or to a corporation in which he is largely interested. A private banker, moreover, will be compelled to keep his banking assets entirely separate from all other accounts, and to give his depositors a first lien upon the investments made with their money. In other ways savings are guarded by the provisions of the new law. Thus savings banks are compelled to set aside a percentage of earnings at each dividend period for a guaranty fund, to carry the bank through in unexpected demands, as in a panic, which might throw it into insolvency; while at the inception of a savings bank enterprise bonds must be given by the incorporators to protect its solvency.

The new banking bill enlarges the functions of State banks and trust companies in some respects, so that now they may, like National banks, make acceptances, issue letters of credit, and maintain branches abroad. These powers are guarded by limitations and restrictions. The new law also harmonizes the State banking legislation with the Federal Reserve Act.

It is perfectly evident that there was pressing need for a new banking law in New York State, and the act just signed appears to meet the requirements of the day. But most welcome and most human are the provisions already noted which will, it is earnestly to be hoped, protect the earnings of workers from such rapacity and unscrupulousness as have been recently so signally illustrated.

A WAR AGAINST RATS

No more significant evidence of the advance in medical science and public sanitation exists than the fact that the bubonic plague, once dreaded with the utmost horror, does not now create public alarm in anything like the measure it once did. About a year and a half ago The Outlook noted the appearance of cases of the bubonic plague in Porto Rico and Cuba, but with the news told also of the prompt measures adopted to prevent the spread of the disease. Those measures were thoroughly effective. Now the disease has appeared again in Havana; but all of the authorities who are competent to judge declare that they do not fear its spread even in the city.

One of the chief reasons for this confidence is the fact that the sanitation of Havana, once a pest-hole and a danger to the United States, is now under the direction of Dr. Guiteras,

who did so much to check and prevent yellow fever epidemics in the South, and who had a long term of experience in the service of the United States Marine Hospital. Dr. Guiteras has been at work on disease problems in Havana for years, and is one of the three or four best-fitted men in the world for the task of exterminating the bubonic plague. Under his direction several blocks in the business part of Havana have been isolated and the houses (many of which contain stores beneath and residences above) have been fumigated with hydrocyanic acid. A still more effective way of fighting the disease is the systematic destruction of house rats.

When the bubonic plague first appeared in San Francisco years ago, a fatally mistaken policy of concealment was adopted. Later Passed Assistant Surgeon Rupert Blue, now Surgeon-General of our Marine Hospital service, fought the disease openly, independently, and without concealment, and crushed it entirely. It was when the bubonic plague was shrouded in mystery that it was really dangerous. We believe it was a Japanese scientist who discovered the micro-organism which causes the disease; other specialists traced the transmission of the disease through fleas which fasten on rats. Since those discoveries rat-killing campaigns and other precautions against the disease have made the threat of an invasion of the plague no longer serious. The thoroughness of the defensive war now going on in Havana makes the danger to American ports very slight.

THE INDIANA PROGRESSIVES

The Indiana Progressive State Convention is of interest to the whole country chiefly because its platform, which was unanimously adopted, pledges the party to work for the elimination of all breweries and saloons in the State, and indorses the Hobson resolution now before Congress looking towards National prohibition. In advocating National prohibition the Indiana Progressives are following the course of the Progressives of Ohio and Maine. Whether this is the most feasible method of dealing with the drink evil is a question that demands careful consideration, but it is very significant of the growing sentiment throughout the country against the liquor traffic and the vice it promotes-a sentiment which deserves the sympathy of every good citizen.

The platform opposes the issuance of injunctions in labor disputes, calls for a law to

compel the giving of ample notice before a strike or lockout, and advocates a minimum wage for women.

As to electoral reform, the platform indorses the initiative, referendum, and recall for all elective and judicial offices; it calls for a State-wide primary law, for the short ballot, for equal suffrage for women, for home rule for cities, and for the elimination of the judiciary from politics.

On matters of foreign policy, the platform attacks the present Federal Administration for its Mexican policy in general. This criticism, it should be noted, was made before the present crisis occurred. In particular, we are glad to say, the platform opposes the approval of any treaty with Colombia which provides for the payment of $25,000,000 to that country.

Ex-Senator Beveridge was the unanimous choice of the Convention as the party's canIdidate for United States Senator.

THE MARY CURZON

HOSTEL

The problem of women's lodging-houses has now been made somewhat easier of solution in London, at least, by the opening of the Mary Curzon Hostel. It is a handsome and hospitable-looking building in King's Cross Road near Euston Station-a very central location. The Hostel has been established through the generosity of Earl Curzon, with the aid of his relatives and friends, as a memorial to the late Lady Curzon, who was Miss Mary Leiter, of Washington.

The principle governing the Hostel is that it shall provide lodging, and food if desired, for women in need, but who are able to pay a very small sum. The Hostel does not belong to that class of charities which provide something for nothing. Its scale of charges. would indicate that no attempt is made to make a profit; at the same time it is expected to make the institution self-supporting.

For instance, a "cubicle," or small bedroom, costs about 12 cents a night, or about 60 cents a week. Tea and bread and butter may be had for 2 cents; a heartier breakfast or supper, of course, costs more. But a dinner consisting of soup, two kinds of vegetables, and pudding may be had for 8 cents. addition to sleeping accommodation there are lavatories and private bath-rooms, and also a kitchen where women can cook their own food.

In

As to admissions, the Hostel is to be man

aged just as a hotel is managed that is to say, no questions are asked of applicants and no references are demanded; but, if a woman shows herself to be a drunkard or otherwise undesirable, she is asked to leave.

In every great city women in search of employment, domestics temporarily out of a place, and women who work all day in factories need such a hostel, not only for shelter but also as a haven of respectability and rest. The greatest city in the world is now better off than it has been in this respect because of this memorial to one who, in America, England, and India, was ever alive to the necessities of her less fortunate sisters.

MEXICO

Mr. Bryan in his "Commoner," discussing the Mexican situation, says, "The question is not what we can do, but what ought we to do." It is both what ought we to do and what can we do. Might does not make right, but might does create responsibilities and impose obligations. The question before the American people to-day is this: What duty, if any, does a rich, strong nation owe to a weaker neighbor at its door which is being plundered by banditti ? An abstract question is sometimes more easily answered if it is made concrete; a complicated question if it is simplified.

Three men going up from Jericho to Jerusalem saw by the roadside, according to the parable, a traveler who had been set upon by thieves and left beaten and half dead by the wayside. Two of the men passed by ; the third stopped to carry succor to the wounded stranger. This man has ever since been known in literature as the Good Samaritan. Suppose he had passed that way a little earlier and had seen the thieves beating and plundering the stranger; would he have been a bad Samaritan if he had interfered? and a wise Samaritan if he had said, If I interfere my business will be injured, my clothes may be damaged, and my head may be broken?

the faction which happened to be in possession of the capital. It has pursued for over a year a policy of watchful waiting. At length this faction, believing our patience to be the result of feebleness and fear, has insulted our Nation and refused to make the demanded apology. The incident at Tampico was in itself insignificant. So in itself is an electric spark insignificant; but this electric spark has touched the accumulating indignation of the American people. Forbearance has ceased to be a virtue. No apology which Huerta can now make will satisfy them. They will not be satisfied until anarchy is ended, a just government is established, order is restored, and life and property are secure in Mexico.

It is our duty to protect our fellow-citizens who reside in that bandit-ridden country. It is true that America might years ago have notified all Americans that if they left their own territory they left at their own risk. It might have refused to protect American seamen from impressment by Great Britain. It might have refused to protect American ships from Mediterranean pirates. It might have thought to protect itself from war by cowardice. But that has never been its policy. It has never been the policy of any civilized nation. Our citizens in great numbers have gone into Mexico to develop its resources and work in its industries, under the implied assurance of our protection. It is impossible for us now, without dishonor, to leave them to be plundered, exiled, and murdered

as they have been by the score.

We have warned off foreign nations from interference with nations on this side of the Atlantic. We have made it clear that any war on our sister republics would be regarded as an act unfriendly to us. We have made it clear to them that their interference to protect their own citizens in Mexico would incur our hostility. We cannot say to Eng land. You shall not protect Englishmen in Mexico and we will not. We might half a century ago have abandoned the Monroe Doctrine. We might have allowed Maximilian to establish a monarchy in Mexico and left England to demand the protection of her citizens from Maximilian-and his sponsor, France. But this we did not do. The foreigners who have settled in Mexico have settled there under our implied obligation to furnish them the protection which we insisted their own Governments should not furnish. Now that our obligation is brought home to us by the persistent violation of their rights,

we cannot with honor, or indeed with safety, cavalierly refuse to recognize and fulfill that obligation.

The great mass of the Mexican people are naturally peaceful. They are too peaceful. It is because they are not fighters that they are plundered, sometimes under the form of law, sometimes by flagrant and undisguised lawlessness. It is true that we are not going to make war against the people of Mexico. If we make war at all, it will be for the people of Mexico; it will be to protect the industrious residents, native and foreign, against men whose sole industry is that of the bandit. It is true that intervention by one nation in the affairs of another nation should be undertaken only in case of dire necessity. But sometimes it ought to be undertaken. Non-intervention is the rule, but is not a universal rule. The European Powers ought to have intervened to prevent the massacres of the Armenians in Turkey. England did right to interfere to prevent monstrous cruelty by Belgians in the Congo.

The wrongs to our own citizens, to the citizens of other nations, and to the Mexicans themselves clamor to us for help. We have preserved the policy of watchful waiting too long. We go to Mexico not to avenge an insult, but to fulfill a duty too long put off.

There are two views of our duty in the present situation, which are presented in strong contrast by the respective utterances of President Wilson and Senator Lodge.

Says President Wilson at the conclusion of his Message:

I, therefore, come to ask your approval that I should use the armed forces of the United States in such ways and to such an extent as may be necessary to obtain from General Huerta and his adherents the fullest recognition of the rights and dignity of the United States, even amid distressing conditions now unhappily obtaining in Mexico.

In contrast with this is the view of Senator Lodge as embodied in his resolution presented to the Senate:

Resolved, That the state of unrestrained violence and anarchy which exists in Mexico, the number of unchecked and unpunished murders of American citizens and the spoliation of their property in that country, the impossibility of securing protection or redress by diplomatic methods in the absence of lawful and effective authority, the inability of Mexico to discharge its international obligations, the unprovoked

indignities inflicted upon the flag and the uniform of the United States by the armed forces in occupation of large parts of Mexican territory, have become intolerable.

That the self-respect and dignity of the United States, and the duties to protect its citizens and its international rights, require that such a course be followed in Mexico by our Government as to compel respect and observance of its rights.

The Outlook thinks the President's view wholly inadequate. It is impossible for Huerta and his adherents adequately to recognize our rights and duties to the state of Mexico. His faction is master only in onehalf of the state. His mastery there is by no means undisputed. If he were to make all amends in his power, his delayed apology would not remove the cause for our action. If he were to surrender to the United States authorities, or were to flee the country, our duty would not be fulfilled. We should still

have to do whatever may be necessary to put a stop to the violence and anarchy which exists in Mexico, to prevent a continuance of the murders of American and foreign residents and the spoliation of their property, and to secure a government under which order would be preserved and the fundamental rights of peaceable, industrial citizens, whether foreign or native, would be reasonably safeguarded.

There is no reason to fear that we shall bring upon ourselves a repetition of England's problem in Ireland, or Germany's problem in Alsace-Lorraine, or Russia's prob lem in Finland. We are not undertaking to conquer Mexico as the English conquered Ireland, or to annex Mexico as the Germans annexed Alsace-Lorraine, or to Americanize Mexico as the Russians are attempting to Russianize Finland. Nor are we under the illusion that as soon as we have occupied the capital we can hand over to the people selfgovernment and then withdraw. The President himself has well said that "self-government is not a thing that can be given to any people, because it is a form of character and not a form of constitution. No people can be given the self-control of maturity."

We do not underestimate the difficulties of the undertaking laid upon the American people. It would be difficult to overestimate those difficulties. It is true that the military campaign may be brief. With energy in the commanderin-chief it cannot take long to overthrow such vestige of government as Huerta now pos

relation to Mexico will not be in the future what it has been in the past. We cannot enter that state for the purpose of protecting the lives and property of American and foreign residents and of peaceable Mexicans and leave our relation to Mexico unchanged. Our fulfillment of present duties will inevitably create new duties. Whether our relation to Mexico becomes like that of England to Egypt, or like that of the United States to Cuba, or a relation somewhere between those two, having undertaken to secure the rights of humanity, we cannot lay down our task until those rights are secured, until there has been established in that land that self-government which, to quote the President again, "follows upon the long discipline which gives a people self-possession, self-mastery, the habit of order and peace, and common counsel, and reverence for law which will not fail when they themselves become the makers of law." 1

Has America as a democracy sufficient moral character and sufficient efficiency to administer justly and successfully a military protectorate? For that is what the Mexican intervention portends. In Egypt, British occupation has meant justice, prosperity, and social welfare for the Egyptians, and peace and welfare for the civilized world. In the Philippines, American occupation has meant that and more; it has meant real and hopeful progress in the education of a people for self-government. To do this in some form,

or to aid the Mexicans in doing this under our protection, is the duty which lies before us. We shall not lay aside our domestic problems in order to fulfill this duty. The maintenance of social justice in Mexico will inspire us to maintain social justice in Colorado. The preservation of law and order in Mexico will help us to preserve law and order in New York. We have been inspired in building our Catskill waterworks by our success in building the Panama Canal. Nevertheless, in adding to our domestic problems this problem of the pacification of Mexico democracy is entering upon its most serious task since the Civil War closed fifty years ago. The Outlook believes that the history of the American people in the past justifies the faith that they have both the courage and the character to fulfill the duty which this new emergency in the National life lays upon them.

These quotations are from Dr. Woodrow Wilson's "Constitutional Government in the United States," 1908. pp. 52, 53.

THE RAILWAYS AND THE

COMMISSION

For several months the railways in a very large part of the United States—the part in which population and traffic are densesthave been seeking to secure the right to raise their freight rates. They cannot exercise that right without the permission of the InterState Commerce Commission. Upon the decision of that body depends in no small degree the course of business. No case that has come before it has illustrated more vividly the Commission's great administrative power.

There are two extreme views of that question. They are graphically presented in the two cartoons on another page. According to one, the railway is a beggared suppliant at the door of an arbitrary and unfeeling Government that has shown them little mercy; and all that they can do is to wait in privation with the hope of a few crumbs from the Government's table. According to the other view the railways are the rich and pampered beneficiary of the people's innocent indulgence, and their new demand is but the attempt to secure as a gift what they ought to be compelled to earn.

As in the case of all extreme views, neither of these is right; but each holds in an exaggerated form a measure of truth. On the one hand, it is true that the railways are now subject to Government control; they are no longer the almost sovereign power they once were, but are subordinate to the sovereignty of the Federal Government. On the other hand, the railways have in years past grown to their present estate under conditions which have, to say the least, not been conducive to economy, and which render it necessary for the Government to see, so far as possible, that railway management is hereafter economical, efficient, and regardful of public rights.

These two aspects of the question involve the Government in two duties. On the one hand, the Government is bound to do justice to the railways. The very fact that it has power to deny to the railways the right to raise their rates creates a corresponding obligation to consent to the increase if it is shown to be right. On the other hand, the Government must protect the public interest. When a private concern in a competitive business finds expenses increasing and profits diminishing, it cannot arbitrarily raise the price of products; for if it does, other concerns will

come into the field, and by better methods of production and more efficient management undersell it. Only after adopting economy and efficiency can such a concern raise its prices with impunity. Now, what competition does for the ordinary business the Government is called upon to do for the railways. That is why the Inter-State Commerce Commission has been hearing, on the one side, the railways' statements concerning diminishing profits, and, on the other side, statements concerning the possibility of greater economy and efficiency.

How stable and experienced a body of men it is by whom this question is to be decided can be judged from a brief statement concerning its membership. It represents the choice of four Presidents. The Chairman, James S. Harlan, of Illinois, was first appointed in 1906 by President Roosevelt; Judson C. Clements, of Georgia, was first appointed in 1892 by President Harrison; Edgar E. Clark, of Iowa, was first appointed in 1906 by President Roosevelt; Charles C. McChord, of Kentucky, and Balthasar H. Meyer, of Wisconsin, were appointed in 1910 by President Taft; Henry C. Hall, of Colorado, and Winthrop M. Daniels, of New Jersey, were appointed this year by President Wilson.

It is fortunate that the Nation has, to deal with this complex question, a Commission in whose impartiality it has confidence.

COUNT OKUMA AGAIN

PRIME MINISTER

The reappearance of Count Okuma as Prime Minister of Japan is dramatic in its significance. In his seventy-seventh year this veteran statesman preserves the intellectual vigor and energy of youth. He has more than once humorously expressed his expectation that he will live to be a hundred and twenty.

For years past Count Okuma has been a kind of general adviser to the Japanese people; a candid friend who has never hesitated to point out their mistakes or the mistakes of the Government; whose position has been so secure in the interest and affection of the country that he has constituted a party by himself. To the visitor from the West he is perhaps the most interesting personality in the Japanese Empire. An Oriental by temperament, instinct, and training, he is a thoroughly modern man in his recognition of