pitched upon one key: the destruction of protection, which is the main factor of our prosperity.

With regard to great aggregations of capital, indefinitely called trusts, all men know that business cannot now be conducted successfully in the United States with the limited capital of former times; that to attempt it would result in wide-spread disaster and misery, and that even if it were possible to reestablish old trade conditions the consumers would necessarily be compelled to pay enhanced prices for the needed articles of consumption. Other nations were first to seize the opportunities which steam and electricity offered in extending business operations throughout the field of the world which had been previously limited by slow correspondence and transportation. The United States was forced by the changed conditions of trade to do business upon a larger scale, and that could only be done with augmented capital. Business thus con

ducted, honestly and fairly according to the common judgment of mankind, is not only a necessity, but a blessing.

But great aggregations of capital result in enormous power, and there comes with that power the temptation to do business unfairly, and without due regard to the rights and interests of the great body of our people. The dif ference between the Republican and Democratic parties in the matter of trusts may be stated thus: The Democratic party proposes to destroy trusts and the business conducted by them; the Republican party proposes to regulate trusts and the business conducted by them, so that no un fair advantage shall be taken of the people of the United States, and to the full limit of its constitutional power it will carry out this policy. The Republican party does not set itself against business or the capital needed to develop business; it does set itself against capitalistic monopoly or extortion. The Democratic party, true to its traditional policy of destruction, has ap parently but one, and only one, remedy for evils arising from the improper management of business carried on by great corporations, and that is to put all articles manufactured by corporations which have the supposed ability to control prices on the free list, thus destroying at one blow protection to our industries and the business pursued by the trusts.

No more fatuous policy could be conceived. We deny that the tariff is the mother of trusts, we affirm that the tariff is the parent of prosperity. Upon the Republican policy of regulation as against the Democratic policy of destruction, we appeal confidently to the good sense and sober judgment of the thinking people of the United States. It will be a sad day for our workmen if ever in an attempt to punish and destroy our trusts the work now performed by them shall be transformed to the workmen employed by foreign trusts. And right here it may be observed that no plan has ever been proposed by the Democratic party relating either to tariffs or trusts which would result in the employment of an additional workman in the United States, or in the enhancement of the wages of labor. What then can be said of Democratic profession of sympathy for wage-earners but that it is a hollow pretense, -in a word, demagogy. Upon this subject the Republican party has no more courageous, intelligent, or honest exponent of its principles and policies than Theodore Roosevelt. Read his utterances upon this subject and be assured that he speaks for the Republican party. From the at

tempt to sway the people of the United States by appeals to prejudice, the Republican party appeals to reason.

Right alongside the policy of protection, going hand and hand with it, is the policy of reciproc ity, a reciprocity which shall extend and not curtail our trade; which, on the whole, will give us wider markets without seriously crippling our own. This reciprocity has been aptly denominated the handmaid of protection, and whenever and wherever reciprocal trade arrangements with foreign countries can be made which will result in more widely extended markets without serious injury to the business of this country, the Republican party is bound by the expressed views of its late President, in what may be termed his farewell address to the American people, as well as in the explicit declarations of President Roosevelt, to sanction and ratify such arrangements. Democratic reciprocity is but another name for free trade. Republican reciprocity is entirely consistent with protection.

I must speak to you feelingly in behalf of reciprocal trade arrangements with our nearest neighbor, Cuba. I would make such arrangements along the lines which I have indicated,—a reciprocity in trade between the two countries mutually advantageous to each, a reciprocity whereby we would extend our own trade and at the same time benefit the industrial interests of Cuba. That this is entirely practicable I do not for a moment doubt. Cuba, more than any other nation, is related to us. It is a child rescued and adopted by us. We are both its liberator and its sponsor. It is neither for her interests nor for ours that Cuba should become a part of our nation; it is both for her interests and ours that she should find prosperity in independence, and stability growing out of that prosperity. If ever one nation was obligated to deal justly and liberally with another, we are obligated to deal justly and liberally with Cuba. We can help Cuba in the maintenance of her independence with great benefit to ourselves. We can enable her to start on a career of self-supporting nationality without perceptible injury to any American industry and with manifest benefit to all. There are times when popular prejudices and fear obscures the most important issues and prevents wise legislation, but the second sober thought of the American people sweeps away the barriers erected by prejudice and fear, and allows the voice of conscience, and justice, and wise policy, to be heard. I believe that the time of dealing justly with Cuba has only been delayed, and will surely come.