Obrázky na stránke
PDF
ePub

universities on Christian lines is an excellent scheme for a distant future. But these universities cannot turn out students fit to be leading statesmen in China under twenty years, while the force of circumstances will compel China to reconstruct many of her institutions within ten years.

As China does not at present possess sufficient Chinese enlightened in world politics, there is great need of showing the solidarity of the human race and the brotherhood of man by friendly help. God gives the opportunity of rendering this help, and thereby deciding whether coming China shall be Christian, non-Christian, or anti-Christian; whether it will study the good of all nations, or only the good of China at the expense of others.

This help can be rendered not so much by a large increase of the number of missionaries as by a new adjustment of our present missionaries by which a far more efficient and speedier work can be carried on. This can be done in two ways:

1. By the promotion of able workers from positions where they can only reach thousands to positions where they can reach millions through the press and the translation of the best books into Chinese.

2. By organizing the four thousand expectant officials of China who are now assistant officials and have little to do into a systematic home study of the great universal problems of our day, and having the governor of each province examine is subordinates once a year. In ten years, when they shall be in leading positions themselves, they will have mastered the main lines of universal progress and will be in a position to develop China in harmony with what will be best for all mankind and help to establish the Kingdom of God on earth.

This scheme has been in operation on a small scale by the Christian Literature Society for twenty years. Considering that les than a dozen men were set apart to cover this immense geographical and intellectual field, the results have been surprising. Millions have been changed by it. If, instead of a dozen working on this line, we had half the number set apart by each society for educational work, or half the number set apart to medical work, we would then be in a position where our number could fairly grapple with the whole problem with a hope of success within ten years. TIMOTHY RICHARD. Shanghai.

WHERE REVELATION CAME FROM [See an editorial in this issue.—THE EDITORS.]

In a recent issue of The Outlook is an article. under the heading "The Spirit of Democracy." In it Dr. Abbott says: "The democratic spirit identifies the laws of nature with the laws of God. The moral law, like the natural law, is not imposed

from without; it is constituted within. It was not given to man, it was created in man, or, if the reader prefer, it was given to him in and by his creation. Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, were all written in the conscience of man before they were written on tables of stone." This "spirit," you inform me in another paragraph, is "the Christian spirit," but this cannot be. "The Christian spirit" does not "identify the laws of nature with the laws of God." It does not identify "the moral law with "the natural law "-does not make them the same. It does not believe that these two laws were "constituted within "-that is," created in man," or, in other words, "given to him in and by his creation." No. I cannot think that it believes anything of the kind. If you will kindly condescend to listen to me a few minutes longer, I shall gladly and gratuitously attempt to tell you how (as I see it) man came into possession of moral law, and thus why it is that all nations to-day have "an idea of a Supreme Power." Away back in the history of our race there lived a man-a preacher of righteousness(2 Pet. ii. 5) whose name was Noah. He lived six hundred years in the antediluvian age and three hundred and fifty in the postdiluvian. He was a good man and well acquainted with his grandfather. They were, no doubt, quite intimate, as grandsires and grandsons usually are. Well, they were contemporaries for six hundred years, and the elder, Methuselah, was acquainted quite well, we judge, with a man whose name was Adam, and with whom he was contemporary for two hundred and forty-three years. So Adam, the first man, had over two hundred and forty years in which to give Methuselah the history of nearly a thousand years and all the moral law that he had learned from God.

uselah had six hundred years in which to

his grandson Noah in history and and Noah was contemporary for er fifty years with Abraham, who was the great-great-grandfather of Moses, the lawgiver of God. Noah had three sons, sixteen grandsons, and seventy great-grandsons, and through these the God of heaven disseminated throughout the Orient a revelation of himself, a knowledge of moral law, and a history of over twenty-five hundred years of the ups and downs of a fallen race. the God of the universe, and not "the soul of man," is "the source " of "moral law." This law was imposed from without. It was not constituted within." It was “given to man." It was not "created in man.'

So

[blocks in formation]

JANUARY 14, 1911

LYMAN ABBOTT, Editor-in-Chief. HAMILTON W. MABIE, Associate Editor
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Contributing Editor

A LONDON MELODRAMA:

ACT ONE

A melodrama in two acts, with a strong element of tragedy and what must appear to American readers as a liberal dash of farce, has been absorbing the attention of the British people to the exclusion of every other thought, even of election results, Parliamentary programmes, the impending fate of the House of Lords, and Home Rule. On the night of the 16th of December two policemen were patrolling Houndsditch, a street lying between the business districts of the City and the squalid districts of the East End. Their suspicions were aroused by curious sounds of hammering in a house recently rented by some foreigners in a small court back of a jeweler's shop. Reinforcements were sent for, and five other policemen soon came. One policeman knocked at the door, which was thereupon opened about six inches, but no reply could be obtained to any questions. When the for who opened the door turned upstairs, the policeman stepped insta house, and in an instant he was shot from a doorway on the other side of the hall. He either fell backwards or was pushed through the open front door, and in another moment a hand was thrust out holding a pistol which opened fire up and down the street. "In a few seconds," says the "Spectator," "Sergeant Bryant was leaning, wounded, against the house, Bentley was lying on the pavement, Choat and Woodhams were lying in the road further away. Martin fell over, but was wounded. Strongman was also lying in the road. 'It was only two seconds after the first report,' said Martin, that they were all lying in the street.'" Three of the policemen were killed and two others seriously wounded. The murderers es

not

caped, but later in the night, in a quarter not far from the scene of the murders, there was found, under mysterious circumstances, by a doctor who was summoned to attend him, a foreigner who was mortally hurt, and who, before he died, declared that he had been shot by a friend through a mistake. In explanation of the one-sidedness of the battle, it should be said that the London police do not carry firearms except on extraordinary occasions when they are detailed for specially dangerous work. Here ends the first act in the melodrama, swiftly tragic in its movement.

THE SECOND ACT :

TRAGIC FARCE

The curtain rose on the second act of the drama two weeks and a half later. The police had discovered, in a house in the Whitechapel District, two members of the Anarchist gang which was supposed to have been responsible for the murder of the policemen-men rejoicing · in the picturesque appellations of "Dutch Fritz" and 66 Peter the Painter." Their hiding-place was discovered in the early morning. Two families who occupied the lower floor of the house were withdrawn by the police, and a woman who lived on the same floor with the Anarchists was got out by a neighbor sent up with a decoy message. A large body of police surrounded the house, and in a few moments a pitched battle was on between the two Anarchists and the surrounding cordon of police. The Anarchists were well armed with automatic pistols and supplied with abundant ammunition. Their fire was continuous and accurate, and a number of minor casualties, both among the police and among spectators, were the result. For hours the battle went on, the attacking force

and such an outcome would have been in the last degree regrettable. But, after all, the policeman's career is one in which the element of danger is inevitable; and, just as the individual policeman may sometimes sacrifice too much by trying to avoid danger, so his superior officers may sometimes sacrifice too much by trying to save him from danger. Such a spectacle as London saw on January 3 can hardly be good either for the morale of the police, for its prestige among the lawbreaking classes, or for its influence in general as a preserver of peace. To a nonEnglish observer it might well appear that especially the first act of this drama furnishes a strong argument for the providing of the London police with firearms. But it must be remembered that the opposite policy has, until now. produced excellent results. Crimes of violence are rare in England, and burglars and other lawbreakers seldom themselves make use of firearms. The series of incidents has a broader bearing for the English people in its relation to the Government's treatment of Anarchists and in general of alien immigration. The British Government, unlike the other governments of Europe, has made a practice of not molesting reputed Anarchists residing in London, provided they commit no overt acts within the United Kingdom. London is generally reputed to be the center of much Anarchistic activity, whose

being continually reinforced until fifteen hundred police, two half companies of Scots Guards from the Tower of London, and a battery of rapid-fire guns from the Royal Horse Artillery were drawn up against the slender garrison. The artillery was not used, but police and soldiers, posted about the house and on roofs of neighboring buildings, poured a continuous fire into the windows. A corps of nurses was brought to the scene and treated the wounded among the attacking force and the spectators. Thousands of spectators crowded about the firing zone, kept back by the lines of police. High prices, it is said, were paid by spectators for positions of vantage on neighboring roofs. The Assistant Commissioner of Police was in command, and Mr. Winston Churchill, the Home Secretary, in whose Department are the Metropolitan police, was a prominent figure in the scene, advising with the commanders of the police and the soldiery. The firing continued all the morning and into the afternoon, with all the honors on the side of the besieged, until the house which they were defending was discovered to be on fire. Whether it was set on fire by the Anarchists, or caught from the piles of straw which were burned about the building in the hope of smoking them out, is apparently not known. A fire company was brought to the scene, but no attempt was made to extinguish the flames until the house had practically burned down, carry-visible results appear only in other Euroing its defenders with it.

"AND THE MORAL OF THAT IS-"

The methods employed by the British authorities for apprehending two men, however desperate in character, appear to Americans, if not to Englishmen, extraordinary. An American cannot help thinking that, if the incident had occurred in New York, a small body of policemen would have gone into the building without flourish of trumpets or the assistance of soldiers, machine guns, a member of the Cabinet, nurses, fire department, spectators, or camera-men, and "got" the men they wanted, at whatever danger to themselves. Such a procedure would perhaps have meant injury or death for one or more of the apprehending force,

pean countries. The Houndsditch murders and the "Battle of Mile End Road" will doubtless arouse England to closer observation and stricter regulation of her Anarchistic citizens, and to more stringent enforcement of her laws against alien immigration.

[blocks in formation]

of vivid imaginations. Within the last few weeks, however, there has been written on the records of the Common Pleas Court of Adams County, Ohio, a recital which proves that rumor has been follow ing far behind fact. Under the probing of Judge A. Z. Blair of that court, and a Grand Jury of intelligence and force, a state of things has been coming to light which makes the most lurid tales of the muckrakers look pale by contrast. Nearly fifteen hundred voters had, at the latest reports, been indicted by the Grand Jury for selling their votes in the last election, and the list was swelling by the addition of one hundred or more indictments every day. It seems probable that before the investigation is completed more than onethird of the six or seven thousand voters of the county will have been indicted. Indicted voters are coming to the county seat in troops from all parts of the county, receiving sentence, and accepting the penalty. In most cases a light fine is imposed, with a workhouse sentence, which is suspended, and in every case the offender is disfranchised for five years. The knowledge that this lenient treatment will be given to those who voluntarily come into court and plead guilty, while the full penalty of the law, which involves a heavy fine and imprisonment, will be inflicted on those who try to evade the law, makes the indicted men eager to come in and accept the terms offered by the court. There have been but three or four who pleaded not guilty, and these men, against whom the offense was easily proved, are now in the workhouse. It appears that up to date only the sellers of votes have been indicted. Intimations have been given out that buyers of votes would presently be called to account, but that has not yet been done. The reason of this procedure is not stated. Judge Blair appears to be a clear-headed and kind-hearted magistrate, and he must be supposed to have good reasons for his policy. There are, of course, many more sellers than buyers-probably ten times as many; and the policy of using the buyers to catch the sellers will undoubt edly produce larger results. The party committee men who have done the buying are well known, and by granting them immunity the authorities may obtain the names of the vote-sellers. There seem

to be no grudges harbored by the votesellers against those who are thus exposing them; probably all parties feel that they are escaping with light punishment. Perhaps the balance may be redressed before the proceeding is ended; and in all such cases, when wide-branching evils are exterminated by law, some sore straining of the equities must be looked for.

WHAT'S TO BE DONE?

It is instructive to note that this slump of citizenship has not occurred among foreigners or negroes, nor in the slums of cities, but in a purely rural population, and among voters of native American stock. Adams County is one of the Ohio River counties, about fifty miles east of Cincinnati; its surface is rough and rugged, its population consists almost wholly of farmers; it has no manufactures of importance; it is traversed by but one railway; its county seat, West Union, is the only one in the State not on a railway line. There is no village or city in the county with a population of two thousand. The original settlers were from Virginia, Kentucky, and the north of Ireland. It is in such a population as this that the practice of bribery in elections has grown to such dimensions. It is not a recent development. For many years the evil work has been going on; many of those now arraigned testify that the thing was so common that they supposed it was all right. It was not only poor men who accepted bribes; well-to-do farmers sold their votes for a good round figure; two or three ministers of the Gospel are among the indicted. From $10,000 to $25,000 was distributed at every election; if there were two thousand bribe-takers, this would make the average price of a vote in a good year twelve dollars. The money seems to have been mainly expended by the committeemen among the voters of their own party; there was a gentleman's agreement among them that neither partisan was to poach upon the other's domain. This was done surreptitiously, but it was under the ban. The purchase of votes, as a rule, was done with the utmost openness; the buyers met the sellers in the public streets and bought voters as they would buy cattle in the markets. Is Adams County

the sole offender among the eightyeight counties of Ohio? It is not probable. The Adams County people say that similar conditions prevail in six or eight of the neighboring counties, and there seems to be ground for their assertion. It is likely that similar investigations will be set on foot by grand juries in other counties. The people of Adams County appear to be disposed to take credit to themselves as being the first to deal thoroughly with a great public wrong. Perhaps that credit is due them. Governor Harmon, in his recent Message, deals with the matter briefly but trenchantly. He emphasizes the maxim that the briber is the more dangerous and more disreputable person, and urges that the law be administered with this principle in view; he deplores the repeal of the Garfield corrupt practices law, which the politicians of Ohio lately found inconvenient and put out of the way, and recommends its re-enactment; and he makes a much more radical suggestion that the State undertake to provide for all the necessary expenses of elections and make all party expenditures for such purposes illegal. Some such stringent remedy may be found necessary. As between the seller and the buyer of votes we do not find it as easy to choose as Governor Harmon does. In any case, it is evident that in certain portions of Ohio, and doubtless also in other sections of the country, much elementary teaching is needed in the ethics of democratic citizenship.

NEW LIFE IN SENATORIAL CONTESTS

Last week the Democratic joint caucus of the Ohio Legislature nominated Lieutenant-Governor-elect Atlee Pomerene for United States Senator to succeed the present incumbent, Charles Dick, a Republican. As the Democrats control both houses of the Legislature, the nomination means that, at a joint session of the Legislature this week, Mr. Pomerene will be formally elected. The action of the caucus represents a victory of the Democratic Progressives over the Democratic machine, and will, we are sure, strengthen the Progressives of New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey in their similar contests. Mr. Pomerene is forty-seven years old.

He

was born in Ohio, and spent his boyhood on a farm there. In 1884 he was graduated from Princeton with honors, and two years later from the Cincinnati Law School. In the contest for the Federal Senatorship Mr. Pomerene has missed no opportunity of proclaiming himself the candidate of the people, as opposed to his rival for Senatorial honors, Edward W. Hanley, Chairman of the Democratic State Committee. The Pomerene-Hanley contest was distinguished by three features: First, though the Legislature had been elected, the candidates stumped the State, speaking every night somewhere, thus recognizing the principle that the people, and not merely the Legislatures, should choose United States Senators. Second, the stumping was done mostly by the candidates together in joint debate, a proceeding almost unknown since Lincoln-Douglas days. Third, Mr. Pomerene's strenuous stand apparently induced Mr. Hanley to disclose some tendency toward espousing more progressive policies. This same influence over a supposed reactionary has also been marked in New York State, where the Senatorial contest has narrowed down apparently to one between William F. Sheehan as representative of "the interests," and Edward M. Shepard as representative of the people. In Connecticut the contest remains between the present Senator, Morgan G. Bulkeley, as representative of "the interests,” and exGovernor George P. McLean, as representative of the people. In New Jersey the contest between ex-Senator James Smith, Jr., as representative of "the interests," and James E. Martine as representative of the people, continues more sharply than ever. The bi-partisan system used by "the interests" was well defined by Governor-elect Wilson in a great speech at Jersey City last week when he said that Mr. Smith represents not a party but a system—a system of political control which does not belong to either party, and which, so far as it can be successfully managed, must belong to both parties. In the same speech Governor Wilson gave expression to his Nationalism in the following significant words:

There are some representatives of that system who have, and I believe deserve, our

« PredošláPokračovať »