schemers and plunderers. To him as much as to any one else is due the reform movement which is sweeping over Philadelphia at present. He is a candidate for Commissioner on the ticket of the City party. A vigorous Republican, he stands as an implacable foe of the Republican ring. He has interfered with the plans of the bosses to take advantage of popular apathy for their own enrichment; he therefore belongs among those who are strengthening the foundations on which popular government rests.

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The enmity of the bosses which Mr. Blankenburg has gained by opposing graft," Mr. Everett Colby, of Essex County, New Jersey, has won by fighting against predatory corporations. For several years various towns in the county have been granting perpetual franchises to trolley companies, by which-in several cases for a nominal sum, in others for no remuneration at all-these companies receive a charter to run their lines through the thoroughfares forever. Other people besides Mr. Colby have known that when a town does that it hands over to a private concern values which belong to the public; but Mr. Colby determined to make it an issue. Moreover, according to the laws of New Jersey, a small house owner pays three or four times the rate in taxes that a railroad pays for the real estate and other property which it owns. Others besides Mr. Colby saw the injustice of this, but Mr. Colby determined that it should be assailed. So he announced himself a candidate for the State Senate on the issue of "limited franchises and equal taxation." He made no attack on bosses as such; he did make an attack on these specific evils-and he found himself at enmity with the bosses. It is clear how this happened. The present conditions are, financially, of extraordinary value to the corporations concerned. These corporations saw to it that "the machine" which turned out ballots to the voters was repaid for the trouble of maintaining these conditions. When Mr. Colby, therefore, attacked the conditions, he attacked the machine. He is a Princeton man, not many years out of college, an excellent sportsman, a Wall Street

broker, the possessor of large wealth, the son of a prominent railroad man. He rather accidentally drifted into politics. Once in public life, however, he was by no means aimless. He set himself to the task nearest at hand. He became an Assemblyman; and now, in spite of the opposition of the party boss, he is the Republican candidate for the State Senate, and is virtually assured of election. He has aroused the people of his district in an 19 "off year as they are seldom aroused in Presidential years. He has summoned them to look to the foundations of their government. In doing this he has served the entire Nation. As Mr. Colby has assailed predatory wealth in New Jersey, so Mr. Jerome has assailed predatory vice and crime in New York. He has for four years been District Attorney for New York County, and now in whatever direction he moves the reptiles scurry for their holes. He, too, has found that by doing his duty he has incurred the enmity of the bosses; for it is the shame of New York that lawlessness has found a not always unwilling ally in the body of men who manipulate the instruments of government. Four years ago, when Mr. Jerome was a candidate for his present office, he made lawlessness an overshadowing issue. Now that he is candidate for re-election he has announced himself, although a convinced Democrat, as free from any party entanglements, and thereby has made bossism, as well as lawlessness, an issue upon which the voters must render a verdict. It is not merely picturesqueness that has made Mr. Jerome a National figure; it is his power to win supporters in a local political contest.

These five men, Governor Warfield, Judge Lewis, Mr. Blankenburg, Mr. Colby, and Mr. Jerome men of dissimilar temperaments, living under dissimilar environments, engaged in dissimilar contests, and differing in party allegiancehave come by different roads to the same point: opposition to selfish ring rule.

They are all of them National figures because they are concerned with the preservation of that principle of local self-government upon which the permanence of the Nation depends.

A

BRILLIANT July day in London. The trees in Hyde Park blue-green in the heat. The seats in the shade, and even those in the blazing sun, crowded with people. The drive thronged with carriages, the majority of which were automobiles, whose occupants represented the gay world, unusually late in seeking their summer. homes or cooler air-that part of society whose work is pleasure and whose pleasure work.

A good deal of attention was given by passers-by to one stream of vehicles gathered round a house standing alone in Park Lane—that road facing the Park whose name has become another word for wealth and fashion. The house is a square, massive building with a pillared portico, approached by a red graveled drive. As the long line of carriages dragged slowly along under police supervision, many of their occupants left them and walked the few steps to the door of the house, thus shortening their journey by fifteen or twenty minutes. Probably a greater number than is usual in London followed this plan, for this was an assemblage of American citizens, and they have a way of shortening distances. It was an occasion of special significance, for not only was it the annual Fourth of July reception, with which citizens of the United States resident in London celebrate with delightful frankness their Declaration of Independence, but it was the first reception given by the American Ambassador, Mr. Whitelaw Reid, after his assumption of office. There was another significance, one of a different character, to be attached to the day, for the death of Mr. John Hay had caused the postponement of the recep

tion to a later date than the Fourth. This loss of the old friend with whom he had enjoyed over forty years of close union and harmony had cast a deep shadow over the early days in London of the new Ambassador, and was doubtless in his mind and that of Mrs. Reid at times as they graciously received their guests and the guests of their country. Dorchester House is probably the largest and most palatial residence occupied in Europe by the Ambassador of any coun

try. It is the property of Captain Holford, who has the name of being the wealthiest commoner in England, and who has been a close personal friend of King Edward since his youth. For some years the building remained unoccupied on account of its size, the expense entailed in occupying it being so great that it could be borne only by a man of great wealth. man of great wealth. This consideration is doubtless one that would have its due weight in causing the abandonment of the idea of its purchase by the American people as the permanent home of their Ambassador in London. There is no doubt, however, that never before has the home of the American Ambassador in London been so well suited to the purposes which now play so important a part in international relationships. At purely American receptions, when the general desire is that the National family party should include all its exiled members, previous residencies have considerably taxed the strategic powers of those who were responsible for maneuvering the forces. And, as usual, it was the commissariat department that felt the strain most acutely. Startling incidents took place. Sandwiches were surreptitiously imported by enterprising