ish grilles of polished iron, their leaded panes blinking in the sunshine, while in and out, up the door-jambs, over the lintels, along the rain-spouts, even to the top of the ridgepoles of the wavy, red-tiled roofs, thousands of blossoms and tangled vines are running riot; and this is not all. Close beside you stands a fuchsia-covered, shingle-hooded Norman well, and a little way off a quaint kiosk roofed with flowering plants, and near by a great lichen-covered bust of Louis VI. to say nothing of dozens of white chairs and settees grouped against a background of flaring reds and brilliant greens. And then, with a gasp of joy, you follow the daring flight of a giant feather-blown clematis in a clear leap from the ground, its topmost tendrils throttling the dormers"-a description worth transcribing for the breath of fragrance and the charm of setting which it brings into close rooms in town.

Not far down the Normandy coast there is another inn, less picturesque in itself but more strikingly framed than that which Mr. Smith has chosen for the background of his latest book. When one goes out of the arched gateway of the "William the Conqueror," he finds himself in the heart of a little old town which is of interest chiefly because a great leader once passed that way. There is one old church of the age in which the artistic genius of the French broke into an almost riotous springtime of bloom, so richly efflorescent did stone become in the hands of builders who must have sung or prayed, or perhaps both, as they worked. And there is an ancient market, whose blackened beams and wooden columns have hummed with the gossip of peasants and townsfolk these many decades.

In

But the charm ends when one goes out of the inn. At Mont St. Michel, on the other hand, the spell is wholly in the setting. The inn is a matter of a plain, bare building not far inside the gate, and two or three other buildings in which the guests are lodged, up the long stone stairways of the town. the old days the big kitchen was fragrant with those delicious odors which make the aroma of artistic cooking. The big spits were always revolving, the chickens roasting and stews cooking, which were a joy when they came to the long table in that interesting salle-à-manger on whose walls. half a hundred French artists had left little sketches and on-the-spur-of-the-moment studies by way of saying, "Sorry to leave and

coming again." There have been savory and delicately cooked chickens elsewhere, but never such stews as came from the kitchen in the days of Madame Poulard, mistress of "the glass roller and the magic hand." And then those magical omelets of which coarse-minded persons used to say that they were not omelets at all, but souffles of a magical lightness. But, whatever they were, they were of a consistency which was of the soul of the egg rather than of its substance. And Madame Poulard, erect, black-eyed, handsome and smiling, was an artist in hospitality as well as in the art of the kitchen. She was a 66 European personage," and what a manager she was! It was as good as being at a play to sit in the little out-of-door café across the narrow street from the Poulard inn and watch her graciously welcome the pilgrims, headed by the porters who were guiding them to the rival inn, but who instantly succumbed to her. charming imperiousness and became her guests, and have thanked St. Michel ever since for their good luck.

It may be suspected that although Monsieur was a stalwart and swarthy Frenchman, Madame was not only the genius but the manager of the inn, and there was a suspicion that she "ran the town "" as well. If she did, it was by virtue of natural selection, for she had the extraordinary sagacity of the French woman of her type. The machinery of her government made no noise; you even kept your own account and recited the list of the nights and meals and incidentals when you left, and were very moderately charged accordingly. If you asked Madame if the inn did not lose sometimes by this system, she smiled and said that St. Michel watched over it. Many verses are written to and about her, of which one is likely to be long remembered for its pith and point:

"Joan of Arc, at point of lance,

Drove the English out of France. Madame Poulard did better yet: She brought them back with her omelet." And what a view one had as he came out of his room in the Dépendance Verte or Blanche on a fine morning, and had his rolls and coffee in an arbor on the terrace ! The high-built little town, half fortress and half church, was piled up around him, walled at the base and crowned by the cathedral; the sea came up softly or clamorously on three sides, and on the fourth the tide spread swiftly over the sands, or the sands shimmered in the light like a living thing; and

perhaps, the sense of cozy security, of the genial air of friendliness, that makes the open fire in the inn a kind of magnet to draw strange tales to itself. In the corridor of a palatial hotel a man "talks business," or, if an old friend finds him, goes out to dinner at a club where there is quiet, or the two take refuge in a theater; but in an inn they draw their chairs together and drop a score or two of years and are back again on long-familiar playgrounds. And when a group sit within the glow of the fire, every man thinks of the loveliest day he ever spent in some far-off country, or of some adventure which befell him long ago by land or sea.

The

The great hotel is a miracle of convenience, but there are other things in life. Englishman who said that there was every convenience in America, but no comfort, was a superficial observer, but there is a grain of truth in his comment. The inn is deficient in convenience; the hot water comes up in a can, and one must walk up and down stairs as all his fathers have done before him; but how much comfort a real inn offers the lonely traveler, and what chances of good talk he happens upon before the open fire! Mr. Smith's delightful book ought to open the eyes of some men and many women to one of the great needs of the country and to one of the great opportunities which it offers to those who are willing to do small things quietly, and to give the wayfarer a sense of being cared for as a person and not simply as a number in the register..

eral conviction that certain interests have been improperly favored by over-protection. I agree with this view. The commercial and industrial experience of this country has demonstrated the wisdom of the protective policy, but it has also demonstrated that in the application of that policy certain clearly recognized abuses have developed.

It is not merely the tariff that should be revised, but the method of tariff-making and of tariff administration. Wherever nowadays an industry is to be protected it should be on the theory that such protection will serve to keep up the wages and the stand

ard of living of the wage-worker in that industry with full regard for the interest of the consumer. To accomplish this the tariff to be levied should, as nearly as is scientifically possible, approximate the differential between the cost of production at home and abroad. This differential is chiefly, if not wholly, in labor cost. No duty should be permitted to stand as regards any industry unless the workers receive their full share of the benefits of that duty. In other words, there is no warrant for protection unless a legitimate share of the benefits gets into the pay envelope of the wage-worker.

The practice of undertaking a general revision of all the schedules at one time, and of securing information as to conditions in the different industries and as to rates of duty desired chiefly from those engaged in the industries, who themselves benefit directly from the rates they propose, has been demonstrated to be not only iniquitous but futile. It has afforded opportunity for practically all of the abuses which have crept into our tariffmaking and our tariff administration. The day of the log-rolling tariff must end. The progressive thought of the country has recognized this fact for several years, and the time has come when all genuine Progressives should insist upon a thorough and radical change in the method of tariff-making.

The first step should be the creation of a permanent commission of non-partisan experts whose business it shall be to study scientifically all phases of tariff-making and of tariff effects. This commission should be large enough to cover all the different and widely varying branches of American industry. It should have ample powers to enable it to secure exact and reliable information. It should have authority to examine closely all correlated subjects, such as the effect of any given duty on the consumers of the article on which the duty is levied; that is, it should directly consider the question as to what any duty costs the peop'e in the price of living. It should exarnine into the wages and conditions of labor and life of the workmen in any industry, so as to insure our refusing protection to any industry unless the showing as regards the share labor receives therefrom is satisfactory. This commission would be wholly different from the unsatisfactory Tariff Board which was created under a provision of law which failed to give it the powers indispensable if it was to do the work it should do.

It will be well for us to study the experience of Germany in considering this question. The German Tariff Commission has proved conclusively the efficiency and wisdom of this method of handling tariff questions. The reports of a permanent, expert, and non-partisan tariff commission would at once strike a most powerful blow against the chief iniquity of the old log-rolling method of tariff-making. One of the principal difficulties with the old method has been that it was impossible for the public generally, and especially for those Members of Congress not directly connected with the committees handling a tariff bill, to secure anything like adequate and impartial information on the particular subjects under consideration. The reports of such a tariff commission would at once correct this evil and furnish to the general public full, complete, and disinterested information on every subject treated in a tariff bill. With such reports it would no longer be possible to construct a tariff bill in secret or to jam it through either house of Congress without the fullest and most illuminating discussion. The path of the tariff "joker" would be rendered infinitely difficult.

As a further means of disrupting the old, crooked, log-rolling method of tariff-making, all future revisions of the tariff should be made schedule by schedule as changing conditions may require. Thus a great obstacle will be thrown in the way of the trading of votes which has marked so scandalously the enactment of every tariff bill of recent years. The tariff commission should render reports at the call of Congress or of either branch of Congress, and to the President. Under the Constitution, Congress is the tariff-making It should not be the purpose in power. creating a tariff commission to take anything away from this power of Congress, but rather to afford a wise means of giving to Congress the widest and most scientific assistance possible, and of furnishing it and the public with the fullest disinterested information. Only by this means can the tariff be taken out of politics. The creation of such a permanent tariff commission, and the adoption of the policy of schedule by schedule revision, will do more to accomplish this highly desired object than any other means yet devised.

The Democratic platform declares for a tariff for revenue only, asserting that a protective tariff is unconstitutional. To say that

a protective tariff is unconstitutional, as the Democratic platform insists, is excusable only on a theory of the Constitution which would make it unconstitutional to legislate in any shape or way for the betterment of social and industrial conditions.

The abolition of the protective tariff or the substitution for it of a tariff for revenue only, as proposed by the Democratic platform, would plunge this country into the most widespread industrial depression we have yet seen, and this depression would continue for an indefinite period.

There is no hope from the standpoint of our people from action such as the Democrats

propose. The one and only chance to secure stable and favorable business conditions in this country, while at the same time guaranteeing fair play to farmer, consumer, business man, and wage-worker, lies in the creation of such a commission as I herein advocate. Only by such a commission and only by such activities of the commission will it be possible for us to get a reasonably quick revision of the tariff schedule by schedule-a revision which shall be downwards and not upwards, and at the same time secure a square deal not merely to the manufacturer but to the wage-worker and to the general consumer.

TH

HE Senate Committee, which has been investigating the subject of campaign contributions, interrupted its labors promptly upon the adjournment of Congress. In relation to the alleged contribution by the Standard Oil Company to the Republican campaign fund in 1904, the Committee found time to hear only Senator Penrose and Mr. Archbold. As soon as these gentlemen had testified and had made certain assertions as to Mr. Roosevelt's knowledge of this alleged contribution, Mr. Roosevelt requested the Committee to give him an immediate opportunity to appear before it. The members of the Committee, however, with the exception of Senator Clapp, its Chairman-Congress adjourning at that moment-seemed to have sudden calls which took them with the greatest expedition away from Washington. Mr. Roosevelt thereupon wrote a long letter to Senator Clapp embodying substantially the testimony which he would have given if the Committee had found it convenient to have him appear before it.

Mr. Roosevelt's letter gives the plain story of the relations of the Standard Oil Company, the Roosevelt Administration, and the Republican National Committee in 1904. It deals in the same plain way with the time-worn story of the Harriman campaign contribution in the same campaign.

In 1904 Mr. George B. Cortelyou was Chair

man of the Republican National Committee and Mr. Cornelius N. Bliss its treasurer. On October 26, 1904, Mr. Roosevelt wrote a letter to Mr. Cortelyou in which he said that he had just been informed that "the Standard Oil people had contributed one hundred thousand dollars to our campaign fund," and continued: "This may be really untrue. But if true, I must ask you to direct that the money be returned to them forthwith." The next day Mr. Roosevelt sent a supplementary letter to Mr. Cortelyou requesting again. that the contribution be returned without further delay. In it he said that his judgment as to the propriety of receiving or returning the contribution was confirmed by certain publications in the newspapers by the Standard Oil Company, which he had just seen, and which showed that much importance seemed to be attached to the political attitude of the company, and as well by the open and pronounced opposition of the Standard to the establishment of the Bureau of Corporations. Two days later, on October 29, Mr. Roosevelt telegraphed to Mr. Cortelyou. "Has my request been complied with? I desire that there be no delay." Subsequent to the sending of this telegram, Mr. Loeb, then the secretary to the President, called Mr. Cortely ou on the telephone, and later Mr. Roosevelt called him himself. In answer to these inquiries Mr. Cortelyou

informed both Mr. Loeb and Mr. Roosevelt that no contribution had been received from the Standard Oil Company and that no contribution would be received.

Within the past two or three days, Mr. Roosevelt's letter continues, Mr. Cortelyou has informed Mr. Roosevelt that his memory of the incident is the same as Mr. Roosevelt's, and that the information that no contribution had been received or would be received was given to Mr. Cortelyou by Mr. Bliss. This is the whole story of the alleged Standard Oil contribution and Mr. Roosevelt's connection with it.

Mr. Roosevelt then refers to the charges made by Judge Parker as to campaign contributions in '1904. In the closing days of that campaign Judge Parker, the Democratic candidate for the Presidency, asserted that Mr. Cortelyou had been made Chairman of the National Committee because, as Secretary of Commerce and Labor in Mr. Roosevelt's Administration, he had obtained secret information as to the inside affairs of great corporations which he could use to induce them to contribute to the campaign fund, and in effect that he had used such information to blackmail corporations into contributing. On the eve of the election Mr. Roosevelt issued a statement stamping these charges as absolutely false. sult of the election was the election of Mr. Roosevelt by a popular vote of unprecedented size.

The re

Mr. Roosevelt's letter next takes up the matter of the Harriman contribution to the campaign fund. The story of this occurrence has been told again and again, and to go over it once more would be as useless as it is unnecessary. The plain fact, as shown by an accumulation of direct evidence, is that during the campaign of 1904 Mr. Harriman, who was concerned for the success of the New York State campaign under the management of his friend Governor Odell, went to Mr. Roosevelt to ask him to intercede with the National Committee to secure for the New York campaign additional funds. Mr. Roosevelt transmitted the request to Mr. Bliss with his indorsement, but when it appeared that the National Committee was unable to supply more than a small part of the money necessary, Mr. Harriman went back to New York, raised a fund among his friends, and gave it to be used in the New York campaign.

In his letter Mr. Roosevelt further de

scribes how officials of the Standard Oil Company, a year or so after the election of 1904, came to see him in regard to the prosecutions being brought against the Standard Oil Company for the taking of rebates, as well as a couple of years later when the preliminary steps for bringing suit to dissolve the Standard Oil Company were being taken. In each of these cases Mr. Roosevelt referred his visitors to the Bureau of Corporations and to the Department of Justice. For instance, in a letter to Senator Bourne, who had arranged for a meeting between Mr. Archbold and President Roosevelt, the President wrote: "Do remember that, while any proposals they make will be considered in an entirely frank and honorable spirit, yet these proposals must be conditioned upon absolute obedience to the law and must be laid in detail before the Attorney-General and Frank B. Kellogg before it would be possible for me to express any opinion upon them." The letter continues: "I want you to be sure that the Standard Oil people do not misunderstand it and do not get the impression that it is by my desire or on my initiative that negotiations have been entered into with them by you or by any one."

Mr. Roosevelt further points out that the accusations which have been made by Senator Penrose and Mr. Archbold reflect not upon him but upon Mr. Bliss. Mr. Roosevelt expresses the highest confidence in Mr. Bliss as a business man of "stainless probity and integrity." He was a man who gave not merely of his own money freely, but who contributed "his energy, power of work and administrative ability in a way that was quite beyond price." Mr. Roosevelt declares that he does not "feel able to express an opinion as to whether or not he [Mr. Bliss] did, against my explicit direction and in spite of the assurance given me, receive any money from the Standard Oil people.' "But I do feel warranted," he continues, "in saying, from my own knowledge of Mr. Bliss and of his character, that he never made any proposi- . tion of the nature of blackmail, as Mr. Penrose and Mr. Archbold say he did; and I am absolutely confident that he would never have gone into any scheme looking to the receipt of campaign contributions in return for protection or favor to the parties contributing."

Mr. Roosevelt points out that Mr. Penrose and Mr. Archbold apparently have no