tell. When you heard how differently two persons would describe the same incident, you didn't wonder that the stories of the newspapers were at variance in their details.

On a level piece of ground where a threestory building had been the day before a young man stood and reconstructed the business block for the newspaper men. He showed the quadrangle of mud where a hotel had been. He pointed out the yellow house on the hill where he had been when the flood came.

The survivors were eager to tell their experiences and to describe their sensations. It was too soon for anything but the novelty of the disaster to possess them, and they were a little dazed at all this interest and excitement. Even when they had to stand aside for the carriers who bore rough board litters upon which were sheet-covered bodies the Austin people showed little distress.

The

Two hours' work brought a greater mass of detail than any paper could print. problem was to get an accurate list of the number of persons lost. Only a few bodies had been recovered, but when you looked at that clean-swept valley and when you remembered that the town's population had been about three thousand, it was impossible to see how the first estimates could be exaggerated. The hospital on the side of the hill and the school-house that had been turned into a morgue were the natural places to go for this information. The Health Department surgeon could only point to the line of sheathed bodies on the floor; he couldn't tell what lay under the buildings. Nor could the hospital matron. The chief of police, a shrewd, kindly old man who had lived there all his life, was more helpful. He had been counting faces that day, and he thought that about one out of ten was missing. That made the list three hundred, and this was the figure set later in the afternoon by the authorities.

But though the hospital matron couldn't be useful in giving information, she made more friends among the correspondents than any one in Austin. The first question she asked those who were fortunate enough to meet her was whether they had had anything to eat. And then she led the way to her table, where she radiated hospitality. When you consider that every restaurant, grocery store, and hotel had been destroyed and that the people of Austin were standing in line at the relief headquarters waiting for the nurses

who had become waitresses to give them food, you may know what this meant.

A cold, biting rain had begun to fall over that depressing wreck of a town by this time. One newspaper man who had come away without an overcoat and who hadn't found the cheer of the hospital was talking to a State Health Board doctor.

"You're wet through, old man," said the physician. "Go over to that pile of militia overcoats and take one." Then the doctor. hurried off to his many duties. The newspaper man started to do as he was told, but a constabulary sergeant stopped him.

Hey!" shouted that officer; "them things is for the flood sufferers."

"Well, if any one is suffering from this flood more than I am, I want to know it," returned the correspondent, but he got no overcoat, just the same.

By four o'clock in the afternoon the big question was how to get the story to New York. There wasn't a telegraph wire out of Austin, and Keating Summit seemed the one best chance. A train was making up, and it was decided that one of the "Sun's" men with the operator should take it while the other remained to get further details. For some reason still unknown, that train started immediately. On the ride over the switchback branch every one was going over what he had heard, putting the facts in order, and preparing to sit down and write.

Into

But at Keating Summit disappointment was down to meet the train. Only one telegraph company had its wires through this junction, and its lone office was in a signalhouse a hundred yards up the track. this one room, not more than twenty feet square, the correspondents jammed. A redhot stove sent up clouds of steam from their wet clothes. Every one was tired and disagreeable and insistent about getting a wire. Above the clicking of instruments voices rose in every form of address from entreaty to threat and back again. The three operators patiently explained that they were trying their best to get facilities. At one key sat a tired telegrapher sending steadily. The author of what he sent, a man who represented a day and night news service, stood with a board in the crook of his elbow and wrote, leaning against the wall.

They gave the "Sun's " operator a wire that was flickering dismally; it was a new one which wasn't working well.

"Let me try my bug on that," said he,

at his house. The others went to the second office. And when they found it, they couldn't believe their eyes.

There was a brightly lighted office, equipped with typewriters and operators, and a manager who said that he had plenty of wires and could get more. While the rejoicing was still going on the absent newspaper man came in breezily to say that the other office would be open in fifteen minutes. After that there was nothing to do but write. The Sun operator sat down to work, and in a few minutes he had a direct wire into the New York office. In three hours nearly four columns were in New York.

The "Sun man who had remained behind in Austin, it may be remarked here, had his troubles. With a great many others, at about seven o'clock he boarded a train which had every appearance of an intention to start. It did start, and continued in motion all of a quarter of a mile. Then it returned to Austin. After a considerable wait came another start and another halt. This time the engine deserted and disappeared down the track. On board the stranded coaches were many men on whom their papers were counting and many photographers who had pictures that were wanted badly in New York. A conductor with frayed nerves explained that the engine had gone to Keating Summit for water! And this was a flood story! Long after he had quieted the riot that followed, the locomotive was still absent. When it returned and was coupled again, the engineer made a series of practice runs, testing the reversing as well as the driving power of his pistons.

When that train finally reached Keating Summit, just before eleven, the band of wild men that burst into the signal-house made the scene of the afternoon look very quiet and reasonable. But by this time an emergency office had been rigged in the station.

The

Sun man got a wire eventually, sent his late developments and incidents, and then, according to his instructions, began to make preparations to return to New York. He missed one train because it stopped at the water-tank instead of the station, slept three hours on a baggage truck, and reached Hoboken at ten the next evening after traveling seventeen hours.

Meanwhile the men whose stories had been finished from Olean were in New York by eleven o'clock, planning how to get back over the fifty miles to Austin. The one idea

had been to get to a wire, and it had been thought that there would be plenty of trains on Monday morning to Keating Summit. But late that night, when the figuring on time-tables began, there was more trouble.

You see, it couldn't be assumed that the telegraph facilities that night in the neighborhood of Austin would be any better than they had been on Sunday evening. Olean, the correspondents knew, was all right, and the plan was to return. And yet the schedules showed that the only trains available would leave the newspaper men a little less than two hours in Austin. With the irregular branch line, returning at all was doubtful. The answer in the council that was held in a hotel bedroom that night came unanimously: "Get an automobile !"

The

The

Inquiries at the garages early the next morning developed a number of facts. roads to Austin were unsafe at best. recent rains had made them much worse. There wasn't an automobile man in town who would risk his car, but if he would risk it, how much would he get? One of them suggested a sum that he seemed to consider a distinct charity on his part. It wasn't, but when no one fainted there was action. Cars began to turn up from nowhere. Most of them, as it proved later, were in charge of chauffeurs who were perfectly willing to take out their automobiles without consulting the owners.

The car that was selected was picked for its driver, a garage proprietor who was plainly a man of adventurous nature. He looked like a pirate, and acted like one until the bargain was struck. After that he was the soul of amiability, and he and his car were the newspaper men's property, he assured them, for the day.

It was clear and bitterly cold over the fast run of the first ten miles of very fair roads. Then the mud began; slippery mud that whirled the back wheels off the crown of the road, glutinous mud that caked the hubs and splashed over.rugs and coats, insidious mud that was mostly water and masked deep holes in the road. Going was slow, and the car's body bounced down upon the axles with impacts that threatened the springs.

At each of the small towns on the way the correspondents made momentary stops to see whether telegraph arrangements could be made for that night. Everywhere came the same disappointing replies from the operators. They could promise nothing.

There was no bit of the ride that was more trying than the mountain road from

Keating Summit, where the wires were still far from satisfactory, to Austin. A hundred motor cars had been stalled or ditched at the side of this road on Sunday. One derelict after another was passed, and still the piratechauffeur tacked and veered and teased his wheels to stay where they belonged.

In Austin the depression of Sunday's gray skies had been scattered to a degree by bright sunlight. The task that day was to get a more comprehensive idea of the disaster. The formal sources of news-the relief headquarters, the hospital, the morgue, and the constabulary tents—were soon out of the way. The dam, to which only a fleeting visit could be paid on Sunday, was more carefully examined. Then the correspondents went out into the middle of the flood's path and walked over the ruins. The freaks of a disaster appeared at once.

Here was a picture-frame jammed into the mud; the picture was missing, but the glass, thirty inches square, was unbroken. A constabulary lieutenant took the newspaper men to the débris of Main Street and pointed to a spot even with the third story where the bodies of two horses had been caught up by the water. They were still in the torn shreds of the harness which fastened them to the carriage that was embedded in the heap just behind them. In another place was an automobile which had been rolled more than a mile. Its chassis was twisted beyond repair, but the glass in one of its lamps was only cracked. Here was a baby's shoe, a sheaf of photographs, a siphon from a hotel bar, or a bale of hay. Occasionally the newspaper men came upon a group taking out a body.

Through the afternoon the correspondents who were relying upon trains approached their motoring brothers, and by blandishment and guile sought to borrow their automobile.

"Lend us your car to run over to Keating, will you?" they asked innocently. "We'll send it right back."

"Of course you will if it doesn't break an axle in one of those holes," was the answer. "No, thanks! That car has got to carry us fifty miles to-night."

The pirate stood willing to undertake any or all of these side trips. He sighted another treasure. But he admitted that a bargain was a bargain. Besides, one of the newspaper men had the coil box plug in his pocket.

"What have you done to that man?" the tempters asked. "He can't be bribed!"

"We've practically bought his car. that's

E

XPERIENCE during the past twentyfive years has shown that the people may be aroused to sound and high thinking, and their legislative and executive officers may show the intention of carrying out the people's purpose, and yet that the whole movement for good may come to naught, and festering wrong and injustice be perpetuated, because certain judges, certain courts, are steeped in some outworn political or social philosophy, and totally misapprehend their relations to the people and to the public needs. I am entirely aware that, no matter how carefully I guard what I have to say, no matter how cautiously and exactly I state the bald facts and truths that we should all recognize, yet that what I say will assuredly be misrepresented by certain persons with the deliberate purpose of misleading honest and conservative citizens into the belief that I am advocating something radical and revolutionary and destructive of our governmental system, and that I am making an "attack" upon the judges. But I feel that it is my highest duty to speak plainly on this subject so vital to our common welfare.

Let me, at the outset, put so clearly that only willful misinterpretation can deceive people, just what my position as to the courts is. I have the very highest regard, the highest respect and admiration, for the judiciary. As a whole, I think that our judicial officers stand on a higher level than any other body of public servants, or, for the matter of that, of private citizens. I could name offhand at this moment a number of judges now on the bench who render to the people more substantial service of more far-reaching value than is rendered at this time by any other men in public or private life-and all of these judges substantially agree with the position herein taken, which, indeed, is largely derived from them. I believe the courts have rendered our people incalculable services. I hold that the attitude of our people towards them should be one of appreciation and respect; but not of servility. I am a layman, but I take toward the courts precisely and exactly the attitude taken by the lawyer Abraham Lincoln, a man who earned his livelihood by the practice of law, a man who adhered to a

high standard of legal ethics and believed emphatically in the legal profession, but who was a citizen and a statesman first and a lawyer second. We should all, whether business men, editors, lawyers, mechanics, farmers, or writers, be citizens first and members of our several professions next, and, if public men, we should in our sympathies and principles and practices be statesmen first, and only after that be lawyers or business men or editors or writers or members of any other profession. I criticise the decisions of judges only by adopting as my own the language used about these same decisions by the highest judges in the land-by, for instance, the present Chief Justice of the United States, Mr. Justice White; by Mr. Justice Holmes; by that great and upright servant of the people, the lamented Justice Harlan ; by the Supreme Court of the State of Iowa and the Supreme Court of the State of Washington; by former Chief Justices of the States of Georgia and South Carolina; or by private citizens like James Bradley Thayer, the greatest Professor of Law that Harvard University ever had. I have never taken a position in advance of that taken by Abraham Lincoln when, in his first inaugural, immediately after swearing to observe and uphold the Constitution, he said: "If the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there in this view any assault upon the court or the judges." I challenge my critics who denounce my "attacks on the judiciary" to put these attacks" side by side with this and other speeches of Abraham Lincoln, and with the quotation from a former Chancellor of South Carolina given below; there is not a point I make which has not been stated with far greater emphasis by these two men and by the various judges I have named above. Moreover, it surely ought to be unnecessary to say that, in criticising the public acts of a public servant, whether judicial, legislative, or executive, I am not