and of the Women's League for Political Education chose the same afternoon for their visits, on which occasion 225 women, the largest number within the walls in the history of Sing Sing, were shown through the institution-not by guards, but by polite and attentive escorts in convict garb. And

it is only three years ago that the then warden of the prison felt obliged to put a loaded pistol in his pocket when he went into the yard!

There is one unfortunate feature of the honor system in the prisons of the State as at present conducted. Sing Sing is practically a receiving and distributing prison; and, as its cells are filled and other prisoners arrive, it has been the practice to send men convicted as previous offenders to Dannemora, where the old-time rigid methods prevail. The unfortunate feature referred to is that men who are "making good " in the Mutual Welfare League in Sing Sing are likely, in ordinary circumstances, to be sent to the Clinton County prison at any time to relieve congestion in the other institution. Mr. Osborne believes that the old offenders in Dannemora are just as amenable to self-government as the inmates of the other prisons. Indeed, he wished to introduce the League methods there before making the experiment at Sing Sing. perintendent of Prisons Riley, however, felt that the risk would be too great; and, as responsibility rested with the Superintendent, Mr. Osborne did not consider it at all strange that he declined to assume it, particularly as the new system has not yet got beyond the trial stage. Exception has to be made in the case of prisoners suffering with tuberculosis, for the State Hospital for Consumptives is a part of the institution in Clinton County; but Mr. Osborne is now endeavoring to arrange to send the overflow from his institution to Auburn and Great Meadow, and to accommodate some prisoners in a new dormitory he is constructing in the prison yard at Sing Sing.

Su

Perhaps the most daring of all Mr. Osborne's experiments tending to prove the existence of a sense of honor among his brethren of the prisons is the one he told his audience in Cooper Union about at the meeting under the auspices of the New York Board of Education on the evening of April 17. On the occasion when the delegates of the Mutual Welfare League held their last election in the prison court-room,

the count was not finished until after one o'clock in the morning. The Warden then invited the fifty-four delegates to his house; sent for his cook and butler, both of them also convicts, and served a light supper. The Warden's house, which has no bars on windows or doors, is outside the prison walls; there was no guard within a hundred feet of it; the New York Central Railroad tracks are just under the windows on one side, and the public highway on the other. After their repast the fifty-six prisoners, whose sentences ranged from a few years to life, returned quietly to their cells.

THE ATTACK ON THE
GULFLIGHT

Misunderstanding is at the bottom of most quarrels. There should be no misunderstanding between this country and Germany about the case of the Gulflight. Our Government can best perform its duty to the people of this country by coming to an understanding with Germany on this matter as speedily as possible. Germany and the United States may not agree, but Germany and the United States should clearly understand each other's position.

To that end the United States Government should without delay inform Germany— That it regards the attack on the Gulflight as of great gravity.

That it is instituting a prompt and searching investigation of the facts.

That if the Gulflight was, as reported, attacked on the high seas by a German submarine without warning, with consequent loss of life, the United States will take the following position:

For such an attack the promise of money reparation is not sufficient. This is not a breach of international rules which can be settled, as in the case of the Frye, by the payment of damages. It is disregard of elementary international morals. It therefore cannot be made a matter of money.

For such an attack disavowal of intent to do injury to the United States is not sufficient. We are not suspicious of our neighbors, and we are willing to believe Germany if she says that she meant no harm to us. That, however, is not the point. The point is that the harm has been done to us, and has been done in such a way as to be an

FREE PUBLIC LIBRAKE

SANTA ROSA, CAN

1915

infringement of not only our rights but of human rights.

For such an attack the plea that it was due to accident or gross carelessness in mistaking a neutral merchantman for a belligerent merchantman is not sufficient. To attack without warning non-combatants, whether of a neutral or a belligerent nation, is not war; it is a crime. If done deliberately, it puts the combatant who does it on the plane of the pirate and the highwayman. It is a settled point of law that if a man undertakes to commit murder, but through mistaken identity kills another than his intended victim, he is not absolved from murder, but is guilty. He cannot plead that it was an accident or a blunder. The fact that a submarine commander intended to attack a belligerent merchantman unawares does not absolve him from crime if he attacks by mistake a neutral merchantman, for his original intent was criminal.

If, therefore, it proves to be true that the Gulflight was attacked by a German submarine, and as a consequence Americans lost their lives, the United States will not be satisfied with either a promise of indemnity, or a disavowal of intending injury to America, or a plea of accident or blunder. The United States will in that case be satisfied only with assurance from Germany that she will henceforth desist from attacking without warning and without full provision for safety of passengers and crews all merchantmen, whether neutral or belligerent, and accompany that assurance with satisfactory evidence that she will do as she says. If Germany declines to give such assurance and another such "accident" occurs, the United States will, without further notification, feel free to take such action as her safety, her interests, and the public law of nations may require.

Such a statement of the position of the United States can be phrased, we believe, with such courtesy that it need give no offense, but with such clearness that it can afford no chance of misunderstanding.

Our Government has been so obviously intent on maintaining peaceful and friendly relations with all nations that it is possible that other nations may take the view that our people are easy-going, timid, and incapable of resenting wrong. In such a view there is peril. Our Government has been so ready during this war to overlook infringement of human rights, as in the case of Belgium, and so reluctant to protest on any matters that cannot

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be settled on a financial basis, that other nations may take the view that Americans are money-minded and ready to compromise any question for a fee. In that view there is peril.

We shall avoid peril, not invite it, by a full, frank, and prompt expression at this time of the real American spirit.

A WARNING

The Republican leaders, at least in the Eastern States, do not seem to remember the lesson that was taught them with some severity and vividness in 1912. In that year a Democratic President was elected by a minority popular vote, because four million men who ordinarily voted the Republican ticket would not tolerate the reactionary or "standpat" leadership in the Republican party.

We agree with the Republican leaders that there is growing dissatisfaction with the Democratic Administration. But if they think that President Wilson, who without question will be the nominee of his party in 1916, can be beaten by any boss-made Republican candidate they are hopelessly mistaken.

It is with some of the policies and not with the personality of President Wilson that the country is dissatisfied. Under the severe test which is applied to any President, Mr. Wilson has proved himself to be a man of personal integrity, intellectual ability, and high ideals. Our criticism of him is based, not on his ideals, but on the fact that he has not put these ideals into practice with effectiveness or consistency. But he can be beaten only by a man who has equally high ideals, and who can convince the country that he will more effectively translate ideals into deeds. Standpatism and reaction will no more succeed in 1916 than they did in 1912, although some of the Republican leaders appear to think they will.

Is this an unjust statement? If so, why has Senator Penrose been proclaimed as a Presidential candidate at a machine Republican dinner in Pennsylvania; or why has the Republican majority in the New York Legislature adopted "steam-roller methods" of legislation that have already thrown large numbers of progressive Republicans into open revolt; or why has Senator Root-the ablest, most distinguished, and most representative Republican leader of the time—as Chairman of the Constitutional Convention

of New York, appointed the already discredited William Barnes as chairman of the important Committee on Legislation, and Martin Saxe, a typical machine Republican, chairman of the important Committee on Taxation? In view of the revelations at Syracuse we wonder why Mr. Root did not put Mr. Barnes in charge of the printing and stationery of the Constitutional Convention. He appears to be an expert in printing contracts.

The fact that men like Mr. Wickersham, late Republican Attorney-General, and Mr. Stimson, late Republican Secretary of War, are also chairmen of important committees in the Convention cannot offset the Barnes appointment. It seems as if Senator Root deliberately intended to notify the country by the appointment of Mr. Barnes that Old Guardism and reaction are still elements approved of by the National leaders. The Republican party will be beaten in 1916and will deserve to be beaten-if it nominates a man who has been tainted in the BarnesPenrose-Lorimer school of politics. Senator Root may think that the Progressive Party is dead. Perhaps it is. But the progressive voter is still very much alive.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT AND THE BOSSES

It did not require a suit at law to establish the fact that Theodore Roosevelt has worked with the Republican machine and with Republican bosses. He ought to have worked with them; he has worked with them; and he has openly and habitually affirmed the fact.

Whoever works with an organization must work in co-operation with the representatives of the organization, whether he likes them or dislikes them, approves them or disapproves them, believes in them or disbelieves in them. The bishop must work with the priests and the priests with the bishop; the railway president must work with the division superintendents and the division superintendents with the president; the principal must work with the teachers and the teachers with the principal. The bishop may think the priest too broad, the priest may think the bishop too narrow, the president may think the superintendent incompetent, the superintendent may think the president a martinet, the principal may dislike the teacher and the teacher may hate the principal; none the less, so long as

they belong to the same organization they must work together.

No man can be an organization man and a free lance at the same time.

The Constitution requires the President to act with the advice and consent of the Senate. In doing so he must act in conference with the Senators whom the States select to represent them-with Lorimer from Illinois, Penrose from Pennsylvania, Platt from New York. As he must confer with whatever ambassador any foreign country sends as its representative, whatever may be the manners or the morals of the ambassador, so he must counsel with whatever Senator the State sends as its representative, whatever he may think of the morals or manners of the Senator.

For precisely the same reason and in precisely the same manner the official head of a political party-whether Mayor, Governor, or President-must act with the party organization and with the men whom the party organization chooses as its representatives. Democracy necessitates parties; parties cannot act without organization; the organization cannot act without representatives. If the official head of the party is to act at all, he must act in co-operation with his organization and in consultation with its representatives. He must either do that or break away from his party; and that means that he must form a new party with a new organization and new representatives.

The dust with which ingenious lawyers at Syracuse are attempting to befog the issue in the case of Barnes vs. Roosevelt will not befuddle the American people, and we do not think it will befuddle the jury. The question is not, Did Mr. Roosevelt work with Platt and Barnes ? No one doubts that he did. The question is, Did he work with them to promote the public welfare or to promote private interests ?

Mr. Barnes endeavored to get Mr. Roosevelt's influence against the organization of a State Printing Bureau because he wanted to keep the State printing in his own establishment. He failed. Mr. Platt wanted Mr. Roosevelt to reappoint Mr. Payn Superintendent of Insurance. Mr. Roosevelt refused. To get the Senate to confirm the appointment of a man in whom he had confidence he selected three such men from the Republican organization, and allowed Mr. Platt to choose one of the three. He succeeded, because Mr. Platt could not have rejected all three without

getting into difficulty with his own organization.

It does not require any extraordinary political sagacity to see the difference in these two kinds of co-operation, and in the motives and purposes of these two men.

Whether Mr. Roosevelt has libeled Mr. Barnes is a question we leave the jury to decide. But the question whether it was corrupt for Mr. Roosevelt to use the political machine and the political boss to promote the public welfare is not a question at all, however much Mr. Barnes and his allies, the political Pharisees, desire to make it a question.

THE LESSON OF ASCENSION

DAY

In a New England burial-ground is a century-old lament of Christian parents at the grave of their daughter. The stone, topped with an effigy of a weeping willow and the motto, "Memento Mori,' "bears beneath its record of the departed life these hopeless lines:

"The die is cast. My hope, my fear,
My joy, my pain, lie buried here.
And, reader, you erelong must try
This dreaded change as well as I.
Nor can a courteous ghost reveal
What I have felt and you must feel."

This bereaved father was a deacon of the village church.

The Puritan pastors of the old New England churches drew their sermons more from Old Testament texts than from the New, in which life and immortality were first brought Christian hymns still sung in to light. churches represent the faithful dead as sleeping in the grave, as waiting in some intermediate state for the resurrection call of "the last trump."

Even Christ's Apostles, as their sermons and letters show, long thought of him alone as risen above the underworld of the dead with its prison and its paradise

"that still garden of the souls, Where many a figured leaf enrolls

The total world since Time began."

Peter thought of him, not as having risen to heaven from the cross, but as in that underworld till the third day, preaching to "the spirits in prison." Forty days were required to show his disciples after his successive

reappearances and vanishings, culminating in his final disappearance upward, what resurrection really is the rising up of the spirit into a higher world. Of this great reality Ascension Day is the abiding memorial, as Easter is of the first of Ascension Day's preparatory lessons to minds obsessed with the traditional belief of centuries in an underground waiting-room for "the last day" and the resurrection trumpet.

Look up is the Ascension call to these downcast eyes and thoughts. Lift up your hearts with theirs who saw their beloved Master leaving them to face a hostile world. Thenceforth their thought of him in the glory of his heavenly life glorified every place of his earthly companionship with the presence of the promised Comforter.

Like men who intellectually believe the heliocentric astronomy of Copernicus, but practically retain the geocentric ideas of Ptolemy, are many believers in the resurrection of Christ, to whom it has practically become "a dead fact stranded on the shore of the oblivious years." How can it regain for them the gave its eye-witnesses ? Not otherwise than as they live themselves into it anew, endeavoring, like Paul, to know the power of

uplifting power it

his resurrection to raise the believer's thought from the earthly to the heavenly life.

Bereavement itself naturally prompts to this, even while we pay nature's debt of tears. This is no small part of the divine intent. It works through the unbroken human sympathies that unite the earthly and the heavenly friend. One of the stanzas of "In Memoriam" describes its effect upon the circle round the Christmas hearth that sang with dim eyes as they remembered a merry song we sang with him last year." "Our voices took a higher range; .

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day to day. We rejoice with their rejoicing in release from grinding toil and fretting cares, and they with ours in the home that they have left. So should thought follow the beloved who have gone beyond the mortal boundary. A common interest in the kingdom of God unites us still. They and we

Thus

together look up to the Father of all. must disconsolate hearts school themselves to learn the lesson of the promised Comforter, the lesson of Ascension Day, the transference of bereaved affection from the past to the present and the future, from mortal to immortal joy.

A

MONTANA paper, the Missoula "Missoulian " (Prog.), chronicles the fact that "Theodore Roosevelt is now having the first bit of political luck to come his way in over two years," and adds:

To be sued by Boss Barnes for $50,000 damages in a libel suit cannot be accounted anything but good luck to a man so well able as Roosevelt to make friends on the strength of his enemies.

Neither in the answer filed nor in his testimony on the witness stand has the Colonel retraced one step from the position he took last July, when he issued the statement forming the basis for Barnes's present suit, and in which Roosevelt said: "The interests of Mr. Barnes and Mr. Murphy are fundamentally identical, and when the issue between popular rights and corrupt and machine-ruled government is clearly drawn, the two bosses will always be found fighting on the same side, openly or covertly giving one another such support as can with safety be rendered. These bosses do not hold public offices which they control. Yet they really form the all-powerful invisible government which is responsible for the administration and corruption in the public offices of the State."

In its best Northwesternese the Sault St. Marie "News" (Prog.) says that "Barnes has given the Colonel the chance of the past two years, and the famous resident of Oyster Bay is eating this chance alive." The Michigan paper continues :

Those who are writing the trial tell us the Colonel hasn't missed a trick yet, and that he does not propose to do so.

No disparagement of Mr. Ivins is intended, but the Colonel is toying with this famous lawyer -in the merriest sort of mood-as the cat does with the mouse. We do not guess this. We have Mr. Ivins's word for it, for has he not objected to being treated "as a mass-meeting"? Bless you, sir, you are merely a victim of the worst "bonehead" Barnes has been credited

with in his entire political career, and in the meantime one T. Roosevelt is giving to the public a clever movie of how to enjoy life even at some one else's expense.

When John Wilkinson gave the name to Syracuse a hundred years ago, because of its likeness to ancient Syracuse, remarks the Washington "Herald" (Ind.), he little thought that here would be fought out a great legal battle in which Greek met Greek; and when De Witt Clinton built the Erie Canal he had no premonition that upon its banks would be argued at length his great policy: "To the victor belongs the spoils." The "Herald" further remarks:

When Justice Andrews, Colonel Roosevelt, ' and Mr. Barnes were studying at Harvard, they dreamed not that in after years one of them would sit in judgment on the other two. But these things have come about, and the political battle of a generation is going on in Syracuse and near the place where Thurlow Weed published his first newspaper.

What is this battle? Nominally, a libel suit, but really a test of the principles that have governed the political parties of New York State for a century. Who are the contending forces? William Barnes, Jr., and Theodore Roosevelt, foremost citizens, educated in the first university of the land, who by heredity and environment ought to be the examples for thousands of their fellow-citizens. What was the primary cause of the battle? Political supremacy in State and Nation, and nothing else. In politics both parties were reared in the same school, both followed its teachings; the commanding position held by both makes the affair one of National importance, and the question naturally arises, Why did these foremost citizens allow themselves to be drawn into this struggle?

MR. ROOSEVELT'S PERSONALITY
The "Herald" continues:

Theodore Roosevelt is a man sui generis in American life. As a farmer, a ranchman, a hunt