effective tonic and alterative. It enters the circulation at once, utterly destroying and removing impurities from the blood. and entire system. Acts on the bowels, kidneys, and skin, eliminating poisons from the system, and when taken in connection with the Mild Combination Treatment gives splendid results in the treatment of cancer and other malignant diseases. I always advise that the Blood Purifier be continued some little time after the cancer has been killed and removed and the sore healed. Recommended in all conditions associated with impure blood, poor digestion, and nonassimilation of food; also poor circulation, weak heart, etc." The Government contends that these statements on the label are "false and misleading" in several particulars. The lower court in which the case was tried held the manufacturer innocent, chiefly, it appears, on the ground that the intention of the statute is restricted to protecting the public health against adulterated, poisonous, and deleterious foods and drugs, and does not cover the protection of the public against cheats and frauds. We judge, from the Government brief, that no serious attempt has been made by the defendant to prove that the remarkable statements on the label are not false and misleading." If such an attempt had been made, we are convinced that it must have miserably failed, at least at the bar of public opinion and common sense, if not at that of a court of law. Apparently the only contention which is made is that it is not this kind of "false and misleading" statements which the Pure Food Law aimed to punish. The business of preparing and selling to the public nostrums and cure-alls for serious ills, which, in the very nature of the case (it is a matter of common knowledge), must be not only useless, but, when used in place of proper medical treatment, positively harmful, is one of the most despicable invented by the evil ingenuity of conscienceless men. If the Supreme Court in its wisdom cannot adjudge that this particular kind of cheating and defrauding of the public is prohibited by the Pure Food Law, Congress should at once amend the law so that no technicalities of interpretation may afford a refuge for those who prey upon

the hopes and fears of sufferers from disease.

THE LORIMER CASE AGAIN

Trustworthy informa tion comes from Washington which makes it clear that powerful special interests are exerting their influence in behalf of Senator Lorimer. For this reason those Senators who have already publicly announced their opposition to what may be called "Lorimerism" deserve the special approval and the hearty support not only of their constituents but of all citizens who favor honest government. At this writing Senator Frazier, Democrat, of Tennessee, Senator Beveridge, Republican, of Indiana, Senater Owen, Democrat, of Oklahoma, and Senator Crawford, Republican, of South Dakota, have publicly announced that the evidence of corruption and bribery in Senator Lorimer's election is so clear that in their opinion he ought to be unseated. It is not surprising that a powerful lobby should be at work at Washington to prevent Mr. Lorimer's expulsion from the Senate. His name has been intimately associated with lobbying, political deals, bribery, and intimidation for many years in Chicago. career has been in some respects a dramatic one. He was born in Lancashire, England, and the poverty of his surroundings led him to emigrate to the United States. He drifted to Chicago, and he is first known of in that city as holding a job as street car conductor on one of the old horse car lines. He early interested himself in ward politics and became, through his unquestioned ability as an organizer; a powerful leader, if not the head, of the corrupt local Republican machine in Chicago. He was intimately associated with the late, Charles T. Yerkes in gaining control through political chicanery of the street railway system of Chicago. As everybody knows, the Yerkes period in Chicago street transit is one of the most offensive in the altogether too vulnerable history of municipal public utilities in this country. Any one who wishes to know the malign influence which Mr. Lorimer has exerted in Chicago politics needs only to read a paper on "Street Railway Legislation in Illinois," by Edwin Burritt Smith, which was published in the

His

"Atlantic Monthly" for January, 1904. The dramatic episode there related, in which a Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives, owned, controlled, and directed by William Lorimer, was bodily driven from his seat by a majority of the Representatives who were opposed at that time to the "iniquitous deals" of Lorimer, is worth recalling at this time. Personally, Lorimer is said to be a man of "piety" and "good to his family." If "piety" is consistent with political corruption, then the country needs a few more "impious" Senators in Washington. It is, of course, perfectly clear that Lorimer cannot be unseated because upright fellow-Republicans in the past have publicly said that he has time and again sold out his own party by iniquitous deals with its opponents. He can only, of course, be unseated on the ground that the election by which he now attempts to hold his seat was a corrupt one. We have no personal enmity for Mr. Lorimer. The facts of his life to which we refer in this article are related simply for the sake of indicating to our readers that there is in the hands of responsible men a mass of evidence covering a long term of years which makes preposterous the claim of Senator Bulkeley and Senator Burrows that they cannot find any convincing testimony of William Lorimer's guilty knowledge of the corruption which tainted his election.

A COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN THE HOUSE

Progress in selfgovernment goes by waves. Often the crest of the wave is followed by a depression. Just now the House of Representatives is in a depression following the foam-capped revolutionary wave of last spring. On March 17, 1910, the members of the House of Representatives began a sitting which continued all that night and well into the following afternoon and was resumed the next day. There was great excitement. Members were summoned to the House from distant places by telegraph. Among parliamentary struggles in this country, the one that lasted at that time for three days is conspicuous. What these Representatives were engaged in has been described as a parliamentary revolution.

It

resulted in stripping the oligarchic machine in the House of a substantial part of its arbitrary power. The Insurgent Republicans, supported by the Democrats, accomplished three results: first, they substituted for an arbitrary rules committee selected by the Speaker, the head of the oligarchy, one selected directly by the House; second, they established the precedent that a motion to vacate the Chair, that is, to depose the Speaker, is a · motion of the highest privilege, and therefore always in order; and, third-and this we regarded at the time, and still regard, as the most important of the three results. -they secured from the House, against the will of Speaker Cannon, a ruling that a motion to change the rules of the House is in order at any time. This third result, as our correspondent said at the time, "enables the House to resolve itself at any time into a Supreme Committee on Rules"—that is, it enables the majority of the House, however constituted, to express its will without recourse to procedure that has been described as revolutionary. No legislative question in a self-governing country is more important than that of liberating the people's representatives from the control of unrepresentative groups; and in a country that is really self-governing that question ought to be answered by a normal and orderly process. It was this that was supposed to have been established on the 19th day of last March. On Monday of last week, Mr. Fuller, a Republican Representative from Illinois, offered a resolution to change a rule of the House. Mr. Mann, of Illinois, who had been taking action to discredit the results achieved last winter, made a point of order that this resolution was not privileged. Speaker Cannon thereupon made a ruling in which he deliberately declined to follow the precedent set by the House in March. He distinctly said : "If the Chair follows the construction placed by a majority of the House at the last session of the Congress, the Chair would overrule the point of order." Then, after explaining that majority rule is usually exercised through the operations of a party caucus, he concluded: "However, the House is now in good temper. There is no election pending in the near future. The great press

of the country and the great leaders of the respective parties are quiet. We are not excited. The Speaker of the House of Representatives, as the Chair has already stated, is removable at any time as a question of privilege by the House of Representatives. . . . The Chair declines to follow the judgment of the House at the last session of this Congress under which it made the precedent. . . . The Chair, therefore, in effect appeals to the House from a decision of that same House made in great excitement, when the waves of partisanship were high, doing so after the wind has ceased, and the billows have passed away, and the sea is serenely blue.'

THE REASON OF THE VOTE

In his ruling thus deliberately and explicitly disregarding the precedent established last spring, the Speaker was sustained by a vote of 235 to 96. The Regular Republicans who supported Speaker Cannon last spring were consistent in supporting him this time. The Insurgent Republicans and a group of Insurgent Democrats were consistent in voting to sustain the precedent; but the Regular Democrats, who follow party leaders, deliberately repudiated their former action. By the action, therefore, of these Democrats, the precedent established last spring has been overturned. Their explanations for this change are not altogether clear; but the reason is plain. Now that they are anticipating entrance into control of the House, they care less about liberating a non-partisan majority than they do about preventing possible obstruction by political opponents. This action is significant in two respects: first, it indicates that what has been called “Cannonism" in the. Republican party, while it was in power, is likely to make its appearance in the Democratic party when it assumes power; second, that the Insurgent movement, which has been a liberating element in the Republican party, is already finding its counterpart among the Democrats. We do not expect to see oligarchical methods as dominant as they were before last March; but it is clear from this action on the part of the majority of the Democrats that the struggle with the oligarchy will have to be fought anew.

RECKLESS

Only two

or three

PENSION REGULATION Weeks ago The Outlook called attention to the danger and folly of any pension legislation which had not been thoroughly discussed and carefully considered. Nothing could give more forcible point to this warning than the action of the lower branch of Congress last week in passing, by a very large majority, but after very slight debate and that not of an analytical or fundamental character, the Sulloway Pension Bill. A temperate and reasonable speech by Mr. Longworth, of Ohio, contrasted with a rhetorical and excited declamation on the part of Speaker Cannon, who took the floor of the House for that purpose. Mr. Cannon was known in years gone by as the " Watch-dog of the Treasury," but he aided with perfervid eloquence, rather than with any attempt at cool reasoning, this new attempt to increase enormously the burden of pension taxation. It is estimated that if the Sulloway Bill in its present form passes the Senate and is signed by the President, it will add no less than forty-five million dollars to the taxation account-some say fifty-five millions. If this Nation were at the present time a delinquent in the matter of caring for its old soldiers, the case would be totally different. As every one knows, the generosity of the country has been lavish, and, in the opinion of unprejudiced people who have studied the subject, the safeguards against extravagance and fraud have been insufficient. It is true that as time goes on and the number of pensioners and those dependent upon them decrease, the Nation may very properly correspondingly increase the limits of the field of its generosity. But the only way to judge whether that time has come is through the outcome of the existing scale of expenditure. Fortyfive years after the war has closed we are spending annually over one hundred and fifty million dollars for pensions-an amount unparalleled in the history of the world; while up to July 1 there were, we believe, about seven hundred and fifty thousand persons drawing pensions from the United States. The provisions of the Sulloway Bill are such that any man who served ninety days in the Civil War and is sixty-two years old would receive a

pension of fifteen dollars a month, which would increase until, at the age of seventyfive, he would receive thirty-six dollars a month. This is regardless of whether he is rich or poor, the value or lack of value of his services, and the question whether or not he were wounded or incurred disease. If we were now paying a comparatively small amount to a relatively small number of war pensioners, such a measure might be defended; as it is, it does not represent the sober judgment of the country, and we do not believe it possible that it should pass the Senate and be signed by the President.

NEW MEN IN THE SENATE

The new men chosen to sit in the United States Senate accentu

ate the change already marked in that body by the deaths and retirements of a number of the "Old Guard." For the first time in forty-seven years Maine is to have a Democratic Senator, and, by the action of the State Legislature, he is to be Charles Fletcher Johnson, fifty-two years old, a citizen of Waterville in the Kennebec region. Mr. Johnson is a self-made man. He taught school in winter and worked on a farm in summer to win a college education. Despite the fact that he has been a railway and corporation lawyer, he is rated a Progressive in politics, as contrasted with his predecessor, Senator Hale. Mr. Johnson has served Waterville as its Mayor several times, and has represented it in the State Legislature, where he was minority leader. The result in Connecticut is also significant. The Republican legislative caucus has nominated, not the present Senator, Mr. Bulkeley, to succeed himself, as he hoped, but ex-Governor George Payne McLean. Mr. McLean is fifty-three years old, and has practiced law at Hartford. Though Mr. McLean and Mr. Bulkeley, also a Hartford resident, have been closely associated, the former has been regarded as a more progressive man than the latter. Mr. McLean's term as Governor (1901-3) was signalized by an excellent administration. It is hoped that his Senatorship will also be signalized by evidences of liberal views and progressive tendencies. Mr. McLean is as much a Connecticut

product as is Mr. Johnson a Maine product. Both men were born and educated in their respective States. In California the Republican State Legislature elected, not A. G. Spalding, as many anticipated, but John D. Works. Judge Works, unlike Mr. Spalding, who has lived in California but a comparatively short time, has been prominent in the State's politics for many years. He is a native of Indiana and a veteran of the Civil War. He has practiced law in San Diego, was appointed to the Superior bench of San Diego County and then elevated to the Supreme Court of the State. The careers of these three Senators will be followed with interest and with the anticipation that Maine, Connecticut, and California may gain some new prominence in public affairs.

BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT

Rarely in the history of the United States Supreme Court have its proceedings been followed with closer attention than last week. There were two reasons for this: first, the importance of the rehearings of argument in the Tobacco Case and the Standard Oil Case; and, second, the fact that these were the first cases of extensive bearing on public affairs to be heard before the newly constituted bench. The audience in the courtroom and the larger audience reached through press reports were especially interested in noting how Chief Justice White and Justice Lurton questioned counsel, and, in particular, how one after another the Justices tried to gain from the opposing attorneys a clear definition of the phrases "monopoly " and " in restraint of trade" as used in the Sherman Anti-Trust Law. It would not be possible or desirable to discuss here, and before the Supreme Court has announced its decisions, the underlying principles involved in these cases, but the fact may be recognized that both the business world and the officers charged with carrying out the law are anxious to have an authoritative interpretation of those questions relating to the Sherman Act which are still in dispute. The decisions of the Supreme Court in these cases may very well have an enormous influence on our future policy and action as regards the form and method to be taken in that

governmental control over monopolies and combinations the necessity and justice of which are now commonly recognized. The Tobacco Case has now been argued in full; the hearings in the Standard Oil Case are proceeding this week. In the first-named matter the arguments of the Attorney-General, Mr. Wickersham, and Mr. McReynolds for the Government, and those of Mr. Hornblower and Mr. De Lancey Nicoll for the corporation, were all on a high plane of close reasoning, and the "give and take" discussion drawn out by questions from the Court was often animated and quick-witted in a way not often known before that sedate and dignified tribunal. Here is an instance: The Attorney-General had been pressed by the Chief Justice to say whether he held that the Sherman Law required that "ruinous competition " should continue.

The answer [the press reports state] made by the Attorney-General was to read from Judge Taft's opinion in the Addyston pipe line case, in which the President, when a United States Court Judge, had said in words that a combination in restraint of trade could not be justified on the ground that it was necessary to stop a destructive competition. Commenting on the Taft opinion, the Attorney-General said that " excessive greed leads to ruinous competition," and there is no obligation on those entering into it to continue.

"But suppose it continues until one of the competitors is destroyed and competition in that way is destroyed?" inquired Justice

Holmes.

The Attorney-General replied that such a case did not come within the contemplation of the Sherman Law.

"There are laws against homicide and laws against suicide," added the AttorneyGeneral.

He

Mr. Wickersham declared that the American Tobacco Company was a gigantic conspiracy in restraint of trade. asserted that the growth of the combination was "stamped with those characteristics which interrupt the free flow of commerce," and which, were denounced by the Court in the Danbury Hatters Case. The main position of the Government was expressed by the Attorney-General, in reply to a question from Justice Holmes, as being, not that mere size or power constituted a monopoly, but that when all of the separate acts of the American Tobacco Company were taken together, in connection with the enormous growth of

its business and the control it exercised, it constituted an attempt to monopolize trade within the meaning of the Sherman Act.

SAVINGS BANK INSURANCE

The Outlook has several times spoken of the organization and progress of a

system of insurance through savings banks in Massachusetts. Mr. Louis D. Brandeis, whose activities and public service in other directions are well known, had much to do with the institution of this system. Savings bank insurance, it is true, is still in an experimental stage and is limited in its application. The plan, however, has now been in operation for over two years, and its present condition may be judged by the report just issued, which carries the history up to the end of the second full year. Only two banks in Massachusetts have actually established insurance departments-the Whitman Savings Bank and the People's Savings Bank of Brockton; but these institutions have, under the law, established a great many depositories (mostly in shops or factories) where people of small means may conveniently hand in the sums to be applied

to life insurance. It will be remembered also that under the plan directions may be left with the officers of one of the savings banks engaged in insurance, so that savings deposits or interest may be transferred as required to an insurance account. The soundness of the insurance is guaranteed by a special fund which was, as we understand it, advanced by individuals, but the place of which will be taken by a guarantee fund made up out of surplus profits appropriated year by year to this purpose. This disposition of part of the surplus reduces present dividends, but is evidently wise. The two banks report, at the end of the two years, that together they have outstanding about $1,370,000 of insurance, and that the amount of premium income for the second year was for the two about $59,000, an increase over the first year in the one case of 112.9 per cent, and in the other of 156.9 per cent. A satisfactory dividend was declared on the monthly premium policies. In short, the report indicates that the insuring of wage-earners has been conducted safely and on sound financial