thought, however, that Mr. Blank, the town clerk, who, she believed, kept a record of all the deaths, must know, and his butcher's shop was just across the street. Business was rushing when the Spectator, still somewhat confident, stepped into the shop, and he had to wait quite a time to interview the proprietor once more without result. But the town clerk took a genuine interest in the Spectator's quest. "You see, literary things are not exactly in my line," he said. "Now, if only old man Howells was here"—this with the familiarity of affection and not of disrespect, Mr. William D. Howells having his summer house in Kittery, as doubtless will be recalled "he could tell you right off. Then there's Mr. A. would know, but he's off on his yacht; or Mr. B., but he's at camp-meeting. There ain't another blessed citizen I can think of who would know," he added, disconsolately. So the Spectator thanked him, and joined Mrs. Spectator outside. A woman's intuition, at least it was nothing else, made Mrs. Spectator certain that the Browning epitaph was in the graveyard at Kittery Point. So, on another afternoon, she and the Spectator, taking the little boat that runs up and down the bay, dropped off at the Point and repeated their question to the clerk at the desk of the resort hotel. Of course, as now expected, he had no personal information to give, but at once directed them to a summer resident's cottage, just next door to that of Mr. Howells, where he was sure they could learn what they were after. And he was right. The gentleman of the house, greatly amused at the tale of their experience, led them to an obscure corner of a typical country graveyard, directly on the highroad in sight of the trolley cars and not three minutes' walk from the hotel, and pointed out the stone. It had been placed there in memory of Levi Lincoln Thaxter, husband of Celia Thaxter, the poet, whose cottage at Appledore, one of the Isles of Shoals, is still shown to visitors. The stone, perhaps three feet high, was a common boulder, such as one finds along shore, untouched in any way, as Mr. Thaxter had wished. The cutting of the inscription was slight and superficial, and the obliterating work of time, though only for nineteen years, had already made the lettering indistinct, especially as the boulder. stood in the shadow of some big trees. Here and there a word which could not be read was traced out, letter by letter, by Mrs. Spectator with her fingers. The result, lacking the assistance of almost all discernible punctuation, would be an excellent puzzle for a Browning Club, as follows: แ "Thou whom these eyes saw never say friends true Though all unwittingly has helped thee too I gave but of the little that I knew: Help me with knowledge-for life's old R. B. to L. L. T. April, 1885." This is the proper form of the epitaph as the Spectator found it in his Browning on returning home: Thou, whom these eyes saw never! Say friends true Who say my soul, helped onward by my song, Though all unwittingly, has helped thee too? Help me with knowledge-for life's olddeath's new !" The short story of the epitaph is told in a note. Mr. Thaxter had been, from young manhood to death, a devoted student of Browning, one who by intui tion seemed never to miss the master's meaning. His Browning readings, given in Boston, were marked by unusual subtlety of interpretation. Naturally the poet was greatly interested to hear of this through letters from Mrs. Thaxter. He therefore willingly consented to write the last word for the one whom he had never seen, on the request of Mr. Thaxter's son. As the Spectator thought the incident over, it seemed in a way appropriate that a tribute thus simple and sincere should be paid so unobtrusively as to miss even the casual notice of many people living close at hand. For surely no quieter nook ever hid from passing eyes a finer appreciation of master for disciple. In his trolley and steamer trips from Portsmouth in various directions the Spectator was impressed, as he has been in other summer sojournings, with the interesting associations one unexpectedly encounters. Not to speak of the Celia Thaxter cottage, and that murder story whose ghastly details the waves almost washed up under her windows-to feel its possibility of horror it should be read on the rock of that lonely isle where the deed was done the Spectator was struck, as he sailed out, by the choice of the name "Pocahontas" for a conspicuous summer hotel. Why Pocahontas, at that remove from Virginia? But when a monument almost shadowing the scene of the murder told him how John Smith once landed on the Isles of Shoals while exploring the New England coast, and when later he looked into history and read that perhaps John Smith originated the name "New England," he saw a certain appropriateness in associating Pocahontas with the Portsmouth region. Of course the Spectator made a pleasant trolley pilgrimage-the act of piety is the same if the vehicle is somewhat incongruous to the old Whittier house at Amesbury and the Whittier birthplace outside of Haverhill. To one who cares to see the kitchen-living-room of an old New England farm-house exactly reproduced, this latter is most interesting. For every distinguishing feature is there -brick oven, crane, warming-pan, footstove (to be carried to church), rag carpet, pan of apples on the table, and the closet bedroom, off and two steps up, where the father and mother slept. The Amesbury house is made doubly attractive by the kindly interest of the cicerone, Mr. Samuel T. Pickard, whose own house it now is, his wife having inherited it from her uncle, the poet. Of many things to be said about it, the Spectator selects three because they might escape the ordinary casual visitor, especially if he were one of a large party. One incident illustrates how even a poet of patriotism and religion may have his unanticipated peculiarities. An album of old-fashioned photographs, relatives and friends, had actually been tampered with, the poet having, with pen and ink, extended the hair over the fore head, Quaker fashion. One very baldheaded subject had, however, escaped. His forehead was “ 2 mutch,” as Artemus Ward said. Another incident concerned the album containing the resolutions of congratulation passed by Congress on Whittier's eightieth birthday, signed by every member of both Houses, including, of course, the Southerners. In that album Mr. Pickard had placed loosely a letter of protest from Whittier to Senator Hoar, because the poet, in his modesty, thought the resolutions too laudatory. After the departure of a large party to whom he had shown the album, Mr. Pickard found that some vandal had purloined the letter-the party consisting of students at a summer school under the auspices of a leading college! Whittier warmly admired James G. Blaine, and Mr. Blaine was devoted to Whittier's poetry. On one occasion of a visit to Amesbury, Mr. Blaine suggested that the line describing a country maiden in " Among the Hills," reading "Not beautiful in curve and line," would be better if it read "Not fair alone in curve and line," and the suggestion was adopted by Whittier. The Development of Self-Government Some Lessons of the Late Election By Charles J. Bonaparte O man is free who is not master mere semblance, master of his vote; no people, whatever the name or form of its government, is free unless its rulers are those, and those only, it would have as rulers. If its action be hampered, its wishes be overridden, in their choice, whether this constraint be the work of a foreign conqueror, a legal autocrat or oligarchy, or an extra-legal ruler or ruling body, a "boss or a "ring," a "leader," a "machine," or an "organization," then, in all these cases alike, the result is the same, the people is not free; a community thus governed has not self-govern ment. 66 we are not what we claim to be, the of himself;" no voter is free impairment of our liberty works, not for who is not, in truth and not in good, but for grave and shameful evil, to tarnish our fair fame as a nation, to debase our politics, to degrade our public men and corrupt individual, no less than popular, morals, as well as to waste our material resources, lessen general wealth and comfort, and clog civilization. Where Americans most thoroughly and most truly govern themselves, they are best governed; where they are, or may now seem to be, too lazy or too luxurious or too much engrossed by merely personal interests to give time and thought to their own government, those who govern them, govern them ill, and the worse, the more completely the people abdicate its duties and its sovereignty. Among us the development of self-government means the growth of righteousness: what hope for such growth may be gleaned from the results of our recent elections? Of course it may have good government, much better than it could give itself. Freedom to a baby means death; to a youth it means often the wreck of all present or future usefulness and happiness; even a young man, left too soon "Lord of himself, that heritage of woe!" may have every, reason to echo the bitter words of the poet. So a people, as suggested by Mr. Mill, may be in a state of nonage" socially and politically, which for a time at least would make self-government in its case no less "a heritage of woe than for the untrained, unformed individual. Such a people may well thank Heaven if it find, as Mr. Mill says, "an Akbar or a Charlemagne, a Charlemagne," that is to say, a just, wise, brave, unselfish "boss" (whether he call himself King, Emperor, Dictator, or something else matters little), or an enlightened and public-spirited "ring" or "machine" (whose members may or may not be enrolled in a Golden Book), to guide its infant steps in national life: but the American Nation is not such a people, and our political leaders and organizations fulfill no such self-sacrificing function. We claim to be free, and, in so far as I. The Result in Missouri. Political Weakness of Iniquity In 1900, McKinley polled 314,092 votes in Missouri; Bryan, 351,922. Flory, the Republican candidate for Governor, obtained 3,813 more votes than the former; Dockery, his Democratic opponent, 1,877 less than the latter. When the last Presidential nominations were made, the State was considered by most politicians of both parties safely Democratic; but the candidacy of Joseph W. Folk obliged the Republicans to deal with a very interesting problem of political strategy. Mr. Folk was a public prosecutor who had gained much credit by vigorously prosecuting certain notorious criminals of great political influence in his own party organization. He had done, it is true, no more than his plain duty, the duty he was chosen, sworn, and paid to do; but he had done it in earnest and not merely made a show of doing it, had really tried to bring "boodlers " and "grafters" to actual punishment; and such conduct would seem to have been sufficiently noteworthy in an officer intrusted with some share in the administration of justice in Missouri to gain him at once the admiration and confidence of the public and the bitter hatred of men who prey upon the public. The latter had tried hard and had failed to prevent his nomination; they were no less ready to do all in their power to elect his competitor, should he have one, for there is no politics in systematic and professional iniquity; and it was "up to" the Republican politicians to say whether he should have a competitor. I have called this a question of "political strategy," for it undoubtedly seemed such, and such only, to those who decided it; that it appeared to their minds in any wise a question of morals I think altogether unlikely. Would it pay their party better to bid for the aid of the "Boodle Ring" by nominating a candidate against Folk, or to assure his election by making no nomination for Governor, and hope for reward in the increased vote which popular approval and gratitude might bring to the National ticket in Missouri and elsewhere? Such was the problem; and they chose the former course. What they have said were their reasons need not detain us; what these were in fact can be a matter of conjecture only, but of conjecture founded on a wide experience. They probably believed the State's electoral vote lost anyhow, but thought the partisan excitement of a Presidential campaign would keep its supporters in line for the whole ticket, and the money and intrigues of Folk's Democratic enemies, concentrated in hostility to him alone, might draw enough Democratic votes to his competitor to give them a Republican Governor as a consolation prize. Let us note the out come. Roosevelt obtained 321,449 votes, or 7,357 more than McKinley, while Parker polled only 296,312, or 55,610 less than Bryan-results in themselves striking and significant, but due to general causes, evidently weakened rather than forti fied in their action by the local circumstances. Walbridge for Governor polled 296,552 votes, 24,917 less than Roosevelt, and 21,352 less than Flory in 1900; while Folk received 326,652 votes, or 30,320 more than Parker, and was elected by 30,100 plurality. The open enmity of the " of the "boodlers" far outweighed, therefore, as a source of political strength, any aid they could render: so far from saving the Governorship from a political wreck through a tacit alliance with Folk's enemies, the eminently "practical" politicians who guided the course of the Missouri Republicans exposed their party to a mortifying discomfiture in the contest for this one office at the moment of an otherwise complete and brilliant victory. For one in public life here, the notorious hatred of men notoriously despicable and wicked is a most valuable political asset; avowed or even suspected support from such men constitutes a handicap always perilous and usually fatal to political success. II. The Result in Wisconsin. Political Weakness of Wealth Wisconsin was formerly a doubtful State, but the issue of honest money seems to have made it safely Republican. As it became such, however, it became likewise the scene of a prolonged and bitter contest within the Republican party, a contest which gradually assumed the shape, so familiar in the history of ancient Greece or mediæval Italy, of a struggle between an established oligarchy and "" a demagogue," suspected and accused by his adversaries of seeking to become a "tyrant." I place in quotation-marks these two question-begging terms, to show that I use them in their original and not in their modern or ethical sense. Governor La Follette has led a popular revolt in his party against its "machine," and his enemies say he aims to become an omnipotent "boss," controlling a perfected" machine" of his own; had he lived in the days and land of Pisistratus and Solon, he would have called himself a "demagogue," and been charged with meditating "tyranny." The merits of this controversy need not detain us, but it has two features worthy of a moment's attention. The influences controlling the Republican organization and against which La Follette has contended were, or are generally believed to have been, wielded by certain very wealthy men and corporations, so that his fight has been, at least in popular belief, that of a man against money-bags. Moreover, the money-bags, or those who held and on occasion opened them, took the view, to which capital has been always and everywhere prone, in politics, that "all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds," or, at all events, if there be anything amiss, whoever may try to set this aright will do more harm than good; they are "stand-patters," and have left to their enemy the rôle of a professed reformer of abuses. These two characteristics, or perhaps I should say these two aspects of the same characteristic, of the contest in Wisconsin, make its result interesting. In 1904 Roosevelt obtained there 14,110 more votes than McKinley had in 1900, Parker polled 35,127 less than Bryan received four years before: the State voted on National issues much as was to have been expected in view of its votes in the past and of the simultaneous votes of other States. The real interest of the election, however, lay in the strenuous effort made to defeat La Follette through a separate Republican nomination, and, to judge of the results of this effort, it will be more instructive to compare the Republican and Democratic votes for Governor with those of two years previously. In 1902 Mr. La Follette had polled 193,417 votes as a candidate for his present office, his Democratic competitor, Mr. Rose, polling 145,818; in 1904 the possibility of victory increased the Democratic vote to 175,301, but La Follette's also rose to 227,253, so that, with all the "bar'ls " tapped to defeat him, his plurality over Mr. Peck was actually 4,353 more than it had been over Mr. Rose. Many persons have feared, many still fear, lest the American people be one day enslaved by its own money; I do not share these fears. I believe that, in general, for each vote bought two or more votes are lost through its purchase, and the more, the more undisguised the barter; that greater cause for concern exists lest mere enmity to productive and beneficent wealth, or the affectation of such enmity, may prove a profitable stock in trade to dangerous and noxious counterfeits of statesmen. The two victories of McKinley have, indeed, gone far to remove any reasonable apprehension of the latter peril; as to the former, it can hardly seem serious to one who knows and reflects upon the recent result in Wisconsin. III.-Results in Minnesota and Massachusetts, in Illinois and New York. Decay of Party Discipline A patriot, typical of a class still too common among us, said once that his ballot would be cast for the devil were his Satanic Majesty the regular nominee of his party. As I have said, such voters are yet too numerous for the public good, but their number is plainly dwindling; political managers are learning by an experience sad for them that the odor of brimstone costs votes to a candidate, however "regular." however "regular." Partly through the educational effects of the Australian ballot, partly through the softening of political prejudice resulting from frequent participation in non-partisan movements such as those for Civil Service Reform and good city government, partly from the mere growth of the community in enlightenment and common sense, more and more of our citizens each year think for themselves and vote as they think, and less and less ask their respective party organizations to think for them and to tell them how to vote. Some striking illustrations of this truth are furnished by the late elections. In Massachusetts and in Minnesota the Republican candidates for Governor were somehow unpopular; for some reasons, good or bad, or partly good and partly bad, the people didn't like either of them. Perhaps, in each case, the candidate ought to have been liked better than he was; but, however this may have been, he wasn't; and there is little doubt, indeed no doubt at all, that |