Georgia and the South, warmly expressed appreciation of the work done by the Conferences and especially of the work done by Mr. Ogden. It is not too much to say that Mr. Ogden has put himself in the front rank of the public men in this country; and when the history of the last two decades is written, he will be counted among its statesmen. No scheme for helping a great people in a time of need was ever more generously devised or executed with greater delicacy of feeling and consideration for all interests concerned. The South, which has never lacked in generosity, has come to understand clearly the spirit in which this work has been done. The curiously perverse view of the Charleston News and Courier, one of the most interesting papers in the South, but unfortunately one of the most provincial in its interpretation of National movements, finds very few supporters in that section.

In a letter dictated to and written on the typewriter

FOR THE BLIND by a blind stenographer,

Miss Winifred Holt, Secretary of the New York Association for the Blind, writes to us as follows:

May I correct a statement in the editorial entitled "One Language for the Blind," in the issue of The Outlook for April 17th? It stated that in England there is a bi-weekly article in Braille published in the Daily Mail. The fact is that the Daily Mail publishes a weekly issue for the blind in Braille, which is received at this Association and read with interest by my blind secretary and other sightless members of our staff. The fact that our seekers for "Light through work" at this lighthouse enjoy these foreign publications gives emphasis to the importance mentioned in The Outlook of employing a type for the blind which, like Braille, is related to the blind literature of the world. It may interest your readers to know that we have here examples of Chinese Braille, and that Helen Keller's life has lately been translated into Japanese by Mr. Yoshimoto, who was the representative of the Japanese Government at the International Conference for the Blind held in England last year. After careful investigation of the subject, the New York Board of Education has decided to employ the type known as Improved Braille in the education of blind children going to the public schools. Dr. Maxwell, the Superintendent of Public Schools, has already publicly acknowledged

the indebtedness of the Board of Education to the New York Association for the Blind for information and guidance which the Board of Education has received in its dealing with the important question of the education of sightless children. No philanthropic society in the city deserves public support and interest on the ground of effective work more than the Association of which Miss Holt is Secretary. The proportion of sightless persons in the population is so small that the problem of helping them does not naturally come to public notice, and yet there are six thousand people in the State of New York who cannot see, the majority of whom need help of some kind. The New York Association for the Blind has demonstrated that the kind of help needed is self-help, and the workshops conducted by the Association last year brought in a sufficient revenue to demonstrate this fact. Those in the city of New York who want to see how expert the blind may become, when properly educated, in taking care of themselves should go to one of the performances which are to be given on the afternoon and evening of May 11 at the Hippodrome for the benefit of the Association. At this benefit the public will be able to see, for the first time as far as we know, an industrial exhibition where the blind may be observed at work and at play in the occupations and games practicable for them.

There will be run

ning, swimming, and jumping contests by blind athletes, and industries for the blind in operation as a part of the regular performances. The address of the New York Association for the Blind is 118 East Fifty-ninth Street, where contributions, of which the Association stands in great need for the maintenance of its schools, classes, and other work, may be

country, than that which Dr. Gordon has filled with increasing vigor and growing influence for a quarter of a century. His earliest career was one of marked courage, industry, and promise. He was already a student and thinker when he accepted the call of the Old South. Deliberately choosing to qualify himself for the highest service to which he was called, Dr. Gordon concentrated his energy and thought on his pulpit work and pastoral responsibilities. During his early ministry in Boston he was rarely heard on general occasions, thus setting a conspicuous example to young men of promise upon whom the community makes exhausting drafts at the very beginning of their careers. Planning his life on long lines and broad ones, Dr. Gordon has furnished that leadership in thought which was sorely needed in a period of transition; and Dr. Williston Walker, of Yale University, and Professor Daniel Evans, of Andover Theological Seminary, in their addresses at the celebration emphasized the great value of the constructive work in theology which Dr. Gordon has rendered the Church in this trying and perplexing time by his bold, reverent, and optimistic handling of the intellectual problems of the times. President Eliot recalled his earliest contacts with Dr. Gordon in the various stages of his education, and his own suggestion of Dr. Gordon's name for the Old South pulpit as an illustration of a lasting service rendered by the Puritan college to the Puritan pulpit, and called attention to the many disciples Dr. Gordon had made; men who are carrying on a work which is not only to go forward in Boston, but in the country at large, and to have the largest influence in the future. Dr. Evans declared that sanity, reasonableness, an intensely religious spirit, and freedom from the clerical altitude and temper, explained in large measure the effectiveness of Dr. Gordon's preaching. The Boston Transcript, commenting editorially on the anniversary, speaks of Dr. Gordon as "a great figure in contemporary affairs." Dr. Gordon's success rests on the most substantial foundations, and is a beacon to young men who are eager to make the pulpit, not a place of personal reputation or of the influence of an hour, but of inspiration, interpretation, and leadership.

cently met in Toronto, was one of the most impressive religious gatherings in the history of the continent. More than four thousand men of every class from all parts of the Dominion, representing almost every Church, were present. They came from Vancouver and Victoria on the Pacific coast and from Halifax and St. John's on the Atlantic, and they represented the best quality of citizenship. It was impossible to look at the audience without being impressed by its vigor, intelligence, and capacity; nor was it possible to attend the sessions without receiving an impression of the deep and fruitful religious spirit. This came largely from the consciousness of unity of a common foundation on which all the men present stood. Bishops of the Church of England, the General Superintendent of the Methodist Church, the Moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly, leaders of the Congregational and Baptist Churches, and officers of the Salvation Army sat together with a growing sense of the power resident in a united Christendom; and when the Congress closed with the appeal "To obey is better than sacrifice," the delegates carried to all parts of the Dominion a new sense of the greatness of the opportunity which faces the Christian Church to-day, and a new sense of the power with which a united Christendom can deal with that opportunity.

There were 2,700 lay delegates and 1,500 clergy, representing nearly one million communicants, and after careful consideration of the whole field the Congress decided that Canada ought to raise $4,500,000, of which $1,300,000 was to be spent in home missionary work and $3,200,000 in foreign missionary work. Sir Andrew H. L. Fraser, late Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, a fine representative of the Englishman of action who is also the Englishman of faith, made a number of striking addresses. The Congress adopted a national missionary policy, based on the respon sibility of the laymen, the recognition of the world as the field of every Christian, the duty of the Churches of Canada to evangelize the entire Dominion, the duty of unity and co-operation, and formulated its desire to unite with the Churches of sister

countries throughout Christendom in an adequate crusade for the winning of mankind to Jesus Christ.

Thousands of readers of A FRIEND OF MAN The Outlook will remember the two articles on the "Temperance Tidal Wave" which were published in this journal last year. They will recall the wide range of knowledge they embodied, much of it derived from personal observation and study in many countries. They will recall the power there shown of taking the reader to a point, as it were, above the world, and showing him the current and direction of a great movement among men; they will recall the rare combination there evident of profound conviction with a judicial spirit; and they will recall the liveliness and at the same time the dignity of style. The author of those articles was Dr. Samuel June BarThe qualities that were manifest in those articles characterized all his very effective, very extensive, but far from obtrusive work for humanity. His death last week has diminished perceptibly those forces that are enlisted in the struggle against unhappiness, misery, wretchedness, poverty, and wrong. Those who knew Dr. Barrows now feel not only personal sorrow, but a loss of strength in the face of some of the greatest of modern problems. In particular must they feel that loss of strength as they think of the thousands upon thousands in the prisons of this and other lands. Dr. Barrows's influence toward the transformation of prisons from mere dungeons-places of confinement and instruments of retaliation-to reformatories-places of education and instruments of cure-cannot be estimated. As President of the International Prison Commission, as member of the New York State Commission on New Prisons, and as Corresponding Secretary of the Prison Association of New York, he engaged, not in mere study and discussion of prison conditions, but in the most practical kind of work in actually developing the punitive measures of this and other countries. In this as well as in other kinds of service Mrs. Barrows has been his comrade. There is something finely significant as well as pathetic in the fact that

at the time of Dr. Barrows's death Mrs. Barrows was in Russia on an errand of mercy and freedom. Dr. Barrows's life was a varied one. Starting as a machinist, and later as a telegrapher, he enlisted in the navy during the Civil War, but could not serve because of ill health; he became a reporter, then acted as secretary to Secretary Seward, and continued in the State Department. Entering the Unitarian ministry, he undertook, after five years in the pastorate, the editorship of the Christian Register, which he held for sixteen years. Afterwards he served as a valuable member of Congress; and since 1899 devoted himself principally to prison reform. Dr. Barrows has not only been a contributor to The Outlook, but has been a constantly valuable correspondent. The readers of this journal are more indebted to him than they know.

THE PLAY WITH A PURPOSE

Novels with a purpose have always been with us; but satire rather than social exhortation has been the prevailing tone of the stage; as a rule, depression, if not despair, has attended the first night of the play with a purpose. But within the last year or two (to say nothing of such a drama of spiritual awakening as Mr. Rann Kennedy's remarkable play, "The Servant in the House") there have been several American comedies which touch sharply questions of current economic and political reform. "The Man of the Hour," "The Gentleman from Mississippi," and "The Battle," are alike only in that they deal with dishonest business or political practices, and the keynote of their success is that the playwright in each case has not preached or argued, but has woven into comedy (sometimes even into farce) a moving story of human experience. In Mr. Cleveland Moffett's "The Battle," which has just closed a long run in New York, and will doubtless be seen next season throughout the country, one is not ashamed to be stirred emotionally, while the strain of pathos is quickly and often relieved by hearty laughter. The relation of rich to poor, of millionaire landlord to wretched tenement-dweller, does not seem to offer a specially entertaining subject; but the

author cleverly hits the weaknesses and foibles of both classes; he points out that the poor need more soap and thrift, less beer and pool-tickets; that the rich man needs to give love as well as money; that the East Side has its humors as well as its suffering, and that the millionaire grafter is generally not all horn and hoofs, but largely an embodiment of National disregard to law, as seen in the passenger who cheats the customs, the man who swears off taxes, and the woman in the street-car "who would let her little Willie wear whiskers before she would admit that he ought to pay full fare.” Mr. Wilton Lackaye admirably acts the part of a millionaire living for his own purposes in one of his own tenements, showing the tenants how to hustle, and in the end organizing Socialists, starving women, and tough idlers into a bakers' trust. In his serious moments Mr. Lackaye moved the audience deeply; when the present writer saw "The Battle," in response to half a dozen recalls, Mr. Lackaye made a neat little speech, in which he admitted that "The Battle" didn't attempt to solve social questions, although he would admit an intention to make the audience think, "but not enough to affect the box office receipts ;" and that there was a sneaking hope that the solution might perhaps occur to some young lady in the audience! "Sociologists," to say nothing of "Socialists," are apt to take themselves a little too seriously, and "The Battle" has a good lesson in its playfulness; at one moment it seems that New York's poverty problem is to be solved instanter; one way after another to spend the $10,000,000 contributed by the repentant millionaire malefactor is discarded as impossible or injurious, but he finally produces enormous diagrams and tables of statistics (on which he must have long secretly worked), and-the curtain falls ! "The Battle " is a strong play, and that its dramatic material comes from the rights and wrongs of labor and capital shows that the problem is human and urgent, not academic.

work in which Americans have borne a conspicuous share, and which has engaged the interest and support of literary people on both sides the sea to an unusual degree. The house was purchased two years ago by a committee made up largely of Americans, Edmund Clarence Stedman being the President, and Mr. Robert Underwood Johnson the Secretary. The energy of these two gentlemen, with the active support of a number of influential associates, secured the sum of money necessary to save from further change the house in which Keats died, and to make it a perpetual memorial of two poets intimately associated in the interest of English-speaking peoples. King Victor Emmanuel, the American Ambassador, Mr. Griscom, and the British Ambassador, Sir J. Rennell Rodd, took part in the exercises, the King inspecting every room and showing the greatest interest in the arrangement and furnishing of the house, and expressing the warmest commendation of the initiative of the Americans, who, it will be remembered, furnished one of the rooms as a memorial of Edmund Clarence Stedman. Among those whose presence at the exercises added special interest to the occasion were Arthur Severn, the son of Keats's friend, Joseph Severn; Mrs. MacDowell, the widow of the American composer, to whom Keats was a source of inspiration; a niece of Fenimore Cooper, and Mr. Rudyard Kipling. After indicating briefly the history of the movement, and emphasizing the fact that American generosity was largely responsible for its success, the British Ambassador declared that all the English-speaking poets of the nineteenth century had been inspired by Italy. The house is already enriched by a number of invaluable memorials; among them the Severn miniature, presented by the family of George Keats, brother of the poet, who came to this country and lived in Kentucky; busts of Keats and Shelley from Moses Ezekiel, the sculptor, a Virginian by birth, and the author of the statue of General Lee at Louisville. The house is already rich in original portraits, photographs, original manuscripts, and rare editions. To Mr. Robert Underwood Johnson's enthusiasm and tireless zeal the success of this movement may be said to be chiefly due.

GOVERNMENT AND THE SUGAR TRUST

An unusual amount of space has been given in this issue of The Outlook to a single article the account of the prosecution of the American Sugar Refining Company of New York by the United States Government. This powerful and wealthy corporation has profited by a kind of stealing which in its character can only be compared to pocket-picking. If respect may ever be paid to criminals, it is given only to those criminals who run great personal risk and show great personal courage and virility in the performance of their acts. The sneak-thief is not only clapped into jail when he is apprehended, but he is treated with contempt both by society and by the more manly type of lawbreakers whose code of professional etiquette has given rise to the somewhat anomalous proverb that there is "honor among thieves." It is true that no responsible officer of the American Sugar Refining Company of New York has been convicted of dishonesty; and that the responsible officers disclaim any personal responsibility for the criminal acts for which their company has been punished in court by a fine of $134,000, and compelled to restore to the Government illgotten gains of a million dollars more; but no one can read the article by Mr. Howland entitled "The Case of the Seventeen Holes" without feeling that, though the executive officers of the convicted company have not been convicted of criminal acts, the evidence shows that they were at least guilty of gross neglect in administering the property intrusted to them by their stockholders. Under their direction of this property, subordinates were employed of so untrustworthy a character that their stealings from the Government by sneak-thief methods have resulted in a serious financial loss to the shareholders, and in a loss of corporate character to the company which it will take many years of scrupulous life to regain. As a man is known by the company he keeps, so is a corporation known by the character of the workmen and employees which it engages in its service; and we think the time is soon coming in this country, if it has not

already come, when a self-respecting man can no more afford to have his name connected with a cheating corporation as a director than he can afford to have it connected with a disreputable club or a disorderly house. This appears to us to be

the individual moral which may justly be drawn from what deserves to become a celebrated case in the history of American corporation law on its criminal side.

There are in addition two political morals which may be pointed out. The first is the need of strong and vigorous supervision of corporations. There are those who say that the only function of government is to protect life and property; that commerce and manufactures and transportation are private matters to be carried on between private citizens; that when government enters into the domain of industry it becomes meddlesome and despotic; that business in America should be "let alone." The case of the Ameriican Sugar Refining Company shows how unreasonable such talk is. To be sure, this particular case has nothing directly to do with the regulation of the relations of a corporation to the public or the consumer, and is directly concerned with the relations of such a corporation to the Government itself. But it clearly brings to light the fact that, if the great corporations are "let alone," some of them do not hesitate to stoop to the most dishonorable practices. The conscience which will let a man pick the pockets of Uncle Sam is not likely to interfere when he picks the pockets of his fellow-citizens. For our part, we are glad that there is a Government at Washington centralized enough and skillful enough to make a great American industrial corporation disgorge one million dollars which had been added to its profits by fraud. As citizens we want the power of that centralized Government so maintained and so exercised that our pockets as consumers shall not also be picked.

The second moral is that the so-called

agitation of the last seven years of questions involved in the relations of industrial corporations to the Government, to the public, and to the wage-earner has resulted in achievements of practical efficiency. There has been something more than talk; there have been convic