MR. ROOSEVELT AND THE PEOPLE

In the first week of Mr. Roosevelt's journey to the West, extending from New York to Cheyenne, he met and addressed many thousands of the American people, who received him with the heartiest personal enthusiasm and who listened attentively and with many marks of approval to his utterances on subjects of National importance, as well as in some cases of peculiar local interest. At Utica, for instance, in prefacing his remarks, before a great gathering of farmers and their families, in relation to rural life-the substance of which to a large extent was included in Mr. Roosevelt's editorial on this topic in The Outlook of last week-he welcomed the presence of State Senator Davenport because, Mr. Roosevelt said, "the only kind of politics I care for is the kind of politics where decency is combined with efficiency, and I hold that the only way by which a politician can efficiently serve his party is by helping that party efficiently serve the people, and because the Senator and those associated with him who have stood for those principles are on the platform." There was no question that the tremendous applause which followed showed that this indorsement of Senator Davenport, who is closely allied with Governor Hughes and is a political opponent of Vice-President Sherman, was recognized as having a significant bearing upon the situation in New York. The strength of the progressive movement in and about Utica, which is the home of Mr. Sherman, was amply demonstrated by the expressed sentiment of this audience. It is increasingly evident that Mr. Roosevelt has become in New York State the center of the political movement heretofore led by

Governor Hughes, who is now withdrawn from the field of political activity by his appointment to the United States Supreme Court. At Buffalo two hundred and fifty business and professional men welcomed Mr. Roosevelt at an early breakfast at the Ellicott Club. In the course of his brief response Mr. Roosevelt urged the preservation of the purity of the waters of the Great Lakes, and declared that civilized people should be able to dispose of sewage in a better way than by putting it into drinking water, and that action by both the State and the Nation must be had to put a stop to the pollution of the lakes. Then immediately he applied the lesson to large public questions, saying: "We must keep the water supply unpolluted, and to do that you must see that it is not polluted in the source. In the same way we must keep the standard of public honesty and public decency high, and you cannot do that unless the individual citizen in the first place himself keeps it high." This reference to public honesty as an issue deeper than any party division was evidently applied by Mr. Roosevelt's hearers to immediate conditions in the State.

apply the lessons of character taught by railroading to questions of citizenship; at several Ohio towns he spoke on the live question of mob rule, and although he did not directly mention the violence attending the Columbus strike, his remarks were plainly suggested by it. An immense crowd listened to him at Cleveland and Toledo, and in both places he spoke vigorously of the evils of mob rule. At the latter place, for instance, he said: There are two things to remember: in the first place, always insist upon absolute honesty ; and, in the second place, insist upon obedience to the law. . . . I will not stand for any man if he is wrong, rich or poor. If the rich man strives to use his wealth to destroy others, I will cinch him if I can. If the poor man is crooked or commits violence, I will stand behind the forces of order every time. These are the articles of creed: my A square deal for every man, justice for every man, rich or poor. If there is disorder, all reforms must stop until order is restored. Remember that the public official who does not maintain order and fails to put down the mob is quite as criminal as any corrupt man who conducts a great corporation that becomes corrupt. I stand for decent citizenship. I am against the corporation when it does wrong and I am against the mob when it resorts to violence.

By such speeches as this Mr. Roosevelt is now exercising upon public opinion that influence in behalf of order and honesty which ought to be the purpose of every serious political leader. The staff correspondent of The Outlook who is traveling with Mr. Roosevelt writes that he is impressed with the common American spirit exhibited by the greatly varied audiences; at Utica farmers and their families, at Buffalo prosperous business men, at Cleveland people of all kinds, at Elyria and Elkhart plain average townspeopleall were equally intelligent and receptive American citizens. At some places, he says, the crowd was noisy, at others cheerful, at others inclined to be familiar in greeting, and in still others alternately attentive and enthusiastic, while at Elkhart, our correspondent adds, the people were profoundly serious and almost like a church congregation as they listened to as good a sermon as if in church on the fundamentals of character. The speech at Denison, in Iowa, was particularly significant because of the political conditions in that State. Mr. Roosevelt spoke of Iowa as a typical American State,

adding, "I am tempted to say the typical American State." This idea he expanded in these words:

You have farming as your basis and yet you have an industrial and commercial development also. It is a State where I think the people are also fortunately typical of what the average American should be in the fact that they care predominantly for the general interests, not for special interests. That is the great question that we have before us as a people, to subordinate special interests to general interests. Here in Iowa the conditions of your life have been such that I feel the State offers a peculiarly favorable field for work to put the Nation and keep the Nation on the plane on which it must be put and kept if we are to continue to make the great republic of the West what it must be made, the greatest example that the world has ever seen of successful popular government-government by, of, and for the

people.

A

FOREST TRAGEDY

The distressing reports from the forest regions in Idaho and Montana which have been devastated by fire are as yet too incomplete to make it possible to estimate with any degree of accuracy the loss of life. It is certain, however, that many lives have been lost; one of the latest reports before us places the number of deaths at one hundred and fifty. When to this appalling loss of human life are added the destruction of homes, the suffering of those who have barely escaped with their lives. after wandering for days through the burning regions, and the enormous financial loss through the burning of timber— a loss which will probably reach into the millions-it is impossible to overstate the tragic force of these great fires, considered as a demonstration of the prompt need of fuller and better supervision of the forests. Under the development of the Forest Service within the last few years, and largely through the efforts of Mr. Gifford Pinchot, conditions in this respect are vastly better than they have ever been before, but those who are most interested in sane and scientific forestry are anxious that what has been done should hereafter be bettered and extended. A very recent report of the United States Forester, Mr. Graves, states that the National Forests are undermanned, and that in some cases one man has the responsibility of protecting more than a hundred thousand acres.

It is a positive proof that the work done by the Forest Service has been efficient when we learn that even with the slender force at command the damage by fire has been, as Mr. Graves tells us, kept down to less than two per cent of the forest area. Doubtless the calamity of the past two weeks has considerably increased this percentage. Mr. Graves urges that there should be at least one guard for each twenty or twenty-five thousand acres, and points out that in Prussia, where the forest service is perhaps at its best, there is one guard for each seventeen hundred acres. . Co-operation between State and National authorities, as well as separate action by each, seems obviously desirable; as a National problem, and one of the most vitally important in the whole broad subject of Conservation, the saving and improvement of the Nation's two hundred million acres of forest land must not be neglected. The situation in Montana was greatly improved last week by heavy rains, and in Idaho also the heroic efforts of foresters, citizens, and United States soldiers reduced materially the spread of the fires, and in large measure brought them under control. The newspapers have been full of touching and pitiful incidents of suffering and escape, and the wretched means of communication and the great distances between the regions under fire have added terribly to the difficulty of dealing with the situation.

3

The goats were duly advertised, and sold at $4 each, having been in the pound eight days, and the horse was duly advertised and sold for $15, having been in the pound twelve days. What amount did the impounder pay into the City Treasury if he is allowed $1 for each animal impounded and twenty-five cents a day for feeding each one?

Do you know how much the impounder paid? No. That's wrong. It doesn't depend on whether he had a relative in the City Council, for this is a question of arithmetic. And if you can't get a correct and satisfactory profit for the City Treasury out of the above story of the unfortunate goats and the horse, never again look down on a dog enumerator; for sixty men who wanted to be dog enumerator, at $1,500 a year, had to "get the answer" to it in the Civil Service examination for that position yesterday. This examination was held by a Commission in Kansas City which has established some new Civil Service precedents. It did not apply the examination first to the lower positions like dog enumerator and impounder; it began its examination with the highest positions in the several unexempted departments. There were two reasons for beginning with the highest position. First, by this means it was expected that men would be thus obtained who would be in sympathy with the merit system. Second, it was thought that there would be more loyalty in employees if they knew that their superior officers had already passed the same test to which they had been subjected. The Commission, moreover, called in the services of experts in the conduct of the examinations. A committee of three such experts was called in for each group of examinations. Thus, for the positions in the City Counselor's office, the examination was conducted by a committee of three eminent lawyers; for the position of Street Cleaning Commissioner the examination was conducted by a committee consisting of a former Mayor of Kansas City, a member of the Charter Commission, and a member of a leading engineering firm; for the position of Superintendent of the Workhouse the examination was ducted by a committee consisting of a successful merchant and student of sociology, the head of the Jewish Educational Institute, and a former President of the City Club.

con

This committee plan has been used in Chicago for choosing a Librarian of the Public Library; but in Kansas City it was adopted for the entire