machine men, and also laid bare the colonizing of illegal voters in disreputable resorts. So great was the clamor against these open attempts to give legal aid to the forces of evil, and so much was said about the effect of one of the bills in the smaller towns, that the machine had to smother them in the Senate committee. It is unthinkable that Governor Pennypacker would have approved this vicious legislation, though Senator Penrose told a 66 country" legislator, in urging upon him these bills, that the Governor had promised to sign them. "I thought he was lying," the member told me.

It is not difficult to have meritorious or reform legislation introduced in Pennsylvania. Indeed, the "organization" (as the machine calls itself) is glad to have the credit of presenting good bills. Sometimes they have been even allowed to pass either the Senate or the House, being then hung up in a committee of the remaining branch, there to die. In this way the vital matter of personal registration, upon which Pennsylvania's salvation from a corrupt ballot depends, and which has been directly authorized by the people through a Constitutional amendment, requiring only a legislative enactment to put it in force, has been quietly killed for several sessions.

A local option bill was also buried in committee, despite the urgency of large delegations and the general approval of the press of the State. It is reliably stated that this shelving of a measure that would have endangered the liquor interests was arranged in connection with a gift of one hundred thousand dollars to the resources of the machine. On the contrary, the judges' retirement measure, aimed at some upright judges in Philadelphia, was forced through the House, but later killed because of the clamor in the "country.". It would have given the organization control of the judiciary in the larger cities.

Death in committee is the convenient and impersonal way in which legislation not favored by the boss is disposed of. No one can be held directly responsible, no one goes on record, and the proposed bill is painlessly smothered.

This was illustrated in regard to an

obviously necessary and desirable extension of the park surrounding Pennsylvania's new four-million-dollar capitol building, now nearing completion. The people of the State were generally in favor of the extension, as shown by the newspapers, and by the unanimity of the legislators in commending the plan when the session began. Governor Pennypacker had suggested the desirability of the extension in his message. A bill was promptly introduced in the Senate and passed. It went in the House Appropriation Committee while Mr. Durham was at Palm Beach-and there it expired! Senator Penrose was said to favor it; but when it was found that the money required would cut down the balances in some of the machine banks too much, he turned on the chloroform, and the "Fox Bill" perished.

This last item touches the mainspring of the power of the machine—the cash balance of Pennsylvania, theoretically in the State Treasury. For nearly a year the amount in the general and sinking funds has averaged over sixteen millions of dollars, which is deposited in about two hundred banks, all over the State. Five or six" active "accounts are maintained, the remainder of this vast sum of money being deposited, absolutely by favor, and in lump sums, wherever it will most extend the boss's influence. It was the disposition and use of some of this money that the late Senator Quay referred to when he sent his famous telegram to the Keystone Bank in Philadelphia, promising that if certain stocks were purchased and held for him, he would "shake the plum-tree” again, as he had before.

The selection of the banks which are to hold the State's money is legally within the control of the State Treasurer, who is also personally responsible for it. Actually, the organization does the selecting, not only of the banks, but of the State Treasurer. For instance, a flourish of flags and a boom of bands signalized the meeting of the Republican State Convention on April 26, at which Mr. J. L. Plummer, who had been the serviceable Chairman of the House Appropriation Committee in the Legislature of 1904-05, was nominated for State Treasurer, There was no enthusiasm except

Thus the perfection of organization is shown; for here is Mr. Plummer, who was lieutenant of appropriations all winter, now to be made lieutenant of bank deposits. If the State at large, in the improbable event of the nomination by the Democrats of a sincerely capable candidate, should show restlessness, it will only be necessary to enlarge the Philadelphia majority by a few thousand extra ballots, conveniently counted as having been cast by voters whose names are "padded" into the registration lists by wholesale, but who are never present in person.

It is not generally known, I believe, that the great majorities produced in Philadelphia by Quaker apathy and by fraudulent voting keep the "machine" in control of the Republican State Conventions. Instead of the representation to these conventions being in proportion to the legislative apportionment, it is related to the Republican votes cast. Thus twenty or thirty thousand extra majority in Philadelphia above the normal adds to the packing of the next Republican convention, leaving the really honest "country" delegates powerless.

The power of the boss is enforced through a modified control of the Federal appointments, a positive mastery of the government and finances of the great. city of Philadelphia, with ten thousand city employees, an absolute possession of the State offices, the handling of the forty millions of biennial appropriations, and the swinging of the sixteen millions average State cash deposits, as noted above. The management of the latter is by an interestingly simple system.

A bank somewhere in the State needs to use more money than it has. It applies to the State Treasurer for a time deposit of State cash. If the banker is apparently "right," he gets a depositfrom five thousand dollars up to a halfmillion, the latter only for a great city

bank that has much "influence." After a while there is a campaign to be conducted, and the banker receives a letter from the Republican State Chairman courteously inviting him to contribute. He contributes, of course; and usually he knows just what amount is expected of him.

Occasionally even this admirably organized machine slips a cog, as it did in one instance of which a very wealthy banker told me. This time the money, $50,000, had been deposited in the bank in question without noting the fact that the banker is a Democrat as well as a machine fighter. "We received a request for a campaign contribution," said my friend, "to which we replied at once that we never made any such contributions. There was no answer, but a week later the State Treasurer took out $10,000 of the money, and he kept taking $10,000 a week until it was all withdrawn. We have had no State deposits since." The machine error had been corrected!

But there is another way in which the bank deposits help keep things smooth. An'acquaintance, whose business I must not mention, for obvious reasons, told me that during the administration of a former machine Governor he had written to the Governor a letter of commendation at an apparently sincere onslaught the latter was making upon a contractor for State supplies whose methods were notoriously bad. He had also, being intimately acquainted with the work of this contractor, suggested to the Governor how a reform might be effected and much money saved to the State. "Within a week," he told me, "after my letter had been courteously acknowledged by the Governor, the banker who held my loans-which I was not prepared to repay at sight-sent for me and intimated that I had better mind my own affairs, and let Mr. C alone. I made no more suggestions, but I could not help wondering how the banker got to know of the letter to Governor HI had not told any one of it."

How did the banker find out? The "organization" could answer!

I have spoken of "the appropriation lash." As all bills introduced into the Legislature carrying money must be acted

upon by the appropriation committee, the chairman of that committee is a very powerful man, and he is always a highgrade lieutenant of the boss. When an incorruptible member from an outlying county, who cannot be coaxed by any ordinary means to vote for legislation of which he does not approve, happens to want something for his home hospital, or desires to advance a piece of legislation he is pledged to by his constituents, he finds himself tied hand and foot. The Speaker will seldom recognize him; he is placed only on unimportant committees that may not even organize, and he is without opportunity or influence. After he has felt the lash, and has seen the session passing without the legislation he must have to satisfy his constituents being considered, he is in the mood to understand a hint that if he will be less intractable there may be a change. He agrees, and, lo! the Speaker sees him, his bills come out of committee, and he is saved!

One of the specious arguments used was repeated to me by an honest member, serving his first term, and writhing under his submission to the "appropriation lash." Why shouldn't I vote for the Philadelphia ripper bills," he said, "when every member from Philadelphia is in favor of them? Surely they ought to know what their own city wants !" And then, with satisfaction, "I got my hospital appropriation through, and the Governor has promised to sign the bill !"

The appropriation lash is long, and it is swung mercilessly for a month after the Legislature adjourns. This year just five hundred measures, including all of the main appropriations, were rushed through at the last moment, and turned over to the Governor for consideration. Any bill he does not veto within thirty days becomes law without his signature, and even a hard-working, contradictorily conscientious Governor like Mr. Pennypacker can be pardoned for finding it almost impossible properly to scan all this mass of legislation. Honestly or otherwise, he played absolutely into the hands of the machine this year in his treatment of this plethora of potential laws, for he left the appropriation bills to the

very last, approving or vetoing others as his reason or his fancy dictated.

This postponement of the final disposal of the appropriations, with the open statement that the machine leadersPenrose, Durham, Walton-had been called to Harrisburg to "consult with the Governor about reductions considered necessary (the Governor having power to reduce or to eliminate items in the appropriations), gave the final touch of the lash for the session of 1904-05, and it was used remorselessly. It was said that the appropriations, aggregating over forty-five millions of dollars, must be cut down about five millions to come within the estimated revenue of the State for the next two years. years. The cut was decidedly oblique, and not horizontal!

For instance, small appropriations for the erection of statues to Generals Scott, Geary, St. Clair, and Hartranft were vetoed in full, while a bill to provide $20,000 for the erection of a statue of the late Senator Quay in the Capitol Park was approved. Thus this archboss, who barely escaped, by the use of his power, legal conviction for "shaking the plum-tree" while alive, is to be held. up for future generations as a model in enduring marble! It has been suggested that the statue would be much more interesting if it represented the late but not lamented Senator in the act of shaking the plum-tree.

This incomprehensible Governor's appropriation-cutting is peculiar. To the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, of which he is President, he gave the full $100,000 of the appropriation, but from the five State institutions caring for the indigent insane, fearfully overcrowded and needing extension (there are poor, demented inmates in these who do not have beds in which to sleep alone !), he cut $532,000, or 31 per cent. To the Valley Forge Commission he gave the full $115,815-he is fond of history!

shall redeem the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and make it in some measure a self-governing community.

That the time is ripe is shown by the unrest among the " country " members of the Legislature during the last session, and by many other signs. A serious proposal was made to divide the State, a few weeks ago, in order to let Philadelphia rot alone, without further involving five millions of citizens who would do better if they could. The hopelessness of obtaining a personal registration law, and thus giving a chance for a fair ballot, so long as Philadelphia must furnish the majorities to negative the reform impulses of the rest of the State, gives point to this proposition.

These "country " members formed an organization for resisting the machine, but, lacking the man to lead it, dissolved under the appropriation lash.

That man whom we need, and for whom fame is waiting, must be incorruptible, able, energetic, and wealthy. A poor man cannot fight these cunningly disposed millions, backed by corporations and by intrenched office-holders. He must be wise and strong, patient and good-tempered. It is a fight to tempt the right man and to stir the blood of those who think of what it means. The time is ripe, the need is great, and the end in view is noble. Where is the man-he who is to be savior of Pennsylvania?

T

O an American it seems almost incredible that conditions such as exist in Russia are possible. Our lives are so wound up with the "inalienable" rights that we can hardly imagine a state of affairs in which these are denied to the people. It may help us to understand Russian conditions if I say that the events narrated below constitute my earliest recollections. They loom up black and terrible out of the vacancy of unconscious childhood. When I was too young to grasp what was going on around me, these events impressed themselves so strongly on my mind that I have never been able to forget them. And now, after fifteen years of residence in this country, they come back to me with all their fear and horror.

There were five in our family-mother, father, two older brothers, and I. We had been living in Revel, a summer resort on the Baltic Sea, in the province of Courland. Reversals in business compelled my father to emigrate to America. Under the law of the land this took away from my mother the right to a passport, without which it is unlawful to live anywhere in Russia except your

birthplace. As my mother's native village was a small place where it would have been impossible for her to make a living for her little family, she resolved to move to the large marketing town of Riga, where, among the three hundred thousand inhabitants, the police were not likely to find a person without a passport.

Here, my oldest brother, then thirteen, was apprenticed to a tailor; my second brother, about eleven years of age, and I were left with relatives while my mother went peddling in the market. Only those who have lived in Russia can know what a precarious existence this meant for us. No felons are hunted more persistently in this country than are the innocent people without passports in Russia. The authorities possess the right to raid and search a house at any time of the day or night if they suspect that a person without a passport is hidden there. We had no passports, and for that reason might be apprehended by the police at any moment and sent back to my mother's birthplace with the étape, which is chain-gang of all kinds of lawbreakers traveling through

the country via wayside prisons. Under these circumstances it would never do for us to hire rooms to live in; so my mother stayed a week with one of us at one relative's house, while the other slept at another relative's. The next week we changed around; the third week we went to other friends, and so

on.

Many a night did we pass the greater part of the time in walking around the streets, for, being warned that suspicion had been aroused and a nocturnal raid was liable to be made, we preferred the cold streets to an uncertain bed. Often on such nights, when the cold was intense and our clothing none too warm, when all doors were closed to us, we would wander along the river front, where the streets were darkest. Then, with the unreasonableness of a child, I would cry for sleep, and my mother would try to soothe me, and then she would break down and cry, and I am sure many is the time that she must have thought of throwing herself into that river and ending it all. In fact, I have often wondered what could have restrained her. She certainly had provocation enough.

One Saturday morning, without any warning whatever, a police officer came up to the house where my mother and I were staying, and told us that we would have to go with him. As she had done on several similar occasions previously, my mother offered him a bribe, but he said this time he could not take it, because we had been reported at headquarters to be living without passports. And so, without bidding good-by to my brothers, we went by étape to my mother's native village. It was two months before we returned to Riga again, although the distance might have been covered in less than a day. To travel by étape is to travel in a unique way, and only Russian police could have evolved such a system. It is as if a person being sent from New York City to Philadelphia should have to travel up New York State to Albany, then to Buffalo and down into Pennsylvania to Pittsburg, working back finally to Philadelphia, and stopping at every wayside town on the way. The traveling, too, is not done in railroad cars; most of it is on foot. In our case, how

ever, the spectacle of a weak woman and a child of four or five trudging along sore-footed often excited sympathy, so that we were sometimes given a seat in a springless wagon; but usually we had to walk five or ten miles at a time, in company with the gang of thieves, murderers, and criminals of all types. Our food was black bread and water.

Within a week after we had bidden farewell to the chain-gang at my mother's home town we were again in Riga, living as before.

But the most vivid impressions of my childhood in Russia which I retained are those made upon me by the events attending upon our escape from Russia. For, strange as it may seem, Russia does not allow any one to leave the country without permission. It matters not to the Czar's authorities that you have been denied a passport allowing you to live anywhere in Russia. You cannot live where you choose. You must not emigrate. You must live where you were

born.

We had traveled by rail to a small village near the German frontier. Here we found ourselves among several other families, all to be smuggled across the frontier into Germany. On a dark night, in a drizzling rain, we started out; first the guides, then the women with the children, and behind them the men. The picture comes back to me now-the swampy valley through which we walked, with the hills on the right and the forests on the left. Fugitives from our native land, we were worked up to the highest pitch of excitement by the prospect of soon being beyond the reach of the Czar. We trembled at every sound. Now and then the dark outline of a sentinel with a gun on his shoulder could be made out at the top of a hill. Then there was a halt, followed by breathless listening, but soon we proceeded on our way.

Suddenly a shrill cry of distress was heard, whch sent a cold chill up every one's back. The guides cursed and ran back to see what was the matter. A woman had slipped from the boards upon which we had been walking and had fallen into a swampy pool. Young as I was, I could not look upon her without