Shall We Return the Fugitive to the Torture Chamber?

Of what advantage is it for Americans to torture their minds by dwelling on these conditions of an internecine strife in Russia which it were eulogy to call war? War is made by organized armies; on organized armies; with respect to the rights of non-combatants; with possibility of safety in surrender when further fighting is hopeless. The Russian civil war is conducted by combatants neither of whom pays any attention to the laws of so-called civilized warfare. But Americans cannot be indifferent to it nor justly remain ignorant of it, because they cannot escape a certain kind of participation in it. International relations in this twentieth century are such that no nation can righteously disregard the miseries endured or the wrongs inflicted in another nation. A significant though not widely known incident would, if generally understood, be quite enough to bring this home both to the consciousness and the conscience of the American people. Since the beginning of the year proceedings for the extradition of Jan Janoff Pouren, a Lettish peasant demanded by the Russian Government, have been dragging along before United States Commissioner Shields, sitting as an Extradition Commissioner. These have lately ended with Commissioner Shields's decision that the accused must be given up to the Czar. This blond, delicate, inoffensive-looking peasant is charged with four acts of burglary, three of arson, three murders, and two attempts at murder. As reported to us, the charges of actual murder are not sustained by the Commissioner. Sufficient evidence of the other offenses has been furnished to justify, in the judgment of the Commissioner, the apprehension and commitment of the accused for trial had the offenses been committed in New York, and such a prima facie case is all that is required for extradition. We have no knowledge of the

facts which would justify us in criticising his decision. And yet to return the accused to Russia appears to us somewhat analogous to the return of a negro to slavery under the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850. It was then assumed that the negro would have a trial in the State to which he was sent. It is now assumed that this peasant will have a trial in Russia. But all we know of Russia negatives this legal assumption. Executions without trial are common. Torture to coerce confessions is common. That he will have no trial and will be tortured to secure accusations against others is probable. That the depositions on which the decision here was based were obtained by torture is not improbable. That in the trial here much evidence for the defense could not be introduced without peril of implicating others whom this peasant would not implicate is certain. That the crimes charged were part of guerrilla warfare against the Russian Government can hardly be questioned. Two of the three buildings burned are said to have been inns destroyed partly because liquor-selling is a monopoly of the Russian Government, partly because drinking is promoted by the Government in order to procure betrayals. The burglaries are alleged to have been a fine lawlessly imposed on recalcitrants and lawlessly collected from them; the acts of violence, a punishment decreed against ishment decreed against "traitors" to the cause. We are neither defending nor apologizing for arson or burglary or other acts of violence. But we read Count Tolstoy's statement: "I am a participator in these terrible deeds . . . and being conscious of this I can no longer endure it, but must free myself from this intolerable position;" and we cannot reflect upon the possible surrender of even a guilty revolutionary to a Government justly indicted for committing the same crimes "to an incomparably greater extent" without sharing with Count Tolstoy in his feeling of participation, and wishing to see America freed from so intolerable a position. The friends of Russian freedom in this country are preparing a petition to the Presi-dent to interfere. This petition asserts

that Pouren is a political refugee, that the acts alleged against him are acts incidental to political disturbances, and that the Russian Government's own statements show this; and also that the penal code under which it is proposed to prosecute him contains a section punishing "rising against the established authorities." The petitioners further point out that the depositions presented are not supported by oath, and that the interpreter who translated them from Lettish into the Russian was not sworn; and they contend that "the American people never intended that extradition should be permitted on such un-American evidence." Whether the President has any Constitutional and legal right to interfere we do not know. We hope that his legal advisers may find some ground for such interference. To return a revolutionary to Russia, whatever his offenses, is to return to his torturers a man who has been goaded by them into the crimes which he has committed.

The sudden death Baron von Sternburg of the German

Ambassador to the United States, Baron Herman Speck von Sternburg, at Heidelburg last week, was a shock, and will be a grief, to the peoples of two countries. For not only was his accomplished work in creating a good political and commercial understanding between Germany and America real and considerable, but his personal qualities were such as to win him the sincere regard, not only of Emperor and President, but of all with whom he came into official or social relations. Baron von Sternburg had the rare dual faculty of upholding with all dignity his ambassadorial function and yet of dealing with men freely and in friendly fashion. He had been Germany's Ambassador in Washington for five years, and his appointment immediately followed distinguished services to his country in the United States relative to the Venezuelan claims. That mission, in which he acted as minister plenipotentiary and envoy extraordinary, had been preceded by equally valuable negotiations with regard to the Samoan question, while as early as

1898 he had filled a minor diplomatic position at Washington. As Ambassador, therefore, he began his work with an unusually full knowledge of the people and government with whom he was to deal. The fact that he was married to an American added to his social popularity here. A strong friendship grew up between the President and the Ambassador, and they were frequently companions in horseback exercise and at tennis. Baron von Sternburg's education had been military as well as diplomatic, and he took part in the FrancoPrussian War; on this side of his life his duty also took him to Washington, where he was military attaché in 1885 and again in 1889. The Emperor was certainly right in selecting him as a man whose experience would make him likely to win American confidence and regardand the result justified the choice. A notable instance of his influence was seen in the tariff negotiations of 1906, when he persuaded the German Government to postpone for a year the effect of its maximum and minimum regulation as regards the United States, with the result that he was able, before that time expired, to frame an agreement acceptable to both nations. Baron von Sternburg had suffered terrible pain from a trouble. on the side of his head, and lately he had. been assured by a famous specialist, Professor Czerny, that the malady was not cancer but lupus, and that it could be cured. It is peculiarly distressing that his death should have followed so closely after this gleam of hope, preceded, it is said, by two years of heroic martyrdom in which he refused to abandon his post of duty unless positively ordered away. The immediate cause of death was inflammation of the lungs, impossible to resist in his weakened condition.

At the ceremonies attendMr. Bryan's Trust Policy ing Mr. John W. Kern's official notification of his nomination as the Democratic candidate for the Vice-Presidency, Mr. Bryan made a speech on the trusts. He assailed the Republican party for its indifference and ineffectiveness in dealing with the trust question. During the existence of the

Sherman Anti-Trust Law, while the Republican party has been in control of the Government, "the trusts have grown," he declared," in number, in strength, and in arrogance." "Most of the trusts," he further complained, "have never been disturbed, and those that have been prosecuted have not had their business seriously interrupted." He criticised Mr. Taft for failing to exhibit in his notification speech "indignation at what the trusts have been doing' or "zeal in their prosecution." Mr. Bryan praised the statement in the Democratic platform that "a private monopoly is indefensible and intolerable," and its specification of three remedies: first, the prohibition of the "duplication of directors among competing corporations;" second, the requirement of Federal licenses for any corporation 'engaged in inter-State commerce before it may "control as much as twenty-five per cent of the product in which it deals," and the prohibition of the control of more than fifty per cent of any product by any such corporation; and, third, the requirement that every licensed corporation must sell its product "in all parts of the country on the same terms, after making due allowance for cost of transportation No one can object to the first remedy, Mr. Bryan said, "unless he is in sympathy with the trusts, rather than with the people who are victimized by the trusts." The second remedy, Mr. Bryan argued, would permit regulation by the States, and would not affect the ninety-nine per cent of corporations which do not control a quarter of the products in which they deal. To Mr. Taft's accusation that the third remedy for trusts by governmental regulation of prices is Socialistic, Mr. Bryan replied that it is called Socialistic only because it would be effective in preventing the crushing out of competitors. Under the law he advocates, a corporation controlling seventy-five per cent of a certain product would first have to take out a license, dispose of a third of its plants to independent producers, and then would have to sell its products uniformly throughout the country. This, according to Mr. Bryan, would benefit everybody but those who draw divi

Extermination vs. Regulation

In this speech Mr. Bryan comes out strongly and openly once more in favor of a policy of extirpation-or "extermination "-to adopt the word he uses in this speech. He would exterminate not merely all monopolies, but such industrial organization as, by his own description, approaches monopoly more than half-way. How this policy can be confused with the policy of regulation undertaken by the Administration of President Roosevelt and indorsed by Mr. Taft we cannot understand. In a former era, the development of machinery was accompanied with certain great evils. Then there were some who fought against machinery and wanted to restore hand work; but it was others who, by securing laws to regulate the use of machinery, proved to be the effective leaders in the cure of the evils. In the present era, industrial development is marked by commercial organization which tends to replace competition with co-operation, and this phase of development has its attendant evils. The Democratic party, under the leadership of Mr. Bryan, would cure the evils by withstanding the tendency toward co-operation and by attempting to restore competition. The Republican party, under the leadership of Mr. Roosevelt, has undertaken, and under the leadership of Mr. Taft offers to continue, the plan of making the Government strong enough to control the commercial organizations that are co-operative rather than competitive, and compel them to serve the public welfare. Mr. Bryan does not make it very clear how his proposed law would work. When he speaks of fifty per cent of the total product, what does he include in the product? For years the telephone was a patented article. Would a firm entitled to the exclusive right of manufacturing telephones be a violator of the principle? or would it escape on

the ground that it was in competition with the telegraph? If it would not escape, what would be done with the patent laws? How is the percentage of total product to be computed? Mr. Bryan declares, "When a corporation controls fifty per cent of the total product, it supplies forty millions of people with that product." Evidently he uses the word product in a sense in which it was never used before. It cannot apply to ships or to harvesters or to balloons. To what does he mean to apply it? These questions rise at once in regard to the application of the remedies to actual conditions. The three remedies which Mr. Bryan has specified seem to need further specification. The issue in principle, however, between what may be called the Bryan and the Roosevelt policies is clear. Those who would exterminate the trusts and restore com petition will approve of Mr. Bryan; those who would regulate and control the trusts so that they may be of real service to the whole people through developing methods of equitable cooperation will approve of Mr. Taft.

In his speech of acceptance, which was, of course, over

Position shadowed by Mr. Bryan's address, Mr. Kern declared that, in spite of Mr. Sherman's assertion, the question, "Shall the people rule?" expresses a real issue. The Speaker of the House and the Committee on Rules, he declared, represented a power, in the interest of monopoly, which has thwarted "the will of the press, the people, and the President." He asserted that in the Republican party there was a power which had defied the President, killed or crippled nearly all his proposed reform legislation, and now was in "full command of the party organization." He put himself strongly on record against any tariff tax levied in excess of the needs of the Government, and attacked the "beneficiaries of legislation " who, "allied as they are with the dominant forces of the Republican party, are giving generous support to the Republican National ticket.' He indorsed the Democratic trust plank specifically, and all the other

planks in general. Beginning his speech with praise of Mr. Bryan, he closed it with renewed praise, and with prediction of an unpurchased Democratic victory. Up to the time of his nomination Mr. Kern was not known throughout the Nation. This, his first political speech since he was nominated, introduces him to the voters as a stanch believer in Mr. Bryan and his political doctrines.

Governor Hughes's

Renomination

It now seems probable that the name of Governor Hughes will be submitted to the Republican Convention in Saratoga for renomination with the approval of the majority of the so-called Republican leaders in the State. If the newspapers are to be trusted, these leaders have been taking counsel with the President, and in assenting to Mr. Hughes's renomination are following his advice. In our judgment, the failure to renominate Mr. Hughes would not only be injurious to the Republican party in New York State and in the Middle West, but, what is far more important, would be injurious to the cause of honest government and popular rights. It is true that all the opposition to Mr. Hughes does not come from those who are opposed to honest government and popular rights. His aggressive nonesty, while it has made him enemies in certain quarters, which may lessen his availability as a candidate, ought to count for him rather than against him. His effective advocacy of government control of public utilities corporations will cost him the financial support which some of those corporations have hitherto given to Republican candidates, but this is also an item in his favor. But there are other elements of opposition to Mr. Hughes than these. If most politicians have too little independence, Mr. Hughes has too much. He fails to understand one of the essential qualities of a political leader in a democratic community, namely, capacity for cordial co-operation with others with whom he may not be in full agreement. Men who are sincerely desirous of securing the best interests of the State

and of the people, but who have done their work within the organization and by methods different from those of Mr. Hughes, have been not unnaturally alienated by his political course in practically ignoring if not politically ostracizing them. Some of them have come, though we think erroneously, to regard his independence as indicating a selfish absorption in his own interests and a selfish indifference to those of his colleagues. His refusal to give advice when it has been asked, his refusal to accept advice when it has been offered, have needlessly alienated good men whose co-operation a man of different temperament might have secured. But the Republican organization has estopped itself from declaring that Mr. Hughes cannot carry the State by officially presenting him before the National Convention as the State's candidate for the Presidency. In the State at large, and still more throughout the United States, the present opposition to him will not be and cannot be credited to his supposed unavailability; it will be generally credited to the desire of special interests those of the race-track and those of the favored corporations-to down the man who has stood for the popular welfare. In the Middle West last spring the only candidate whose name was in evidence, outside of political circles, as a rival to Mr. Taft was Mr. Hughes, who was popular chiefly because of his fight against corruption in insurance companies and his influence in securing the Public Utilities Commissions. If he were laid aside this fall by the State Convention, the fact would be largely, though erroneously, charged to Mr. Sherman's influence, and so would react against the National ticket. He is regarded, and with good reason, by the general public as an example of that kind of rugged honesty which made Grover Cleveland popular, and that kind of devotion to government of the people and for the people against special interests which has made Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt popular; and his nomination, however those who are inside may regard it, will be regarded in the community at large as an indorsement of these two sterling qualities and

ney of New York County, is one of the National figures of the day. His brilliant and successful campaigns for election on a platform which consisted of two planks, namely, defiance of corrupt political bosses and denunciation of the partnership between city officials and panderers to profitable vice, won for him the regard and respect of thousands of supporters of good government in every State of the Union. Mr. Jerome's friends were therefore particularly shocked and disturbed when, last April, formal charges. were presented to Governor Hughes by. a committee, asking for his removal on the ground of alleged gross misconduct of his office. While there were some allegations in the elaborate bill of complaint of a purely personal character, the chief burden of the charges was that Mr. Jerome had failed to prosecute certain wealthy and influential individuals whose names were connected with the street railway and insurance corporation scandals in New York. The perfectly clear if not explicit intimation was that Mr. Jerome had succumbed to the corrupt influences of powerful corporations, and, for social or political or pecuniary reasons, was protecting rich criminals instead of prosecuting them. This charge is a terribly serious one to bring against any prosecuting attorney, but it was especially serious in the case of Mr. Jerome, who had pre-eminently stood for the doctrine that justice should be administered by the government equally for the poor and the rich, and who had so effectively denounced the corruption and civic diseases which spring from the perversion of justice by the use of money. The charges were referred by Governor Hughes to the Hon. Richard L. Hand, of Elizabethtown, New York, for an investigation and a report. Commissioner Hand's report has just been made