History for ready reference, Volume 7 (part 7 of 11)
In the report of the Local Government Board for 1908, the inspector of poor-law administration in the eastern counties of England reported a substantial decrease in pauperism during the year, and attributed this mainly to the passing of the Old-Age Pensions Act. Persons verging on the age of 70 were doing everything possible to preserve their qualifications for pensions, and their sons and daughters, in the hope that the old folk will be able to stand alone, are maintaining them till the pensions are due in order that they may not be forfeited by parish relief.
POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: France: A. D. 1909. State Railway Servants Pensions.
In July, 1909, the Chamber of Deputies adopted a Bill for pensioning the railway employees of the State which had already passed the Senate. It applies to some 308,000 persons, who will be pensioned in several classes at ages ranging from 50 to 60 years, and the estimated annual cost will exceed $5,000,000. The Minister of Public Works, M. Barthou, described the measure as an acknowledgment on the part of the country of a debt which it owed to a deserving body of public servants, who for the last 11 years had waited patiently for the fulfilment of a promise and upon various trying occasions during that period had not abused the confidence which had been reposed in their good sense and public spirit.
POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: France: A. D. 1910. General Old-Age Pension Law.
A general measure for the pensioning of workmen in old age, which had been pending in the French Parliament for nearly three years, became law in April, 1910. Passed in the first instance by the Chamber of Deputies in 1907, it was held in the Senate, undergoing an extensive remodeling, until the 12th of February, 1910, when that body gave it an unanimous vote. In the Chamber of Deputies its exaction of compulsory contributions from the wages of workmen to the pension fund was opposed by a section of the Socialists, but supported by the Socialist leader Jaures, as well as by the Briand Ministry, and carried by a decisive vote on April 1st. "Workingmen, domestic servants, clerks, and farm laborers to the number of nearly 12,000,000, whose annual earnings are below 3,000 francs, are placed under a system of compulsory insurance. For the farmer and small proprietor whose income ranges between 3,000 and 5,000 francs, an optional form of insurance is provided. Of this class there are nearly six million men and women in the country." In all, about 18,000,000 of the population of France are beneficiaries of the Act.
POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: The German System of State-aided Pensions, compared with other systems.
The following is from the report of a lecture on State-aided Pensions for the Poor, given in London, on the 3d of February, 1909, by the Honourable W. P. Reeves, Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science. It is an admirable summary of facts that exhibit the working, down to the present time, of the German system of working men’s insurance adopted between 1883-1889.
See (in Volume IV. of this work) SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1883-1889.
See (in Volume VI. of this work) GERMANY: A. D. 1897-1900, in Volume VI.):
"The subject, said the lecturer, fell into three groups—contributory pensions, free State universal pensions, and free State limited pensions. Germany, France, and Belgium afforded examples of the contributory pensions, and Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom of the limited free pensions. The universal free pensions were likely to remain an ideal. The Belgian superannuation for the poor, provided by voluntary contributions on the part of the insurer and by State bonuses, had encouraged thrift, but it yielded an average pension of only £3 a year. It could not, therefore, be pronounced to be a success, and the State had recognized its failure by inaugurating a system of free old-age pensions for the utterly destitute. A similar superannuation scheme in France, also maintained principally by voluntary contributions, had only attracted 8 per cent. of the class for which it was intended, and there, too, it had been found necessary to introduce free old-age pensions. There was also a voluntary system in Germany, but that was a kind of side show to the great national system of insurance by compulsory contributions. This latter system was a gigantic experiment, and it really did deserve the name of national. Professor Ashley had shown that of the 10,700,000 men who were insurable under this scheme 8,857,000 actually were insured; and of the 5,800,000 women who were qualified to provide for pensions 4,524,000 were actually paying their contributions. The system had been in operation for 26 years, and the amount paid out in that time must have exceeded £300,000,000, while 70 or 80 million persons had been benefited by it from first to last. The number of persons affected yearly by the system was 25,000,000; and in 1907 nearly £30,000,000 was spent in the three divisions of the triple system—old age, sickness, and accidents. He had only to deal with one division—old age and infirmity. The accumulated funds in this division amounted to about £70,000,000; and the amount paid out to the insurers in 1906 was nearly £8,300,000, and in 1907 £8,400,000. The population liable to insure was about 14¼ millions, and the number of pensions in force at the end of 1907 was 979,000.
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"Under this German scheme the class compulsorily insured consisted of men and single women earning less than £100 a year. The funds were provided in equal contributions by employers and employed—the principle underlying the system being that of deferred wages. It was a question whether it was encouraging thrift to withhold from such wage-earners 2 per cent. of their wages. The State bore the cost of management, and added to every pension a bonus of £2 10s. a year. For the working of the system the wage-earners were divided into five grades:
(1) Those who earn up to £17 10s. a year; (2) those who earn any sum between £17 10s. and £27 10s.; (3) those who earn any sum between £27 10s. and £42 10s.; (4) those who earn any sum between £42 10s. and £57; and (5) those who earn any sum between £57 and £100.
The lowest wage-earners paid seven-eighths of a penny per week for their old-age pension, and the highest wage-earners about 2¼d. No special consideration was shown for a married man. The five grades of pensions were:
(1) £5 10s. a year; (2) £7; (3) £8 10s.; (4) £10; and (5) £11 10s.
If the labourer died after subscribing for 200 weeks his wife and children were entitled to receive what he had subscribed, but nothing more.
"The lot of the widows and orphans was one of the black features of the system. A married woman could not qualify for an old-age pension. The amount of the weekly contribution was fixed for ten years. In 1906 the receipts exceeded the expenditure by £6,000,000; the cost of administration was only £850,000. But that was only the minor part of the provision made for elderly people in Germany. The main provision was made under the head of infirmity or invalidity occurring before the pension age—70. If the insurers, after having subscribed for not less than four years, broke down and were unable to earn wages, they were entitled to more generous treatment. If curable they were cured in State sanatoriums and received temporary sickness pensions. If incurable they received a pension which was regulated by the number of years they had subscribed, and varied from a minimum of £5 16s. in the lowest grade for four years’ subscriptions to £22 10s. in the highest grade for 50 years’ subscriptions. The insurer began to pay his contributions at the age of 17, and for an old-age pension he had to subscribe 50 weeks a year for 24 years—1,200 weeks in all. Though the system had not checked Socialism or militant trade unionism, it had attained its real purpose, for it had conferred an enormous boon upon the poor."
At the time when the remark quoted above, touching the defective provision of the German law for widows and orphans, was made, the Imperial Government was preparing to amend it. The London Times of April 17, 1909, gave, in its correspondence from Berlin, the account of a draft Bill, just made public, which the Imperial Ministry of the Interior had prepared for presentation to the Federal Council, the object being to combine and coordinate "the seven compulsory insurance laws of 1883 to 1899," together with certain amendments and additions. "It is understood," wrote the correspondent, "that the Bill will not reach the Reichstag before the autumn of this year. Whereas many authorities … have favored a thorough unification of the three systems of invalidity and old age, accident, and sick insurance, the immediate proposals of the Government would leave the three systems separate and distinct, while codifying the law and the regulations which are common to all branches of compulsory insurance, and establishing a joint and threefold system of higher administration." The main purpose of the bill was to rectify that lack of proper provision for widows and orphans which was noted above. "The need of solving this problem," said the correspondent, "is really the immediate occasion of reform, and the proposed solution is the most important feature of the reform scheme. An essential feature of the tariff law of 1902 was the ear-marking—by the so-called Lex Trimborn—for widows and orphans’ insurance of the surplus revenue from the increased Customs duties on corn and cattle. The Lex Trimborn takes effect on January 1, 1910, but the surplus revenue is lacking. For the financial year 1906 there was no surplus. For 1907 there was a surplus of about £2,000,000. For the financial year 1908 there will be no surplus, although £2,650,000 was estimated for. In these circumstances the Government—while apparently still cherishing the hope that, upon the average of a long period of years, the revised tariff will do what was expected of it—proposes to provide for widows and orphans insurance by a simple all-round extension of the system of invalidity and old-age insurance. That is to say, the ‘contributions’ of employers and employed are to be raised, and an Imperial subsidy, of fixed amount, without regard to the annual revenue from Customs, is to be added to the contributions.
"It is at present proposed that the weekly 'contributions' to invalidity and old-age insurance shall, in order to provide funds for widows and orphans’ pensions, be increased—upon the mean average of the contributions of the five classes of wage-earners—by one-fourth, and that the Empire shall add a subsidy of £2 10s. a year to each widow’s pension and a subsidy of £1 5s. a year to each orphan’s pension."
In February, 1909, a Parliamentary Committee of the British Trades Union Congress, composed of men representing the Labor Party in Parliament, reported the results of a visit to Germany which the Committee had made in the previous November, to examine conditions in that country, especially with reference to the operation of the state system of insurance. In their report they said: "The State assistance has acted as an incentive and encouragement to workmen to make additional provision for themselves and families through their trade unions and private sick clubs. This is especially the case in invalidity and old age. It has always been the workman’s complaint, as well as that of the organizations, that the assistance obtainable under the workman’s insurance system is quite out of proportion to the subscriptions paid, and quite insufficient for the maintenance of the pensioner. {511} In this connexion, it is interesting to note that in 1907 the 'Free' or Socialist unions, with a membership of 1,866,000, granted £174,000 in sick pay and £19,000 in invalidity pay; the State subsidies to invalidity and old-age pensions amounting in 1906 to £2,437,000. The insurance pensions are continually increasing; and it is stated that the invalidity pensions will eventually reach a maximum in the lowest wages class of £9 5s., and in the highest one of £22 10s. The funds accumulated in the hands of the Invalidity Pension Offices amounted at the end of 1907 to about 70 million pounds, and the workmen maintain that the time has now arrived when either the pensions paid should be increased, or the contributions levied decreased, as provided for by law."
"The members of the deputation were struck by the absence of slums in the manufacturing quarters of the towns visited. Nowhere did they see any quarter that could be classified under the heading ‘slum.’ The cleanliness prevailing throughout all the towns visited was also remarkable. No beggars, feeble or emaciated men in tatters and rags were encountered in the streets. Hundreds upon hundreds of unemployed were seen by the deputation, but they seemed to lack that dejection and absolute misery that is so frequently met with in the streets of English towns.
"Workmen throughout Germany do not complain of any compulsory deductions made by their employers from their wages for the purpose of workmen’s insurances. Many of the largest employers are favourably disposed towards these laws, and pay willingly. On the other hand, probably the majority do complain of the cost, although not opposed to the laws in principle."
POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: Poor Laws: England: A. D. 1896-1906. Report of Royal Commission. Increasing Pauperism.
In December, 1905, a Royal Commission, composed of nineteen men and women of distinguished ability and of special qualifications for the service, was appointed in Great Britain, "to inquire—(1) Into the working of the laws relating to the relief of poor persons in the United Kingdom; (2) into the various means which have been adopted outside of the Poor Laws for meeting distress arising from want of employment, particularly during periods of severe industrial depression; and to consider and report whether any, and, if so, what modification of the Poor Laws or changes in their administration or fresh legislation for dealing with distress are advisable."
After three years of laborious investigation, making "more than 800 personal visits to unions, meetings of boards of guardians, and institutions in England, Scotland, and Ireland," as well as examining over 1300 witnesses, the Commission submitted an elaborate report in February, 1909. Its findings as to the present working of the poor-laws and the relief-systems of the United Kingdom, and its recommendations for reform, cannot be summarized with any clearness in such space as can be given to the subject here; but there is a startling significance in what it shows of the increase of pauperism and of the public cost of poor relief in late years.
It appears from the returns of the Local Government Board that the mean number of paupers in 1906, 1907 and 1908, was at a higher level than it had been for 31 previous years. Excluding, however, these three especially bad years, it is found that throughout the period 1896-1906 there were 24,000 more paupers than in the period 1888-1896, and 7000 more than in the period 1880-1888. In discussing the report the London Times remarks: "Further examination even diminishes the meagre consolation these figures afford as to the results of a generation of effort at reducing pauperism. Comparing the period 1896-1906 with 1871-1880, there has been a decrease of 3.9 per cent. in the total number of paupers, but this decrease has been accompanied by a large increase of male pauperism and is due entirely to the large decrease in the number of children, whose numbers have decreased by 18 per cent., and a small reduction in the number of women, whose numbers have increased by 2 per cent. The decrease in these two classes so affects the total as entirely to conceal an absolute increase of 18 per cent, in the number of male paupers. Even in regard to the children, at any rate during the last 15 years, the decrease has been almost wholly in rural unions, and in the children of widows, and there has been a general increase in the number of children of able-bodied men.
"Further, so far as figures are available, they show a greater proportionate increase in the number of paupers during the working years of life than in the very young or the very old. Taking only the able-bodied in health, we find that in the period 1896-1906 in metropolitan unions the indoor paupers have increased by 38 per cent. and the outdoor by 137 per cent.; in urban unions the indoor by 24 per cent. and the outdoor by 133 per cent.; and in the whole of England and Wales the indoor by 21 per cent. and the outdoor by 49 per cent. In London alone 15,800 more paupers are being maintained than in the eighties, and the rate per 1,000 of the population, which used to be below that for England and Wales, has risen above it."
As for expenditure, it was some £8,000,000 in the year 1871-1872, and £14,000,000 in the year 1905-1906. Summing up the general situation with regard to this expenditure, the Commission says: "We find that, whilst the expenditure per inhabitant has increased from 7s. ¼d. to 8s. 2£d. since 1871-1872, and is only 7£d. less than it was in 1834, the expenditure per pauper has increased from £7 12s. 1d. to £15 12s. 6d. in the same period. The country is maintaining a multitude of paupers not far short of the numbers maintained in 1871-1902, and is spending more than double the amount upon each individual. The increased expenditure has done little towards diminishing the extent of pauperism. Such advance as the nation has made has been accomplished at an enormous cost, and absorbs an annual amount which is now equivalent to nearly one-half of the present expenditure upon the Army. It may be urged that the rate of pauperism has diminished from 31.2 per 1,000 in 1871-1879 to 22.2 per 1,000 in 1896-1905, and this is certainly a matter for congratulation, but it has been the result of the large increase in the population rather than of any considerable reduction in the number of paupers."
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This discouraging result has occurred notwithstanding the fact that the nation is spending £20,000,000 more in education than in 1831, and £13,000,000 more in sanitation and the prevention of disease than in 1841; notwithstanding the fact "that money wages in the nineties were 10 per cent. above those of the eighties, and 30 per cent, above those of the sixties," and notwithstanding the fact that "there has been a considerable flow of the working classes from the lower paid occupations to the higher paid industries."
The recommendations of the Commission include a scheme for a permanent system of public assistance for the able-bodied, which contemplates the establishment in every district of four coöperating organizations:
(a) An organization for insurance against unemployment, to develop and secure (with contributions from public funds) the greatest possible benefits to the workmen from coöperative insurance against unemployment;
(b) a labor exchange established and maintained by the Board of Trade to provide efficient machinery for putting those requiring work and those requiring workers into prompt communication;
(c) a voluntary aid committee to give advice and aid out of voluntary funds especially to the better class of workmen reduced to want through unemployment;
(d) a public assistance authority representing the county or county borough and acting locally through a public assistance committee to assist necessitous workmen under specified conditions at the public expense. The report adds that it must be a fundamental principle of the system of public assistance that the responsibility for the due and effective assistance of all necessitous persons at the public expense shall be in the hands of one, and only one, authority in each county and county borough—viz., the public assistance authority.
POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: Small Holdings Act of Great Britain.
See (in this Volume) ENGLAND: A. D. 1907-1908.
POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: Starvation Poverty in India.
See (in this Volume) INDIA: A. D. 1905-1908.
POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: Underfed School Children: Provision for Meals to them. How it is done in Various Cities.
In March, 1905, the British Foreign Office undertook, at the request of the Board of Education, to obtain information regarding the methods adopted in the great Continental and American cities for dealing with ill-fed school children. The facts collected were tabulated and published subsequently in a Parliamentary Paper (Cd. 2926-1906) from which the following statements are derived:
Generally, in the larger cities of Western Europe, some system was found to be in operation for feeding ill-fed children in the schools. Commonly this is conducted unofficially, by private charitable organizations, but sometimes in indirect connection with the municipality, and frequently with help from municipal funds. In Berlin, however, the municipality takes on itself the responsibility of not only feeding but clothing properly the necessitous children attending its elementary schools. This made one of the functions of a municipal department, the Städtisrhe Schuldeputation, which is assisted by a "Society for Feeding Poor Children" in the supplying of meals at the elementary school buildings of the city. The committee which conducts the work of that auxiliary society is appointed by the Government. As a rule, breakfasts only are given in Berlin, and only during the winter months; but four meals are supplied to such children as are thought by the head-masters of the schools to require them. No steps are taken to collect from parents any part of the cost of meals furnished in the schools.
In Paris the organization which installs and conducts cantines scolaires in schools belonging to the city, called the Caisse des Écoles, is privately constituted, but presided over by the mayor. This connects it with the municipality, and in 1905 it had been receiving a municipal subvention of 1,000,000 francs yearly for three years, but this was not to be depended on as a permanent grant. It was necessary for the Caisse des Écoles to seek voluntary contributions. The City, however, undertakes to supply the necessary accommodations and all utensils for the school canteens, which are in operation throughout the year, every day of the week, but generally for a noon meal only; though soup is distributed in some arrondissements at the opening and closing of school. All children are entitled to feed at the canteen, but the meals are supplied gratis only to the children of poor families. The others pay a small sum which does not exceed 15 centimes (about 2 cents). In 1904 the total cost of meals furnished at the school canteens was 1,461,305 francs, of which 359,093 francs was paid by parents, who buy tickets for the purpose. All meals are supplied on the presentation of tickets, and nothing shows whether the tickets have been bought or received as gifts.
In Vienna meals for poor school children are provided by a central Association, indirectly connected with the municipality, the Burgomaster being its president, and financial assistance being given to it from both imperial and municipal funds. Dinners only are provided, on every week day from November 16 to March 31, partly in the school buildings, partly in certain restaurants and kitchens. As in Paris, parents can buy tickets for these meals, but it is said to be rarely done. The total cost is about $23,000 per year. Once a year, in the autumn, the Association makes an appeal for funds, and all classes of people respond, the Emperor giving 4,000 crowns and the Town Council voting 8,000.
Information on the subject was obtained by the British Foreign Office from thirty-eight cities, in all, of Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States. Some systematic provision, more or less adequate, for securing proper food to the children of the schools by private or public organization, was reported from more than thirty. The reports from New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago, in the United States, showed less undertakings in this direction than in any other cities of considerable size.
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POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: In England: Provision of Meals Act.
An order from the English Local Government Board on the subject of providing food for underfed school children was published on the 29th of April, 1905. It applied only to children under sixteen who were neither blind, deaf or dumb, and who were living with a father not in receipt of relief. Application in each case must be made by school managers, or by a teacher empowered by the managers, or by an officer empowered by the education authorities. The relief might be granted in the ordinary way or as a loan, the father being allowed the opportunity of making the needful provision himself. If he failed to do so, the poor-law guardians were empowered to make it and to recover the cost, as if it were a loan. In no case could the relief be given in money, or continued on a single application for more than a month. Where possible, arrangements should be made with local charitable organizations for the issue of tickets for meals.
The above mentioned tentative order was followed, in the next year, by the passage of an Act which authorizes any "local education authority" in England and Wales to "take such steps as they think fit for the provision of meals for children" at any public elementary school, and for that purpose to "associate with themselves any committee on which the authority are represented, who will undertake to provide food for those children." Such education authority may aid the committee by furnishing necessary land, buildings, furniture and apparatus, and necessary officers and servants; but, "save as hereinafter provided, the authority shall not incur any expense in respect of the purchase of food to be supplied at such meals."
POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: Unemployment: Belgium: A. D. 1900-1904. Municipal Organizations of Insurance against Unemployment. The Ghent System.
The following is abridged from a report on "Agencies and Methods for Dealing with the Unemployed in certain Foreign Countries," made to the British Board of Trade, in 1904, by Mr. David F. Schloss:
During the last few years the Public Authorities of certain Belgian towns and Provinces have organised a system, to which the name of Insurance against Unemployment is given, and under which the efforts of workmen to secure for themselves the means of tiding over periods of unemployment are assisted by the grant of subsidies provided out of public moneys, which form a supplement to the sums derived from the contributions of these work-people. This system is now in force at Ghent, Brussels, Antwerp, Bruges, Liege, Malines, and Louvain, and in the Provinces of Liege and Antwerp. In details it has been varied somewhat in different places, but the general scheme is the same, and it will be sufficient to give some account of it as organized in Ghent, where it was first worked out.
The Unemployed Fund at Ghent was initiated as the result of the recommendations made by a Special Commission on the question of unemployment, which on April 10, 1900, presented a Report, advising the creation of a Municipal Unemployed Fund under the conditions specified in a set of rules, which they submitted for consideration. The annual subvention to the Fund by the City was fixed, for three years, at $4000. Expenses of the administration of the Fund to be borne by the City. Administration of the Fund to be entrusted to a committee of ten citizens named by the municipal authority, but one half of whom must be members of those organizations of workmen which affiliate themselves with the Fund. The Fund may be augmented by subscriptions, donations, moneys collected by fêtes, etc. "The intervention of the Special Fund shall consist either
(a.) in providing a supplement to sums paid to their members as unemployed benefit by workmen’s organisations, or
(b.) in supplementing any provision made by individual thrift for the specific case of unemployment. The Special Fund will supplement the unemployed benefits paid by workmen's organisations by the payment of a subsidy, which may be equal to, but shall not be greater than, the amount of such benefits."
"Strikes and lock-outs, or the results attendant upon such disputes, sickness and physical incapacity for labour shall in no case give rise to the payment of an indemnity out of the monies of the Unemployed Fund."
"All workmen’s organisations desiring that their members shall participate in the subsidies provided by the Fund will be required to send in each month a return showing the number and amount of all payments on account of benefits made by them, and to furnish every year their balance-sheet, also their rules and regulations."
"Workmen not being members of any Trade Union which enjoys participation in the Fund, are at liberty to join a Thrift Fund specifically constituted to meet the case of unemployment." By this rule, it will be seen, the scheme provides, under distinct branches, for Trade Unionists and non-Unionists.
POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: England: A. D. 1905-1909. Unemployed Workmen Act, and its operation.
In the summer of 1905 a Bill brought into Parliament by the President of the Local Government Board, to provide for an organization to assist unemployed workmen, was carried through both houses with little opposition. It sought to bring about a careful discrimination between workmen who were accustomed to regular employment in ordinary circumstances, but temporarily unemployed through circumstances beyond their control, and the needy, on the other hand, who were proper objects of ordinary Poor Law relief. Its provisions were for the former entirely, and their purpose was to establish both local and central bodies, which should organize and maintain labor exchanges and employment bureaus, assist migration and emigration, and acquire, equip, and maintain farm colonies; the latter to operate continuously, for the training of persons to agricultural pursuits, preparing them for emigration or for permanent transfer from city to country life. The local bodies contemplated were not empowered to provide work at public expense. That power was entrusted discretionally to the central bodies, which could draw on the rates for the purpose to a limited extent. Voluntary contributions were to be looked to in part for the necessary funds. The measure was decidedly conservative and tentative.
A report on the applications for relief and the relief given in England and Wales under this Act during the year ending March 81, 1909, compared with the previous year, shows as follows: The total number of applications received was 196,757, of which 49,239 were made to 29 committees in London, and 147,518 to 95 committees in other parts of the country.
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The applicants belonging to the general or casual labour class (64,773) formed as in previous years by far the largest section—47.4 per cent.—of the whole number. The building trade ranked second with 23,047, or 16.9 per cent. of the total. The engineering, shipbuilding, and metal trades accounted for 17,028, or 12.5 per cent., as compared with only 8.6 per cent, in the previous year.
A Bill known as the "Right to Work" Bill came before the House of Commons in April, 1909, with the endorsement of the trade unions and the Labor Party. It was opposed by John Burns, the former labor leader, but now speaking as President of the Local Government Board and member of the Cabinet, who said: "For three and a half years he had had intimate experience of relief works, and he could not exaggerate the degradation of the workmen, the demoralization of the honest labourer, the extent to which money had been wasted and character impaired by the relief works which he had had in the name of Parliament to administer. Any member had only to take up the report of any one of the distress committees to see that what the minority report said had happened would increasingly happen so long as these means of meeting unemployment were resorted to. The amount of work would be disproportionate to the wages paid, the wrong men would get the right work, and the best men would be excluded, because modesty was a characteristic of good workmanship and craftsmanship, and the worst men were always in the front line when relief works were set on foot."
POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: A. D. 1909. Report of a Royal Commission.
The Royal Commission on the working of the English Poor Laws, whose general report is referred to above, issued, in September, 1909, a supplementary report on Unemployment. The main ultimate conclusions of the Commission are the following:
"When we consider the remedies proposed for unemployment we are convinced that they do not lie on the lines proposed by the Unemployed Workmen’s Act, which has done nothing but systematize Relief Works. These, whether national or municipal, appear to us merely to intensify the evil as far as the ordinary workmen are concerned. The great thing necessary, we believe, is to obtain a general agreement as to the need of regularizing labour. In this the Government and municipalities ought to set a good example.
"It might be better, if any rate or State funds are to be spent on the unemployed, that such aid should take the form of supplementing trade union funds and give thereby a bonus on thrift. Any such supplementation of trade union funds would involve a Local Government Board audit, the control of the expenses of management, and a separation of the war and benefit funds. It is very doubtful whether it would be wise for trade unions to accept State aid if it involved loss of independence and an interference with their efforts to improve wages. There is little doubt, however, that grants of this kind would enormously increase their membership.
"In order to prevent the spread of the unemployed as a class it is probable that drastic measures ought to be taken, such as those recommended to check vagrancy. For the idle and worthless who now form the noisy section of the unemployed it might be necessary to establish semi-penal colonies. …
"The solution lies in a better organization of the workers and more consideration from the employers. Better organization of industry might at once relieve the workers and render trade crises less acute by steadying the supply of labour.
"Differentiation of the unemployable from the willing workers and better classification of paupers would enable us to understand the extent of the problem and how far reorganization of labour must be carried. Raising the condition of the whole working class by better housing and better wages will help to keep decent but unskilled workmen from sinking.
"Every effort must be made to cut off the supply of unskilled and unintelligent labour by training boys to enter regular and permanent work."
POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: ENGLAND: A. D. 1909. The Labor Exchanges Act.
One of the most important of the recent enactments of the British Parliament is the Labor Exchanges Act, which encountered no serious opposition in either House. On introducing the Bill in the House of Commons, May 19, 1909, and in subsequent debate, Mr. Winston Churchill, President of the Board of Trade, gave explanations of which the following is a summary: It would divide the country into ten districts, which would have among them between 30 and 40 first-class labour exchanges, 45 second-class, and about 150 third-class for the smaller centres. The central control would be exercised by the Board of Trade, but it is intended that, following the German example, there shall be in each principal centre a local advisory committee composed of representatives of workmen and of employers in equal numbers, with a permanent official as chairman. It is hoped that, when permanent buildings are secured, and the whole scheme is in working order, the labour exchanges will become centres of industrial life, in which employers and employed will learn to know one another better, and to discuss in common questions now too much regarded from different standpoints. These exchanges cannot make work, they can only distribute what work is to be had. They can hardly be expected to make head against the large fluctuations of trade, which must be met by some insurance scheme, which Mr. Churchill announced as being under contemplation. But there are many irregularities of distribution which labour exchanges can correct, and many seasonal fluctuations producing much distress which they can deal with to the great advantage alike of employers and employed.
It was not contemplated that fees should be charged to men applying to the labour bureaux, which were to be national institutions. They would strive to find men for jobs and jobs for men, and attention would be paid to the interests of the men who had been waiting longest for work. For the present domestic servants would not be brought within the operation of the Bill. No compulsion would be exercised to induce applicants to give evidence as to character, but of course a man would have a greater chance of obtaining work if he could give references and testimonials. In a strike the exchanges would be absolutely neutral as between capital and labour, and it would be clearly notified to all working men that there was a dispute and they would be left to act as they thought fit.
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The Bill became law in September. A highly favorable report of its operation was made six months later by the Consul-General of the United States at London, who stated that "on the opening day nearly eighty exchanges were in operation and thousands of applications for work were received. The applicants mainly represented the better class of labor. On the first day of the opening in Nottingham 557 workers and 120 employing firms registered. These were followed on the second day by 580 workers and 87 firms. One of the employers alone applied for sixty skilled hands, and though most of the skilled hands were placed, the registered firms were not able to fill all their vacancies."
POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: Germany: A. D. 1909. Experiments of Insurance.
Representatives from the municipal authorities of fifteen German cities held a joint conference at Cologne in September, 1909, to discuss the best methods of combating unemployment. One or two speakers advocated compulsory insurance against unemployment; but the divergencies of opinion were so wide that no conclusion was reached. Annual conferences on the subject are to be held. A Press correspondent who reported the meeting remarked that it confirms "the German official view that the problem of insurance against unemployment is not ripe for systematic solution. Upon the strength of the experience, for example, of Strassburg and of Frankfurt, where the Ghent system of subsidies is in operation, demands are frequently made for the inauguration of an Imperial system of insurance. Apart, however, from the fact that other problems—especially widows and orphans insurance—have precedence, the Government maintains that Imperial legislation is impossible because no satisfactory scheme has been discovered."
Some account of the Ghent system, here referred to, will be found above, under the subheading Belgium. Besides the German cities mentioned as having introduced that measure of insurance against unemployment, Cologne and Leipsic have been operating an organization of similar insurance for some years. As described in a report made in 1904 to the British Board of Trade by Mr. David F. Schloss, on "Agencies and Methods for Dealing with the Unemployed in certain Foreign Countries," the organization in Cologne is as follows:
"The ‘City of Cologne Office for Insurance against Unemployment in Winter’ was established in 1896. The object of the Office is to provide, with the assistance of the Cologne Labour Registry, an insurance against Unemployment during the winter (December to March) for the benefit of male workpeople in the Cologne district. In order to insure with the Office, a man must be at least 18 years of age, must have lived for at least a year in Cologne, and must not suffer from permanent incapacity to work. He is required to pay a weekly premium, payment of which must commence as from April 1, and must continue for 34 weeks. The amount of the premium was originally 3d. per week for both skilled and unskilled workmen; in 1901 the rate of premium was fixed at 3d. for unskilled and 4½d. for skilled men; in 1903 the rate was raised to 3½d. per week for unskilled and 4¾d. per week for skilled workmen. …
"In return for these payments the insured workman, if and when out of work in the period named above, receives, for not more than eight weeks in all, a daily amount, which is 2s. for each of the first 20 days (nothing being paid for Sundays), and then 1s. on each subsequent day. These payments begin on the third weekday after the date on which the man has reported himself as out of work. …
"No money is paid in respect of unemployment caused by illness or infirmity, or by the man’s own fault, or by a trade dispute."
At Leipsic the institution of insurance against unemployment is on much the same lines, but differing in some details of its rules. "The Leipsic Insurance Office was founded in April, 1903, with a guarantee fund of about £5000, provided by benevolent persons, in addition to which it proposed to receive annual subscriptions from members of the public. The town authorities granted accommodation for the Office rent free for three years. The system adopted was as follows: The right to insure with this Office is confined to men of 16 but not over 60 years of age, who have lived at Leipsic for at least two years; the general meeting may, however, allow residents in the suburbs of Leipsic to insure."
POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: Employers’ Labor Exchanges.
The Collieries Union, of colliery owners, in the Rhenish Westphalian coal district, was reported, in October, 1909, to have "decided to institute for the benefit of its members a system of centralized labour exchanges modelled upon the system which has existed for many years in the Hamburg iron industry. The principal objects in view are to secure a steady supply of permanent labour, to equalize a possible surplus of labour in certain districts and a corresponding deficit in others, and to prevent the habit on the part of miners of applying for employment at several collieries simultaneously. On the other hand, it is hoped that miners will be spared the frequently fruitless search for work."
----------POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: End--------
PRAIRIE OIL AND GAS COMPANY.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL, &C.: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1904-1909.
PREFERENTIAL TRADE: Discussed at the Imperial Conferences of 1902 and 1907 in London.
See (in this Volume) BRITISH EMPIRE: A. D. 1902 and 1907.
PRESS, The: Revived Censorship in Russia.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1909.
PRESS CONFERENCE, The British Imperial.
See (in this Volume) BRITISH EMPIRE: A. D. 1909 (JUNE).
PRETORIA: Peace Negotiations.
See (in this Volume) SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1901-1902.
PREVENTION OF CORRUPTION ACT.
See (in this Volume) CRIME AND CRIMINOLOGY.
PREVENTION OF CRIMES ACT, BRITISH.
See (in this Volume) CRIME AND CRIMINOLOGY.
PRIMARY, DIRECT.
See (in this Volume) ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: UNITED STATES.
PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND: A. D. 1901-1902. Census. Reduced Representation in Parliament.
See (in this Volume) CANADA: A. D. 1901-1902.
PRITCHETT, Henry S.: President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1905-1908.
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PRIZE COURT, CONTEMPLATED INTERNATIONAL.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1907 (appended to account of Second Peace Conference at The Hague).
PROBATION SYSTEM, THE.
See (in this Volume) CRIME AND CRIMINOLOGY: PROBATION.
PROBLEMS OF THE TIME: Of Crime.
See (in this Volume) CRIME AND CRIMINOLOGY.
PROBLEMS OF THE TIME: Of the Intoxicants.
See (in this Volume)
PROBLEMS OF THE TIME: Of Labor and Capital.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION, LABOR PROTECTION, AND LABOR REMUNERATION.
PROBLEMS OF THE TIME: Of Municipal Government.
See (in this Volume) MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT.
PROBLEMS OF THE TIME: Of Poverty and Unemployment.
See (in this Volume) POVERTY.
PROBLEMS OF THE TIME: Of Race.
See (in this Volume) RACE PROBLEMS.
PROBLEMS OF THE TIME: Of Railway Regulation.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS.
PROBLEMS OF THE TIME: Of the Trusts (so-called).
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL.
PROBLEMS OF THE TIME: Of War and Peace.
See (in this Volume) WAR: PREPARATIONS FOR, AND REVOLT AGAINST.
PROBLEMS OF THE TIME: Of Wealth.
See (in this Volume) WEALTH.
PROFIT-SHARING.
See (in this Volume) LABOR REMUNERATION.
PROGRESISTAS.
See (in this Volume) PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1907; also PORTUGAL: A. D. 1906-1909.
PROGRESSIVES.
See (in this Volume) SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1902-1904.
PROHIBITION.
See (in this Volume) ALCOHOL PROBLEM.
PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION.
See (in this Volume) ELECTIVE FRANCHISE.
PROTECTION, THE NEW.
See (in this Volume) LABOR REMUNERATION: THE NEW PROTECTION.
PROTECTORATES, SOUTH AFRICAN.
See (in this Volume) SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1909.
PRUSSIA: A. D. 1902. Measures for Germanizing the Polish Provinces.
See (in this Volume) GERMANY: A. D. 1902 (March-May), and 1908 (January).
PRUSSIA: A. D. 1904. Denominational Education restored.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: PRUSSIA: A. D. 1904.
PRUSSIA: A. D. 1905. Creation of a Government Bureau of Charities.
See (in this Volume) SOCIAL BETTERMENT: PRUSSIA.
PRUSSIA: A. D. 1906. Defiance of Popular Demands for Suffrage Reform.
See (in this Volume) GERMANY: A. D. 1906-1907.
PRUSSIA: A. D. 1906. A Comedy of Election Reform.
See (in this Volume) ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: GERMANY: A. D. 1906.
PRUSSIA: A. D. 1907. Statistics of Population. Birth Rate and Death Rate.
See (in this Volume) GERMANY: A. D. 1907.
PRUSSIA: A. D. 1908. Disappointing Statement by Prince Bülow about Suffrage Reform. Socialist Successes. A surprising word from the King.
In January, Prince Bülow, as Minister-President of Prussia, made a statement about suffrage reform which deeply disappointed all friends of that movement. It was therefore expected, when the Diet elections approached in June, that the Prussian people would be awakened by a violent agitation in favor of more liberal election laws, but nothing of the kind happened. The Socialists, indeed, made this their chief issue, and they carried a half-dozen districts, thus securing for the first time a foothold in the Diet; and the Radicals, too, gave out manhood suffrage as their watchword, but pressed it so feebly as to awaken the suspicion that their demand was not seriously meant.
"Nevertheless, the King’s speech from the throne in October surprised the country by announcing that a reform of the election laws was a fundamental necessity and would be undertaken during the present session. This announcement affected the country-squire element like tapping on a hornet’s nest. The Conservative party immediately gave it to be plainly understood that it would brook no tampering with the election laws, the stronghold of its power."
_W. C. Dreher, The Year in Germany (Atlantic Monthly, January, 1909)_.
PRUSSIA: A. D. 1908 (January). More vigorous Germanizing of the Polish Provinces.
See (in this Volume) GERMANY: A. D. 1908.
PRUSSIA: A. D. 1909-1910. Rejection of proposed Reforms of the Elective Franchise. The Offensive Bill of the following year.
See (in this Volume) ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: PRUSSIA.
----------PUBLIC HEALTH: Start--------
PUBLIC HEALTH: AMERICA: A. D. 1901-1902. Proposals of the Second International Conference of American Republics.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
PUBLIC HEALTH: Army Sanitation: By the Japanese.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905—at the end.
PUBLIC HEALTH: BUBONIC PLAGUE: In India.
The bubonic plague, which began to terrorize the eastern world, especially India, in the late years of the last century (see PLAGUE, in Volume VI.), showed signs of abating in India in 1900, but regained virulence in the following years, the mortality from it in all India rising to about 560,000 in 1902, exceeding 842,000 in 1903, going beyond a million in 1904, and rising to 1,125,652 in the year from October 1, 1904, to September 30, 1905. Its worst ravages were in the Presidency of Bombay and in the Punjab. In the Bombay Presidency the victims of 1903 numbered 343,904; in the Punjab they counted 210,493.
See (in this Volume) PUBLIC HEALTH: INDIA.
PUBLIC HEALTH: BUBONIC PLAGUE: In the Philippines: How it was stamped out.
Full accounts of the successful campaign against bubonic plague in the Philippines, in 1900-1902, are given in the annual reports of the Philippine Commission. From that source the main facts were summarized in the May number of the National Geographic Magazine, 1903, as follows:
Bubonic plague was discovered at Manila on December 26, 1899, and slowly but steadily increased in its ravages up to December, 1901. "The deaths in 1900 numbered 199, and in 1901 reached a total of 432. The disease was at its worst each year during the hot, dry months of March, April, and May, nearly or quite disappearing during September, October, November, and December. …
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"On account of the important part which house rats are known to play in the distribution of bubonic plague, a systematic campaign was inaugurated against these rodents in Manila. Policemen, sanitary inspectors, and specially appointed rat-catchers were furnished with traps and poison, and both traps and poison were distributed to private individuals under proper restrictions. A bounty was paid for all rats turned over to the health authorities, and stations were established at convenient points throughout the city where they could be received. Each rat was tagged with the street and number of the building or lot from which it came, was dropped into a strong antiseptic solution, and eventually sent to the Biological Laboratory, where it was subjected to a bacteriological examination for plague. During the first two weeks, 1.8 per cent. of the rats examined were found to be infected. This proportion steadily increased, reaching the alarming maximum of 2.3 per cent. in October. At this time numerous rats were found dead of plague in the infected districts, and, in view of the fact that epidemics of plague among the rats of a city in the past have been uniformly followed by epidemics among human beings, the gravest apprehension was felt, the rapid spread of the disease among the rats after the weather had become comparatively dry being a particularly unfavorable symptom.
"It was deemed necessary to prepare to deal with a severe epidemic, and a permanent detention camp, capable of accommodating fifteen hundred persons, was accordingly established on the grounds of the San Lazaro Hospital. Hoping against hope, the board of health redoubled its efforts to combat the disease. The force of sanitary inspectors was greatly increased, and under the able supervision of Dr. Meacham their work was brought to a high degree of efficiency. Frequent house-to-house inspections were made in all parts of the city where the disease was known to exist. The sick were removed to the hospital if practicable; otherwise they were cared for where found and the spread of infection guarded against.
"Plague houses were thoroughly disinfected, and their owners were compelled, under the direction of the assistant sanitary engineer, to make necessary alterations. Cement ground-floors were laid; double walls and double ceilings, affording a refuge for rats, were removed; defects in plumbing were remedied; whitewash was liberally used, and, in general, nothing was left undone that could render buildings where plague had occurred safe for human occupancy. Buildings incapable of thorough disinfection and renovation were destroyed. Buildings in which plague rats were taken were treated exactly as were those where the disease attacked the human occupants. The bacteriological examination of rats enabled the board of health to follow the pest into its most secret haunts and fight it there, and was the most important factor in the winning of the great success which was ultimately achieved.
"With very few exceptions, there was no recurrence of plague in buildings which had been disinfected and renovated. As center after center of infection was found and destroyed, the percentage of diseased rats began to decrease, and in January, 1902, when, judging from the history of previous years, plague should have again begun to spread among human beings, there was not a single case. In February, one case occurred. In March, there were two cases, as against 63 in March of the preceding year, and before April the disease had completely disappeared. This result, brought about at a time when the epidemic would, if unchecked, have reached its height for the year, marked the end of a fight begun by the board of health on the day of its organization and prosecuted unremittingly under adverse conditions for seven months, with a degree of success which has not been equaled under similar conditions in the history of bubonic plague.
"During 1901, plague appeared at several points in the provinces near Manila. Agents of the board of health were promptly dispatched to the infected municipalities, and radical remedial measures were adopted, including, in several instances, the burning of infected buildings, the result being the complete disappearance of plague in the provinces as well as in Manila."
PUBLIC HEALTH: CANCER RESEARCH: Mr. Barnato’s Bequest.
"We are reminded to-day that the late Mr. Harry Barnato bequeathed a sum of money amounting to a quarter of a million sterling for the establishment of a charity in memory of his brother, Mr. Barney Barnato, and of his nephew, Mr. Woolf Joel, both of whom died before him. We are now officially informed that the trustees under Mr. Harry Barnato’s will have determined to apply the bequest to the building and endowment of an institution for the reception of cancer patients, and to place its management under the control of the authorities of the Middlesex Hospital, where special wards for cancer patients have long been in operation, and where much has been done in devising means for the alleviation of their sufferings."
_London Times, August 9, 1909._
Mr. George Crocker, of California, who died in December, 1909, bequeathed a fund amounting to about $1,500,000 to Columbia University for the prosecution of researches into the cause, prevention, and cure of cancer. Mr. Crocker, his wife, and his father, Charles Crocker of California, all died of the disease. Mr. Crocker had given $50,000 to Columbia for the same purpose before his death. Mr. Crocker provided that, should a cure for the disease be discovered, the money should be devoted to other medical investigations, "with a view to preventing and curing diseases and alleviating human suffering." He stipulated further that no part of the fund should be used for the erection of a building.
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PUBLIC HEALTH: The Committee of One Hundred. Movement for a National Department or Bureau of Health.
A convincing paper read by Professor J. P. Norton, of Yale, before the economic section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science at its meeting in 1906, on the economic advisability of a national regulation of public health, led to the formation in 1907 of the Committee of One Hundred, which has labored since that time to bring about the creation of a Department or a Bureau of Public Health in the Federal administration of Government. Under the presidency of Mr. Irving Fisher, and with Mr. Edward T. Devine for its secretary, the Committee, which includes many of the most eminent men and women in the country, has awakened wide interest in the proposition, enlisting a public support which seems certain to give it success. When the subject came under discussion in the American Association for the Advancement of Science at its meeting of 1908, Professor William H. Welch, the retiring President of the Association, described the existing neglect of health as shameful, and pointed out that, if existing hygienic knowledge were fully applied, the death rate might be cut in two. As examples of what a Federal Health Bureau might do he cited the work of Pasteur and Koch, whose best work was done for the national governments of France and Germany, though the benefits have been shared by all nations. In America we lack even the statistics of disease except in a limited area.
In his Message to Congress, December 6, 1909, President Taft urged the institution of the proposed National Bureau of Health very cogently, in these words: "For a very considerable period a movement has been gathering strength, especially among the members of the medical profession, in favor of a concentration of the instruments of the national government, which have to do with the promotion of public health. In the nature of things, the Medical Department of the army and the Medical Department of the navy must be kept separate. But there seems to be no reason why all the other bureaus and offices in the general government which have to do with the public health or subjects akin thereto should not be united in a bureau to be called the ‘Bureau of Public Health.’ This would necessitate the transfer of the Marine Hospital Service to such a bureau. I am aware that there is a wide field in respect to the public health committed to the States in which the Federal government cannot exercise jurisdiction, but we have seen in the Agricultural Department the expansion into widest usefulness of a department giving attention to agriculture when that subject is plainly one over which the States properly exercise direct jurisdiction. The opportunities offered for useful research and the spread of useful information in regard to the cultivation of the soil and the breeding of stock and the solution of many of the intricate problems in progressive agriculture have demonstrated the wisdom of establishing that department. Similar reasons, of equal force, can be given for the establishment of a bureau of health that shall not only exercise the police jurisdiction of the Federal government respecting quarantine, but which shall also afford an opportunity for investigation and research by competent experts into questions of health affecting the whole country, or important sections thereof, questions which, in the absence of Federal governmental work, are not likely to be promptly solved."
PUBLIC HEALTH: The Hookworm Disease in the United States.
"In the Old World, hookworm disease was probably known to the Egyptians nearly three thousand five hundred years ago, but its cause was not understood until about the middle of the nineteenth century, when it was shown to be due to an intestinal parasite, Agchylostoma duodenale. Until 1893 no authentic cases of this disease were recognized as such in the United States, but between 1893 and 1902 about 35 cases were diagnosed. In 1902 it was shown that a distinct hookworm, Ucinaria americana, infests man in this country, and this indicated very strongly that the disease must be present although not generally recognized. It is now established that in addition to the few cases of Old World hookworm disease imported into the United States we have in the South an endemic uncinariasis due to a distinct cause, Uncinaria americana. This disease has been known for years in the South and can be traced in medical writings as far back as 1808, but its nature was not understood. Some cases have been confused with malaria, others have been attributed to dirt-eating.
"The hookworms are about half an inch long. They live in the small intestine, where they suck blood, produce minute hemorrhages, and in all probability also produce a substance which acts as a poison. They lay eggs which cannot develop to maturity in the intestine. These ova escape with the feces and hatch in about twenty-four hours; the young worm sheds its skin twice and then is ready to infect man. Infection takes place through the mouth, either by the hands soiled with larvae or by infected food. Infection through the drinking water may possibly occur. Finally, the larvae may enter the body through the skin and eventually reach the small intestine.
"Patients may be divided into light cases, in which the symptoms are very obscure; medium cases, in which the anemia is more or less marked, and severe cases, represented by the dwarfed, edematous, anemic dirt-eater. Infection occurs chiefly in rural sand districts. … Economically, uncinariasis is very important. It keeps children from school, decreases capacity for both physical and mental labor, and is one of the most important factors in determining the present condition of the poorer whites of the sand and pine districts of the South.
"The disease is carried from the farms to the cotton mills by the mill hands, but does not spread much in the mills; nevertheless, it causes a considerable amount of anemia among the operatives."-
_Ch. Wardell Stiles, Ph. D., Report upon the Prevalence and Geographic Distribution of Hookworm Disease (Public Health and Marine Hospital Service of the United States: Hygienic Laboratory, Bulletin No. 10)._
In the autumn of 1909 Mr. John D. Rockefeller placed a fund of $1,000,000 under the control of a Commission, to be used for the eradication of the hookworm disease in the United States. The fund is allotted in annual instalments of $200,000 each.
PUBLIC HEALTH: India: A. D. 1907-1908. Mortality Statistics and Birth Rate.
According to statistics given in the "Statement Exhibiting the Moral and Material Progress and Condition of India during the year 1907-1908," in most provinces the birth-rates exceeded the death-rates, but in the Punjab the death-rate exceeded the birth-rate by no less than 21.3 per mille, mainly as a result of the persistence of plague and the unusual prevalence of other epidemics. The total number of deaths registered in the Dependency was 8,399,623, compared with 7,852,330 in 1906. This constituted a rise of the rate from 34.73 per mille to 37.18. The mean mortality per 1,000 for the quinquennium ending 1906 was 33.96. The rate in the Punjab was no less than 62.1.
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Throughout the country as a whole cholera was responsible for 1.81 deaths per mille, smallpox for 0.46, fevers for 19.76, dysentery and diarrhoea for 1.25, and plague for 5.16. In the previous year (1906) there was a most welcome decline in the plague death-rate, which fell from 4.17 in 1905 to 1.33. But in the year under review this malignant disease (which first appeared in Bombay in 1896) was responsible for the record number of 1,315,892 deaths. Happily in 1908 there was again a very rapid decline of mortality, and the preliminary figures for the year give a total of less than 150,000 deaths, this being lower than in any year since 1900. The report shows that plague has been curiously partial in its distribution, many parts of the Dependency having almost entirely escaped its ravages. It is shown that the civil hospitals and dispensaries in India (2,514 in number) treated 412,425 indoor and no fewer than 24,469,548 outdoor patients.
PUBLIC HEALTH: Japan: A. D. 1904-1905. Army Sanitation in the War with Russia.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905--at the end.
PUBLIC HEALTH: Malaria: A Lesson in Practical Hygiene from Italy. Slowness in using the knowledge gained.
The following is from a letter by Dr. William Osier to the London Times, dated at Rome, March, 3, 1909: "We owe much to the Italians for their contributions to our knowledge of the cause of malaria. Laveran’s great discovery was promptly fathered by Marchiafava and Celli and Golgi, and it was through their writings that we obtained the fullest details of the nature and structure of the malarial parasite. As an old student of the disease and deeply interested in the practical problems of its prevention, one of my first visits in Rome was to the Laboratories of Pathology and of Hygiene to find out from the Directors, Marchiafava and Celli, the progress of the battle. It was not enough to know the cause; we had to know how it worked before effective measures could be taken, and the demonstration by Ross of the transmission of the disease by the mosquito at once put malaria on the list of easily preventable infections. Just ten years ago the Italian Society for the Study of Malaria was founded, and I was able to get a full report of the work.
"In Professor Celli’s lecture-room hangs the mortality chart of Italy for the past 20 years. In 1887 malaria ranked with tuberculosis, pneumonia, and the intestinal disorders of children as one of the great infections, killing in that year 21,033 persons. The chart shows a gradual reduction in the death-rate, and in 1906 only 4,871 persons died of the disease, and in 1907 4,160. This remarkable result has been very largely due to the sanitary measures introduced by the society. It has long been known that malaria disappears ‘spontaneously.’ The Fen country is now healthy; parts of Canada, about Lakes Ontario and Erie, which were formerly hotbeds of the disease, are now free. This cannot be attributed altogether to cultivation and drainage. I know places on the shores of the lakes just mentioned in which the conditions today are identical with those which I remember as a boy. The Desjardin Canal Marsh at the extreme western end of Lake Ontario was a well-known focus of the disease. The marsh remains, the mosquitoes are there; but a case of malaria is almost as rare as in England. The disappearance is largely due to the free use of quinine. The settlers early recognized the important fact that malaria was a disease liable to recur, and it became a common practice to take Peruvian bark every spring and autumn for a year or two after an attack. This is a point in prophylaxis which the work of the Italian Society has brought into prominence. From the summary of the decennial report just issued, the following paragraphs are of interest:
"‘The society has improved the prophylaxis of malaria, and has introduced into practice the new mechanical measures based on the defence of the habitation and the individual from the bites of mosquitoes. This being a relatively expensive procedure, the society has occupied itself chiefly with the improvement of the anti-plasmodic prophylaxis—the administration of quinine. For this purpose it has promoted and defended legislation for the gratuitous distribution of quinine to the poor and to all workers in malarial localities. …
"‘The results have been that since 1902, when the law on State quinine was promulgated, while the consumption of quinine has been yearly increasing, the mortality from malaria has diminished from about 16,000 to about 4,000 yearly; and in the army, Custom House Offices, and in some communes where the new laws have been better applied, the morbidity from malaria has greatly diminished.’
"By these measures, and ‘by means of the agricultural and agrarian transformation of the land and colonization, rather than by the destruction of mosquitoes (a thing impossible to be done by us on a large scale),’ Italy may be freed from the scourge."
In a lecture at the Royal Institution, London, in May, 1909, Major Ronald Ross, one of the most notable workers in this field of sanitary science, spoke discouragingly of the progress made in applying the knowledge gained. He said:
"The immediate success hoped for ten years ago had not been attained. The battle still raged along the whole line, but it was no longer a battle against malaria but against human stupidity. Those who had taken part in it had reasoned and been ridiculed; had given the most stringent experimental proofs and had been disbelieved; had protested and been called charlatans. … The few persons who had fought the fight and failed were scarcely able to continue it, and if no stronger influences could be excited the future of malaria prevention in British dominions would certainly be as barren as the past had been."
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PUBLIC HEALTH: Panama Canal: The Sanitation of the Canal Zone. Extirpation of Malaria and Yellow Fever. Report of Secretary Taft.
In the fall of 1905 Secretary Taft made a visit of inspection to the Canal, and gave, on his return, an interesting account of the conditions he found, in an address before the St. Louis Commercial Club. On the work of Sanitation in progress, under the direction of Dr. W. C. Gorgas, U. S. A., he gave the following description: "When Judge Magoon [appointed Governor of the Canal Zone] arrived upon the Isthmus, he found Dr. Gorgas battling manfully against the yellow fever, but the cases seemed to be increasing. Judge Magoon conceived the idea that the fumigation which had been confined to two or three houses might well be extended to all the houses in Panama, and at considerable expense, and after procuring a large amount of material, every house in Panama was fumigated once every two weeks. To secure increased vigilance and popular assistance he employed all [the respectable Panamanian physicians of Panama as inspectors of the districts of that city, at annual salaries of $1,200 a year. He also offered $50 reward for the discovery of any case of yellow fever not reported. By methods of this kind the native apathy, usually so great an obstacle to successful sanitation in Spanish countries, was neutralized.
"The plan of fumigation is as follows: Strips of paper are placed across the windows, which ordinarily have no glass or any netting in them, and then by the fumes either of sulphur or pyrethrum every nook and cranny of the house is visited. These gases are fatal or paralyzing to the mosquito. After sufficient time has passed the house is opened, and then a corps of health employees are set to work cleaning the house and sweeping out the dead mosquitoes, which are found in great numbers upon the floors. The mosquitoes are burned to avoid further mischief. By these methods, for which Dr. Gorgas and Governor Magoon are both to be credited with great praise, yellow fever has been reduced to a point where during the last month only three cases were reported, not one of these among canal employees, and all originating many miles from the canal line. The efforts to subdue the fever, instead of being relaxed, are being continued. Square miles of woven-wire netting with interstices so small as to prevent the entrance of mosquitoes are spread about the piazzas of the houses of all Americans and foreigners who come to live under the auspices of the Canal Commission in the Isthmus. The windows inside are also screened, and then mosquito-bars on the beds are used as a third precaution. Whenever a case of yellow fever is discovered, the patient is at once either removed to the hospital and put under a woven-wire screen, or, if he prefers to remain at home, the woven-wire screen is put over him and an orderly placed in charge of him at his own residence. In this way he is prevented from furnishing a supply of the poison to the healthy mosquitoes, who, in turn, by stinging, would bring it back to man. In other words, the plan is to kill all the mosquitoes, well or ill, keep them as much as possible from stinging man, and isolate every man with yellow fever, not from his fellows, but from mosquitoes. … Little by little, and facing discouragement after discouragement, the two thousand employees of the sanitary department are winning in this fight against disease, upon which the whole success of the canal work depends. As Mr. Stevens said to me, when I crossed the Isthmus with him this month, ‘I take off my hat to the work which the sanitation department has done in this Canal Zone.’"
A report to the London Times, in June, 1909, of conditions on the Canal and in the Canal Zone, shows the effectiveness with which this work of sanitation was done. More arduous than the campaign against yellow fever, says the writer, "was the campaign against malaria, a disease from which 80 per cent. of the people were suffering to some degree. This campaign consisted in warfare against mosquitoes and in the administration of quinine, and the efforts in this respect have also been highly successful. In 1906 the proportion of canal employés treated for malaria was no less than 821 in the thousand. In 1908 it had fallen to 282 in the thousand. The general effect of sanitary measures may best be judged from the death-rate among the tens of thousands of canal employés. In 1906 it was 41.73 to the thousand, and in 1908 it was only 13.01 to the thousand, making the canal one of the most healthy industrial establishments in the world."
PUBLIC HEALTH: PELLAGRA: Lombroso’s Discovery of its Source. Its now recognized Seriousness.
In 1872 Cesare Lombroso, the noted criminologist, "incurred a great deal of odium for a discovery which proved to be of much scientific and economic importance. He noted the fact that a large number of the inmates of asylums were suffering from pellagra, a curious disease, which first affected the skin and afterwards attacked the brain and nervous system. Lombroso discovered that the disorder was to be traced to a poison contained in diseased maize, which the Lombardian landowners were in the habit of doling out to the poor peasantry. At a time when toxins were unknown, Lombroso succeeded in extracting the poison from the maize and infecting animals with it—quite in the manner of modern bacteriologists. His discovery was received with much derision; but a friend of Lombroso, M. Alfred Maury, reported the facts to Berthelot, the Parisian chemist, who analysed the poison and established the fact that the maize contained an injurious substance resembling strychnine but differing from it in important particulars. The validity of Lombroso’s discovery was thus triumphantly established. He was not satisfied with this initial success, but for several years fought on the platform and in the Press for an improvement in the economic conditions of the peasantry whereby the ravages of the disease might be combated." In late years his work of agitation on the subject has been continued by many others. The disease is of recognized seriousness in Italy, France, and latterly in the United States. In November, 1909, the American Government appointed an official commission to investigate it.
PUBLIC HEALTH: PURE FOOD LAWS: International Congresses.
The first International Congress for discussion and action on the subject of Pure Food was assembled at Geneva in 1908, and attended by about 600 persons. The second was held at Paris in October, 1909, and much more largely attended.
PUBLIC HEALTH: PURE FOOD LAWS: United States: A. D. 1906. Legislation at the end of a long struggle.
Bulletin No. 104 of the Bureau of Chemistry, Department of Agriculture, entitled "Food Legislation during the year ended June 30, 1906," introduces the text of National and State laws enacted that year with the following remarks: "Food legislation for the year ended July 1, 1906, is the most important in the history of the United States. A Federal pure-food bill in various forms has been before Congress continuously for more than twenty years, and such a bill became a law on June 30, 1906. On the same day, as part of the appropriation bill of the United States Department of Agriculture, in the sections providing for the Bureau of Animal Industry, important legislation was enacted with reference to the inspection of meat and meat food products."
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The Federal Food and Drugs Act of June 30, 1906, enacts in its first section "That it shall be unlawful for any person to manufacture within any Territory or the District of Columbia any article of food or drug which is adulterated or misbranded, within the meaning of this Act; and any person who shall violate any of the provisions of this section shall be guilty of misdemeanor, and for each offense shall, upon conviction thereof, be fined not to exceed five hundred dollars or shall be sentenced to one year’s imprisonment, or both such fine and imprisonment, in the discretion of the court, and for each subsequent offense and conviction thereof shall be fined not less than one thousand dollars or sentenced to one year’s imprisonment, or both such fine and imprisonment, in the discretion of the court."
The second section declares:
"That the introduction into any State or Territory or the District of Columbia from any other State or Territory or the District of Columbia, or from any foreign country, or shipment to any foreign country of any article of food or drugs which is adulterated or misbranded within the meaning of this Act, is hereby prohibited"; and penalties are prescribed for violations of the law, being a fine not exceeding $200 for the first offense, and for the second offense a fine not to exceed $300, or imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both, in the discretion of the court.
Section 3 reads as follows:
"That the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Agriculture, and the Secretary of Commerce and Labor shall make uniform rules and regulations for carrying out the provisions of this Act, including the collection and examination of specimens of foods and drugs manufactured or offered for sale in the District of Columbia, or in any Territory of the United States, or which shall be offered for sale in unbroken packages in any State other than that in which they shall have been respectively manufactured or produced, or which shall be received from any foreign country, or intended for shipment to any foreign country, or which may be submitted for examination by the chief health, food, or drug officer of any State, Territory, or the District of Columbia, or at any domestic or foreign port through which such product is offered for interstate commerce, or for export or import between the United States and any foreign port or country."
Section 4 prescribes the examination of specimens of food and drugs in the Bureau of Chemistry, and section 5 relates to prosecutions for violation of the Act. Sections 6, 7, and 8 define adulteration and misbranding, as follows:
"Section 6. That the term ‘drug,’ as used in this Act, shall include all medicines and preparations recognized in the United States Pharmacopoeia or National Formulary for internal or external use, and any substance or mixture of substances intended to be used for the cure, mitigation, or prevention of disease of either man or other animals. The term ‘food,’ as used herein, shall include all articles used for food, drink, confectionery, or condiment by man or other animals, whether simple, mixed, or compound.
"Section 7. That for the purposes of this Act an article shall be deemed to be adulterated:
"In case of drugs:
"First. If, when a drug is sold under or by a name recognized in the United States Pharmacopoeia or National Formulary, it differs from the standard of strength, quality, or purity, as determined by the test laid down in the United States Pharmacopoeia or National Formulary official at the time of investigation: Provided, That no drug defined in the United States Pharmacopoeia or National Formulary shall be deemed to be adulterated under this provision if the standard of strength, quality, or purity be plainly stated upon the bottle, box, or other container thereof although the standard may differ from that determined by the test laid down in the United States Pharmacopoeia or National Formulary.
"Second. If its strength or purity fall below the professed standard or quality under which it is sold.
"In the case of confectionery:
"If it contain terra alba, barytes, talc, chrome yellow, or other mineral substance or poisonous color or flavor, or other ingredient deleterious or detrimental to health, or any vinous, malt or spirituous liquor or compound or narcotic drug.
"In the case of food:
"First. If any substance has been mixed and packed with it so as to reduce or lower or injuriously affect its quality or strength.
"Second. If any substance has been substituted wholly or in part for the article.
"Third. If any valuable constituent of the article has been wholly or in part abstracted.
"Fourth. If it be mixed, colored, powdered, coated, or stained in a manner whereby damage or inferiority is concealed.
"Fifth. If it contain any added poisonous or other added deleterious ingredient which may render such article injurious to health: Provided, That when in the preparation of food products for shipment they are preserved by any external application applied in such manner that the preservative is necessarily removed mechanically, or by maceration in water, or otherwise, and directions for the removal of said preservative shall be printed on the covering of the package, the provisions of this Act shall be construed as applying only when said products are ready for consumption.
"Sixth. If it consists in whole or in part of a filthy, decomposed, or putrid animal or vegetable substance, or any portion of an animal unfit for food, whether manufactured or not, or if it is the product of a diseased animal, or one that has died otherwise than by slaughter.
"Section 8. That the term ‘misbranded,’ as used herein, shall apply to all drugs, or articles of food, or articles which enter into the composition of food, the package or label of which shall bear any statement, design, or device regarding such article, or the ingredients or substances contained therein which shall be false or misleading in any particular, and to any food or drug product which is falsely branded as to the State, Territory, or country in which it is manufactured or produced.
"That for the purposes of this Act an article shall also be deemed to be misbranded:
"In case of drugs:
"First. If it be an imitation of or offered for sale under the name of another article.
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"Second. If the contents of the package as originally put up shall have been removed, in whole or in part, and other contents shall have been placed in such package, or if the package fail to bear a statement on the label of the quantity or proportion of any alcohol, morphine, opium, cocaine, heroin, alpha or beta eucaine, chloroform, cannabis indica, chloral hydrate, or acetanilide, or any derivative or preparation of any of such substances contained therein.
"In the case of food:
"First. If it be an imitation of or offered for sale under the distinctive name of another article.
"Second. If it be labeled or branded so as to deceive or mislead the purchaser, or purport to be a foreign product when not so, or if the contents of the package as originally put up shall have been removed in whole or in part and other contents shall have been placed in such package, or if it fail to bear a statement on the label of the quantity or proportion of any morphine, opium, cocaine, heroin, alpha or beta eucaine, chloroform, cannabis indica, chloral hydrate, or acetanilide, or any derivative or preparation of any of such substances contained therein.
"Third. If in package form, and the contents are stated in terms of weight or measure, they are not plainly and correctly stated on the outside of the package.
"Fourth. If the package containing it or its label shall bear any statement, design, or device regarding the ingredients or the substances contained therein, which statement, design, or device shall be false or misleading in any particular: Provided, That an article of food which does not contain any added poisonous or deleterious ingredients shall not be deemed to be adulterated or misbranded in the following cases:
"First. In the case of mixtures or compounds which may be now or from time to time hereafter known as articles of food, under their own distinctive names, and not an imitation of or offered for sale under the distinctive name of another article, if the name be accompanied on the same label or brand with a statement of the place where said article has been manufactured or produced.
"Second. In the case of articles labeled, branded, or tagged so as to plainly indicate that they are compounds, imitations, or blends, and the word ‘compound,’ ‘imitation,’ or ‘blend,’ as the case may be, is plainly stated on the package in which it is offered for sale: Provided, That the term blend as used herein shall be construed to mean a mixture of like substances, not excluding harmless coloring or flavoring ingredients used for the purpose of coloring and flavoring only: And provided further, That nothing in this Act shall be construed as requiring or compelling proprietors or manufacturers of proprietary foods which contain no unwholesome added ingredient to disclose their trade formulas, except in so far as the provisions of this Act may require to secure freedom from adulteration or misbranding."
There was never a harder fight in Congress than that by which this victory was won, over knaveries that, were not ashamed to insist on their right to swindle and poison the public by adulterations and frauds. Nothing but a thoroughly roused public feeling carried the measure through. The same feeling impelled local legislation to the same end in thirty-two States, during 1906, and 1907, all of which is set forth in the Bulletin cited above and in another of the same series (No. 112), published in two parts in the following year.
Writing in January, 1908, of what the Pure Food Law had accomplished, the Chairman of the Food Committee of the National Consumers League, Alice Lakey, said: "One of the most important results of the Pure Food Law is the awakening of many consumers to their responsibilities as buyers of food products. They are studying labels and buying foods accordingly. With an intelligent consuming public to purchase goods, the Pure Food Law will in time accomplish its full purpose. Perhaps no better phrase will then be found to describe it than the recent utterance of the manager of one of the most important food firms in the country. ‘The Pure Food Law,’ he said, ‘passed by this Government, is the most important law ever passed by any government.’"
PUBLIC HEALTH: United States: A. D. 1906. The Packing-House Investigation.
One of the influences which forced the passage through Congress of the pure food legislation of 1906 came from the revelations in a report laid before the President on the 4th of June that year, by two commissioners whom he had appointed to investigate the conditions existing at the stockyards and packing-houses of Chicago. In communicating the report to Congress the President characterized its disclosures as revolting, and it is certain that the whole public was sickened by the pictures it drew of reckless filthiness prevailing in the establishments where meats were prepared for sale in the markets of the country and of the world. We shall not attempt to reproduce them here.
The most important part of the report concerned the existing methods of official inspection of meats. The commissioners found it most rigorous where it is needed least, namely, at the time of killing. It was while the meat was being handled, and especially in its preparation for canning, that it underwent the most pollution. The cans which received it finally were allowed to bear labels stating that "the contents of this package have been inspected according to the Act of Congress of March 3, 1891. Quality Guaranteed." As a matter of fact, all that had been inspected was the carcass of the animal at the time of killing.
The further legislation, respecting inspections, which supplemented the law quoted from above, was resisted with all their power by the enormously rich meat-packing companies of the country, who found strong supporters in Congress, but they had to submit to defeat.
PUBLIC HEALTH: The Sleeping Sickness in Africa.
"The most formidable enemy of both man and beast in tropical Africa is the tsetse, species Glossina, a genus of blood-sucking fly peculiar to that land, which carries a minute parasite, the trypanosome, from the infected to the healthy, resulting in the production of sleeping sickness, or trypanosomiasis. When it is known that in the region lying around Victoria Nyanza, Lake Tanganyika, and the Victorian Nile over 400,000 human beings have succumbed to this fatal malady since it appeared about ten years ago, its appalling nature is apparent. Vast territories of thickly populated, fertile country near the shores of these lakes, until the advent of this terrible plague the homes of a happy, contented people, are now almost depopulated, and thousands of little villages have been swept away, their inhabitants victims of this deadly pest.
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"In appearance the tsetse fly bears a remarkable resemblance to the ordinary house-fly, but is slightly larger, with longer wings, which extend beyond its body and lap each other when at rest like the blades of a pair of scissors. It is somber gray, nearly black in color, almost like the honey-bee, and has a prominent proboscis ensheathed in the palpi which project horizontally in front of its head. The abdomen is marked by four distinct yellowish bands, with a pale spot over the upper segment. It is wonderfully active, and evades every attempt at capture except in the cool of the morning or evening, when its movements are sluggish and it can be caught in the hand. …
"Sleeping sickness has been known in Sierra Leone, in the Congo, and on the west coast of Africa since the earliest history of those lands. In 1870 a fossil tsetse fly (Glossina morsitans) was discovered in Colorado, and the theory has been advanced that the absence of wild horses on the American continent was due to the ravages of the disease carried by these flies.
"The malady was described as early as 1803, and later most accurately by Livingstone, the great missionary explorer. He also advocated arsenic in its treatment. This remedy, after half a century of research and investigation, still retains its place as the best one known for prolonging life. …
"The period of the incubation of the disease after the bite of the infected fly varies from a month to several years, depending upon the resisting power of the patient. In its earlier stages the first noticeable symptoms are irregular fever. … This stage may continue a year, or even longer.
"In the following stage the symptoms are due to the trypanosomes reaching the cerebrospinal fluid, giving rise to cerebral manifestations; drowsiness, stupor, dullness of hearing, slowness in perception and of answering questions, with incapacity for mental exertion, and somnolence, the patient sometimes sleeping the entire day. This condition may continue several years, during which time epileptiform convulsions develop, with marked tremulousness of the muscles of the face and tongue, the patient becoming maniacal and the whole symptomatology resembling that of general paresis of the insane. …
"Previous to 1901 sleeping sickness was unknown in Uganda. How the present epidemic originated is not positively known. The most generally accepted theory is that the soldiers of Emin Pasha and their followers introduced it, as some ten thousand of them settled in Busoga after the Sudan campaign. …
"The duration of the sleeping sickness in man is very variable. Occasionally cases linger six or even eight years, and until the expiration of this period they are constant foci of infection.
"Recognizing the fatal nature of the disease, the various nations whose territories are most seriously affected, notably England, Germany, Portugal, France, and Belgium, appointed commissioners, with competent assistants, to ascertain methods for its control. The enormous amount of investigation and research accomplished by these self-sacrificing men, among whom may be mentioned Bruce, Koch, Hodges, Broden, Tullock, Kopke, Martin, Hardy, and Kleine, two of whom forfeited their lives in the work, entitles their names to be enrolled among the benefactors of mankind."
_Louis L. Seaman, The Sleeping Sickness (The Outlook, January 15, 1909)._
PUBLIC HEALTH: Tuberculosis: The Organized Warfare for its Eradication.
After the discovery of the all important fact that the most destroying of the diseases of the human race, tuberculosis (the dread "consumption" of the older-fashioned nomenclature of pathology), is in its nature one so propagated from victim to victim that the propagation is needless, and may absolutely be ended by right precautions universally applied, there were ardent workers soon engaged in eager efforts to bring such measures into use. The beginning of a hopefully inspired warfare against the disease dates, therefore, from the identification of the bacillus of tuberculosis by Dr. Robert Koch, in 1882; but, for nearly two decades after that inspiration it was little more than a guerrilla undertaking, by scientifically benevolent individuals and groups, here and there in the world. It was not until the latest years of the nineteenth century and the earliest of the twentieth that more public risings appeared in the movement, and it began to acquire the momentum of a crusade.
Germany appears to have been earliest in the fundamental organization of measures to instruct its people in the nature of the disease, and in the means by which it may be stamped out; as well as in the provision of special sanatoria and hospitals for the new open-air treatment of those attacked. But the Health Department of the City of New York has the credit of being the first official body to bring the disease under efficient administrative control. On this subject Dr. Hermann M. Biggs, in an address delivered, February 16, 1904, under the auspices of the Henry Phipps Institute and published in the first annual report of the Institute, said:
"Notwithstanding all that has been said and written, notwithstanding the popular education and agitation, notwithstanding the formation of antituberculosis societies and antituberculosis leagues, notwithstanding the organization of many associations for the erection of sanatoria, and the foundation of institutions for the study of tuberculosis, notwithstanding the measures adopted for the prevention of the disease in animals, still only a very small percentage of the governmental, municipal and state sanitary authorities of this country, Great Britain and the Continent have adopted provisions which can be regarded as in any way comprehensive, or effective in dealing with this disease.
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"If we seek for an adequate explanation for this attitude, it is not, after all, difficult to find. In speaking of this matter several years ago, Koch said in substance to the writer: ‘The adoption in Germany of such measures as are already in force in New York City will not be possible until the generation of medical men now in control have passed away. Not until a younger generation has appeared, which has had a different scientific training, and holds views more in harmony with the known facts regarding the etiology of tuberculosis, will it be possible in my opinion to bring about an intelligent supervision of this disease. … Notification is a necessary preliminary to any plan of supervision, and yet only five years ago a special commission of the Academy of Medicine of Paris reported against a proposition to place tuberculosis in the class of notifiable diseases. … Sir Richard Thorne, the Medical Officer to the Local Government Board of Great Britain, in the Harben lecture in 1898 on ‘The Administrative Control of Tuberculosis,’ after a careful consideration of the various problems presented under the English law relating to infectious diseases, pronounced definitely against this proposition, on the ground that the hardship to the individual, which would follow notification and the enforcement of proper regulations, would be so great as to render this measure unjustifiable. … The compulsory notification and registration of all cases is essential. The fundamental importance of this measure is so evident that its consideration seems hardly necessary. It must of course appear at once that unless there is a system of compulsory notification, and registration, the enforcement of any uniform measures for prevention is impossible. Practical experience with this procedure has made it perfectly clear that the objections which have been urged against it are without force or foundation.
"In New York City in 1893 a system of partially voluntary and partially compulsory notification was adopted. Public institutions were required to report cases coming under their supervision; private physicians were requested to do this. Under this provision the Department of Health carried on this work for three and a half years, and then adopted in 1897 regulations requiring the notification of all cases. … The mere fact of notification and registration has in itself a very powerful educational influence. During the year 1902 more than sixteen thousand cases were reported to the Department of Health in New York City, of which forty-two hundred were duplicates, and in 1903 more than seventeen thousand cases were reported.
"To facilitate the early and definite diagnosis of all cases of pulmonary tuberculosis, the sanitary authorities should afford facilities for the free bacteriological examination of the sputum in all instances of suspected disease. … The Department of Health of New York City provided facilities for such examinations in 1894, early in the history of its attempt to exercise control over the disease, and this procedure has proved of very great value to the medical profession, to the sick, and to the authorities. Following the example of New York City, other sanitary authorities have adopted similar measures."
_H. M. Biggs, The Administrative Control of Tuberculosis (First Annual Report, Henry Phipps Institute, 1905)._
In 1895 a Central Committee was organized in Germany to establish special hospitals for the disease.
In 1898 the first National Congress for discussion and better organization of action relative to tuberculosis was held at Paris, with some attendance from outside of France. The second National Congress was at Berlin in the following year, with similar attendance from other countries, and the third at Naples in 1900. At the Naples Congress a "Central International Committee for the Prevention of Tuberculosis" was organized, and it held its first Conference in Berlin, under the auspices of the Central German Committee, in 1902. The succeeding meetings of the Central International Committee were at Paris, 1903, at Copenhagen, 1904, at Paris again, 1904, and there, at that time, the First International Congress on Tuberculosis was held.
In 1901 the first National Congress in Great Britain for the discussion of Tuberculosis and for organizing preventive undertakings was held at London. There were said to be then fifty sanitaria for its treatment in Germany; in France a dozen private and two public institutions for the purpose; in France and Belgium a number of public dispensaries specially provided for the disease. In that year the State of New York made its first appropriation for a Tuberculosis Hospital in the Adirondacks, and a National Sanitarium Association at Toronto, Canada, secured the site for a hospital.
In 1902, at the annual meeting of the Canada Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis, held at Ottawa, Dr. A. S. Knopf, of New York, speaking of the progress of the anti-tuberculosis movement, said of the United States: "We have but a few small societies striving to do the same work you are doing. They are the Pennsylvania, the Colorado, the Ohio, the Maine, the Minnesota and the Illinois." Besides these State Associations the speaker mentioned a few cities,—Baltimore, Buffalo and Erie County, Cleveland, and St. Louis,—as having some organization for the work. No national organization had yet been formed. In this year, however, some advances of importance within the United States were begun. Henry Phipps, of New York, pledged the means for supporting a free Clinic for Tuberculosis at Philadelphia, which expanded within a year into the Henry Phipps Institute, founded on the 1st of February and incorporated September 1st, 1903, the purposes of which, as set forth in its charter, are: "The study of the cause, treatment, and prevention of tuberculosis, and the dissemination of knowledge on these subjects; the treatment and the cure of consumptives"; its benefits to be "administered without regard to race, creed or color." In this year, too, an active educational work, by weekly free lectures in the Assembly Hall of the United Charities Building, by distributing pamphlets, district nursing, etc., was opened in the City of New York and conducted by a Committee for the Prevention of Tuberculosis. Massachusetts was now appropriating money for its second sanatorium. In Great Britain, Sir Edward Cassell placed £200,000 at the disposal of the King for Tuberculosis hospitals and Sanatoria.
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The year 1903 witnessed an important meeting at Paris of the Central International Tuberculosis Committee, which was stirred by an appeal from Casimir-Perier, ex-President of France, for "a mobilization of all social forces" against the devastating disease. The Government of Sweden instituted a free distribution of pamphlets on the subject of Tuberculosis throughout the kingdom. In Great Britain a national committee, representing all important friendly societies and trade unions, was formed to promote the establishing of sanatoria for workers. In Belgium, Madame Rene Gauge started the movement for Open Air Schools. At Baltimore a Tuberculosis Exhibition which awakened wide interest was arranged by a Commission appointed by the Governor of Maryland in the previous year, in cooperation with the Maryland Public Health Association. State and City organizations for dealing with the disease and for educating the people to a right understanding of the means by which it might be stamped out were now multiplying rapidly throughout the United States.
In 1904 the United States obtained their first comprehensive organization for the work. The National Association for Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis was formed at a large meeting at Atlantic City in June, with Dr. Edward Trudeau of Saranac, founder of the Saranac cottage sanatoria and pioneer in America of the open air treatment of the disease, for its President, and Drs. William Osier, of Baltimore, and Hermann M. Biggs for Vice Presidents. In Boston, that year, no less than eighty-one free lectures on Tuberculosis were given in schools, churches, social settlements, before trade unions and clubs, under the auspices of the Boston Association, and 70,000 instructive leaflets were distributed. In France a special Society for the Protection of Children from Tuberculosis was formed. The Garment-makers Union and the Typographical Union of New York entered jointly into undertakings of educational work among their members, and the Central Federated Union was soon enlisted with them. A Directory of Institutions and Societies dealing with Tuberculosis in the United States, published in January, 1905, described 125 then existing hospitals and sanatoria in which consumptives may receive treatment, and 32 special dispensaries; recounting, also, special measures for the treatment of the disease in penal institutions and hospitals for the insane.
The most important campaign of 1905 in the crusade, within the American field, was probably that connected with the great Tuberculosis Exposition in New York City, prepared and conducted by the National Association, in cooperation with the Committee of the New York Charity Organization Society. New York City, in this year, appropriated $250,000 for a Municipal Tuberculosis Hospital, located in the Catskill Mountains.
In 1906 a duplication of the Tuberculosis Exposition of the previous December in New York was carried, as a travelling exhibit, to different parts of the city, with impressive effect; and similar exhibits were given in eleven cities of the United States. It was reported in this year that about fifty local commissions and associations were actively in operation in the United States; and that the American Federation of Labor, as well as the American Federation of Women’s Clubs, were enlisted with earnestness in the work. The Fifth International Conference was held this year at The Hague.
From this time the public awakening to recognition of the measureless importance and the inspiring hopefulness of the struggle to extinguish the deadly "white plague" spread rapidly everywhere, and each year made increasing records of gains in the work and its effects. Fourteen of the American States were reported in 1907 as having founded State hospitals for the disease, supported from public funds, while measures were in progress to that end in a number of other States.
In 1908 a most powerful impulse to the crusade in America was imparted by the meeting at Washington, that year, of the International Congress on Tuberculosis, with a large attendance of the most distinguished captains of the warfare from abroad. The local interest aroused was beyond expectation. As one writer described the meetings of the seven sections of the Congress, from September 28 to October 3, "scientists of international reputation and doctors from country villages, clubwomen, architects, social workers, manufacturers, teachers, labor men, Socialists, literary men, lawyers and lawmakers, society women, and the clergy, were all there, not only to listen, but to take part."
The subjects which received the most discussion at the Congress were the compulsory notification of pulmonary tuberculosis, the cooperation between official and non-official agencies for the prevention of the disease, the relationship between dispensaries, sanatoria, and hospitals for advanced cases, and the difference between the human and the bovine types of the bacillus. On this latter subject Dr. Koch, who was present, maintained his belief that bovine tuberculosis is not communicable to mankind, but failed to convince the majority of the scientists present. The British delegates to the Congress in their subsequent report of it, published in April, 1909, attached particular importance to the discussions on the subject of the compulsory notification of cases of tuberculosis, and pointed out that in New York the notifications were shown to be four times as numerous as the deaths, which indicated a more complete system than any yet operative in Great Britain. It appeared from their report, however, that, since the Washington meeting, the system of voluntary notification already practised in many parts of England had been extended by order of the Local Government Board, and rendered compulsory in the case of all patients suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis, who came under the official care of a parochial medical officer.
Statistics quoted in the New York Evening Post of May 8, 1909, from the Imperial Gazette, show that in recent years there has been a steady decrease in the number of deaths in Germany from tuberculosis, and especially from tuberculosis of the lungs. The figures are based upon the monthly reports of deaths in 350 of the largest centres of population in the empire, and upon annual reports as to the causes of deaths from nearly all districts, as supplied to the Imperial Board of Health. The average of deaths per 100,000 in 1905 was 226.6. In 1908 the average had fallen to 192.15. For the rural and urban population combined statistics are forthcoming for 97 per cent. of the total population, divided into two classes—persons below the age of fifteen, and persons between fifteen and sixty. {526} In the latter class the average number of deaths annually between 1898 and 1902 from tuberculosis in all forms was 268.5, and from tuberculosis of the lungs, 255.7 per 100,000. During the period 1903-1907 the annual averages decreased to 242.8 and 228.8 per 100,000, respectively. The figures, however, for tuberculosis of all kinds among children between the ages of one year and fifteen show an average annual increase in deaths per 100,000 from 77.9 during the period 1898-1902 to 81.1 during the period 1903-1907. Yet during the latter period of five years the actual number of deaths among children has gradually decreased from 16,250 in 1905 to 14,283 in 1907. For the two classes together the annual average of deaths per 100,000 was as follows: From 1898-1902—from tuberculosis in all forms, 214.1, and from tuberculosis of the lungs 195.2; from 1903-1907—from tuberculosis in all forms 197.8, and from tuberculosis of the lungs 174.2.
According to a bulletin published in October, 1909, by Cressy L. Wilbur, Chief Statistician of the division of Vital Statistics in the United States Census Bureau, the warfare against tuberculosis has begun to show general effects in the United States. The statistics given are based on the annual returns of deaths from the death-registration areas of the country, which are far from comprehending the whole. The total number of deaths from all forms of tuberculosis returned in 1908 was 78,289, exceeding those of any previous year of registration, but the death rate per 100,000 for 1908 is considerably less than that for 1907. In all registration States the death from tuberculosis showed a decline, except in Colorado, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
A Press despatch from Washington, August 9, 1909, announced that "a plan for the organization of negro anti-tuberculosis leagues in the various States, proposed recently by the United States Public Health and Marine Hospital Service, has met with a quick response. Already five State organizations have been formed, and the movement has received the endorsement of the last conference of the State and Territorial boards of health. State leagues have been formed in Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Virginia. One of the principal features of the plan is the issuance of a large certificate of membership to each supporter of the movement. Branches of the State leagues are to be established in the various negro churches."
In July, 1909, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company made application to the New York State Insurance Department for permission to purchase a tract of land, 3000 acres or more, and erect thereon a sanatorium for the treatment of its employees, and possibly of its policy-holders who suffered from tuberculosis. The company was said to have ascertained that among the holders of its 9,000,000 policies there occurred, on the average, a death every thirty-two minutes from tuberculosis, and that, regarded wholly from the economic standpoint, it would be more than justified in applying its funds to such a measure for saving or prolonging life in that body of people. The Superintendent of Insurance was unable, however, to find any warrant in law for authorizing the undertaking, and felt required to deny the application. The company appealed from his decision to the courts, and the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State handed down a decision early in January, 1910, declaring the plan to purchase real estate to be used as a hospital for the care and treatment of its employees who are afflicted with tuberculosis does not violate that provision of the law which prohibits insurance companies from acquiring real estate for any purpose other than that of the transaction of their own business. "The court passes lightly over the question of the possibility of the hospital being used, in case vacancies exist in it, for the accommodation of selected cases from among the policy-holders. This possibility, it seems, had been indicated in the original petition, but ‘the briefs of counsel upon either side,’ says the court, ‘have practically eliminated that question.’ In such a use of the hospital there might be serious question of a precedent that would be open to grave objection."
Gifts to the amount of $700,000 for the establishment of a tuberculosis preventorium for children were announced from New York, through the Associated Press, November 9, 1909. The further statement was made that, "in connection with the tuberculosis preventorium a movement has been organized which purposes to take from New York tenements children who have been affected with tuberculosis and restore them to normal health before it is too late. The plan was formally organized at a meeting this afternoon in the Fifth avenue residence of Henry Phipps. A contribution to the work by Nathan Straus includes a $500,000 cottage and estate at Lakewood, New Jersey, occupied by the late Grover Cleveland just before his death. There the new institution will have its home. Miss Dorothy Whitney contributed a $100,000 endowment fund."
PUBLIC HEALTH: Yellow Fever: Eradication in Cuba, at Rio Janeiro, and in French Western Africa.
"Three signal victories have been gained over yellow fever during these later years—in Cuba, in Brazil, and in Dakar, in West Africa. The first is the most memorable of these events. It is the purification of the endemic center at Habana. This occurred in 1901, during the United States occupation. The daily press in countless articles has spread the details. We know that Brigadier General Leonard Wood, governor of Habana, decreed one fine day that the plague should be wiped out and the mosquitoes destroyed throughout the entire city of Habana and its suburbs, and we know that it was done. …
"The theory was that the mosquito is the sole disseminator of the disease. This is precisely what the United States commission, appointed the year before, had just proven. It had shown that all the other supposed cases of contagion were imaginary. …
"The yellow fever Stegomya does not breed in swamps. It has not the habits of the Anophele of the marsh, the malaria mosquito. It does not live like that one, in the open country, but dwells in houses. It is a domestic insect. It stays at home, is wary, and is sensitive to the weather. Like many other mosquitoes, it never goes more than 500 or 600 yards away from its breeding place and journeys only when its home —a vessel or a carriage—journeys. There is no need to fear that the insect may be carried far by the wind, for it dreads the wind. It does not trust itself outdoors when there is the slightest breeze. The problem is thus simplified. {527} It is no longer a question of protecting immense areas. It is enough to protect the house and its immediate environs—the city and a limited surrounding zone. Still it would be useless to capture the insect on the wing or at rest. It is permitted to complete its short life, but is not allowed to have offspring . The female is prevented from laying its eggs. This is accomplished by draining stagnant water left in so many gardens and household utensils where the mosquito seeks a breeding place. Hence the efficacy of the measures which forbade the people of Habana from keeping water in any other way than in covered receptacles or with a coat of oil or petroleum on top.
"The success of the measures taken by the American physicians, Gorgas, Finlay, and Guiteras, in Habana, was complete. Yellow fever has disappeared from there. On April 4, 1904, the President of the Republic of Cuba, in his message to the Congress, spoke thus:
"‘There has not been in Cuba since 1901 a single case of yellow fever not imported. The country should know of this excellent sanitary condition, which is due to the perfection of prophylactic measures and the vigilance of the health authorities.’
"Events happened in the same way in Brazil. Dr. Oswald Cruz, in charge of the organization of the campaign against yellow fever, with equal success repeated at Rio de Janeiro what had been done in Habana. The enforcement of the measures began April 20, 1903. The mortality which before had averaged 150 deaths a month fell to 8 in the month of April and to 4 in June. In January, 1904, there were recorded only 3 deaths.
"France decided to follow these encouraging examples. The governor-general of French Western Africa, M. Roume, adopted an administration analogous to that of Habana and Rio de Janeiro, and he knew how to profit by these examples."
_A. Dastre, The Fight against Yellow Fever (Annual Report, Smithsonian Institution, 1904-1905, pages 348-350)._
----------PUBLIC HEALTH: End--------
PUBLIC UTILITIES, Regulation of: The New York and Wisconsin Laws.
The most comprehensive and well-prepared legislation yet directed in the United States to the control and regulation of corporations which render services to the public, of the nature described by the term "public utilities," is undoubtedly embodied in the New York and Wisconsin laws, enacted in 1907. Both States, and many others, had experimented previously with measures for establishing a certain degree of supervision and regulation over railway corporations, gas companies, and the like, dealing separately with them; but, excepting perhaps, in the case of Massachusetts, this had not been satisfactorily effective. Governor Hughes, of New York, was the real author of the Public Utilities Law enacted in that State in 1907, and his influence was the impelling force which carried it through the Legislature.
See(in this Volume) NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1906-1910).
Almost equally, ex-Governor La Follette must be credited, not immediately, but primarily, with the organization of the forces which brought out the Wisconsin Law.
The two enactments are compared by Professor John R. Commons in an article published in the American Review of Reviews, of August, 1907, from which the following passages are quoted:
"The Wisconsin and New York laws are alike in that both State utilities like railroads and municipal utilities like gas are brought under the regulation of the same commission. They differ from the laws of Massachusetts, which provide a separate commission for railways. These three States, however, are the only ones that regulate municipal utilities through a State commission. Many other States have railroad commissions, but they leave whatever regulation they have of local utilities to the local governments. … A significant feature of the Wisconsin legislation is its disregard of stocks and bonds and its reliance on the physical valuation of the property as the first step in regulation. The New York law and the Street-Railway law of Massachusetts attack the problem of regulation through the control of future capitalization. The New York commissions have power to prohibit the issue and transfer of stocks, bonds, and other evidence of indebtedness, and to prevent the transfer of shares to holding companies. The Wisconsin law begins at the other end of the problem and, for the purpose both of regulation and of publicity, inquires into the present structural value of the property. This does not mean that the commission shall disregard other elements of valuation,—in fact, it is required by the law to take all elements into account, as indeed the courts would require if it did not. But the physical valuation is necessary in order that the public and the courts may know exactly how much is allowed for the other elements. The commission is required to value all of the properties in the State and to publish both the actual value ascertained when all elements are taken into account and the physical value ascertained by its engineers. …
"The [Wisconsin] law as finally adopted consists really of three laws: First, an amendment to the Railway law of 1905, placing telegraph companies and street railways under the same provisions as steam railways and interurban electric lines; second, the Public-Utilities law proper, regulating heat, light, water, power, and telephone companies; third, a Street-Railway law providing for indeterminate permits similar to those of the Public-Utilities law. A fourth bill, requiring physical connection and prohibiting duplication of telephone exchanges, was defeated by a vote of the Assembly."
The New York Law created two Public Utilities Commissions of five members each, one having jurisdiction in a district comprising New York City alone, the district of the other (known as the Up-State Commission) comprehending the remainder of the State. The five-year terms of the Commissioners expire in successive years. Appointed by the Governor, they are intended to be men of the highest character and qualifications, and receive salaries of $15,000 each. The appointments by Governor Hughes for the New York City Commission were of ex-Postmaster William R. Wilcox, William McCarroll, Edward M. Bassett, Milo R. Maltbie, John E. Eustis. For the Up-State Commission he named originally Honorable Frank W. Stevens, of Jamestown, Charles H. Keep, of Buffalo, Thomas M. Osborne, of Auburn, James E. Sague and Martin S. Decker. Mr. Keep resigned subsequently to accept the presidency of an important New York City bank, and John B. Olmsted, of Buffalo, was appointed in his place.
{528}
PUBLIC UTILITIES: New York City Gas Company.
In 1906 the New York Legislature passed a bill reducing the price of gas in New York City to 80 cents per thousand feet. The gas companies claimed that this rate was confiscatory. Pending final decision of the matter the citizens were compelled to pay the old rate of $1.00 per thousand. Ultimately the law was sustained, and the gas companies refunded over eight millions of dollars in 1909 to the consumers of the past three years.
See, also (in this Volume), RAILWAYS.
PUNJAB: The Plague.
See (in this Volume) PUBLIC HEALTH: BUBONIC PLAGUE.
PUNJAB: Terrific Earthquake.
See(in this Volume) EARTHQUAKES: INDIA: A. D. 1905.
PURE FOOD LEGISLATION.
See (in this Volume) PUBLIC HEALTH.
PU-YI (Hsuan-Tung): Child Emperor of China.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1908 (NOVEMBER).
Q.
QUEBEC, City of: A. D. 1908. Tercentenary Celebration of its Founding.
See (in this Volume) CANADA: A. D. 1908 (JULY).
QUEBEC, Province of: A. D. 1901. Census.
See (in this Volume) CANADA: A. D. 1901-1902.
R.
----------RACE PROBLEMS: Start--------
RACE PROBLEMS: In Australia: Between Europeans and Asiatics.
"Australia occupies a unique position among the nations. It is an island, lying far from the populated centres of the Old World and in close proximity to Java and the teeming millions of Southern and Eastern Asia, who at any time may bear down in flood upon the scanty forces of the defenders. These pent-up myriads are at present in a state of unrest, and there are evidences of a distinct inclination on their part to break bounds and descend upon the coasts of the great southern land. On the north-eastern shores of the continent they have already broken through the thin red line of the British, and have firmly established themselves in the country beyond. Thursday Island, which stands at the northern entrance of the passage between the Great Barrier Reef and the shores of Queensland, has been styled the Gibraltar of Australia, and large sums of money have been spent by the Imperial and Australian Governments in fortifying it. Since it became open to the Eastern nations, the Japanese have discovered twenty different channels through the reef, by any one of which they could avoid the forts and gain an entrance to the sea within the barrier. A few years ago there were 2000 Europeans on Thursday Island, engaged in the pearl-shelling industry; but they were gradually elbowed out until to-day they number less than 100.
"The late Professor C. H. Pearson, at one time Minister for Education in Victoria, and one of the most intellectual statesmen who ever resided in Australia, in his National Life and Character, admirably summarised the dangers to which his adopted country was exposed by reason of its situation, and the motives which actuated the various colonial Governments in passing enactments designed to place some restriction on the wholesale flooding of their territories.
"‘The fear of Chinese immigration which the Australian democracy cherishes, and which Englishmen at home find it hard to understand, is, in fact, the instinct of self-preservation, quickened by experience. We know that coloured and white labour cannot exist side by side; we are well aware that China can swamp us with a single year’s surplus of population; and we know that if national existence is sacrificed to the working of a few mines and sugar plantations, it is not the Englishmen in Australia alone, but the whole civilised world that will be the losers. Transform the northern half of our continent into a Natal, with thirteen out of fourteen belonging to an inferior race, and the southern half will speedily approximate to the condition of Cape Colony, where the whites are indeed a masterful minority, but still only as one in four. We are guarding the last part of the world in which the higher races can live and increase freely for the higher civilisation. It is idle to say that if all this should come to pass our pride of place will not be humiliated. We are struggling among ourselves for supremacy in a world which we thought as destined to belong to the Aryan race and to the Christian faith, to the letters and arts and charm of social manners which we have inherited from the best times of the past. We shall wake to find ourselves elbowed and hustled, perhaps even thrust aside by peoples whom we looked down upon as servile and thought of as bound always to minister to our needs.’ …
"The Greater Britain that is to be may be the best security for the Mother Land in years to come, and her natural ally and friend. Australian statesmen claim that they are not only safe-guarding British interests, but also legislating for posterity and looking forward to the time—perhaps a century hence—when the population of the Commonwealth may be one hundred millions or even more.
{529}
"At the present the Australian race is in a plastic condition, and whether it will become, as Marcus Clarke predicted, ‘a fierce and turbulent democracy, sweeping contemporary civilisation before it,’ or, as seems more probable, a practical and enlightened people, troubles it little. Leaders and followers of every political cast, Conservatives, Liberals, and Radicals, have now but one national ideal—Purity of Race. They recognise that hybrids cannot make a great nation; that an infusion of Chinese, Japanese, or Indo-Chinese blood must result in race deterioration; and that, if they are to live happily and prosperously, it must be with no strangers within their gates other than those of Caucasian descent who are able to conform to the conditions and customs of civilised communities."
_O. P. Law, W. T. Gill, A White Australia (Nineteenth Century, January, 1904)._
"The great Australian Commonwealth has indeed gone very far in many directions in its war against workers of other races than the white. Thus, no contract can be made for the carrying of Australian mails with any steamship line which allows a colored man to work on any of its ships. This is a new measure, and it has been of late the subject of a lively controversy between the Australian government and the two Chamberlains in London,—namely, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, the colonial secretary, and his son, Mr. Austin Chamberlain, who is now serving as British postmaster-general.
"The fact is that mail-carrying steamship companies which have hitherto performed the service of carrying mails back and forth between Great Britain and the Australian ports have been largely manned by dark-skinned British subjects who are natives of India, and the British Government is under a special obligation not to discriminate against these Indians in view of certain clauses in what is known as the Mutiny Act in India. These same ships, it is to be remembered, will carry, also, the Indian mails, and it would be manifestly impossible for Lord Curzon’s government of India to join in mail contracts containing clauses excluding dark-skinned men from employment."
_American Review of Reviews, September, 1903._
See (in this Volume) AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1905-1906, and 1909.
RACE PROBLEMS: In Canada: Hostility to Asiatic Labor. Restriction of Chinese Immigration. Riotous attacks on Japanese, Chinese, and Hindu Laborers in British Columbia.
The opposition of organized labor to Asiatic immigration, on the Canadian Pacific Coast, directed first against an influx of Chinese, brought about, in 1904, the imposition of a head-tax of $500 on every person of Chinese origin entering Canada thereafter, with the following exceptions:
"(a) The members of the diplomatic corps, or other government representatives, their suites and their servants, and consuls and consular agents;
"(b) The children born in Canada of parents of Chinese origin and who have left Canada for educational or other purposes, on substantiating their identity to the satisfaction of the controller at the port or place where they seek to enter on their return;
"(c) Merchants, their wives and children, the wives and children of clergymen, tourists, men of science and students, who shall substantiate their status to the satisfaction of the controller, subject to the approval of the Minister, or who are bearers of certificates of identity, or other similar documents issued by the government or by a recognized official or representative of the government whose subjects they are, specifying their occupation and their object in coming into Canada."
This was an effective restriction; but left the door open to other "coolie" laborers, so-called, from Japan and India, whence large numbers were soon coming into British Columbia, and the labor agitation was directed against them, on the Canadian as well as the United States side of the line in the farther Northwest. It came to its climax of violence in the fall of 1907, when serious riots broke out at Vancouver, British Columbia, and at Bellingham, in the State of Washington. Many hundreds of Japanese, Chinese, and Hindus had been employed in the lumber mills and canneries of the Washington and British Columbia coast towns, displacing white labor. "In each case a mob of white men raided the mills where the foreigners were employed, battered down the doors of their lodging houses, dragged the Hindus from their beds, and drove them with violence from the town. The Hindus of Bellingham fled northward to the protection of the British flag. At Vancouver the rioters also attacked Chinese and Japanese merchants and laborers, breaking into their shops and pillaging and destroying $20,000 worth of property. Two thousand Chinese and Japanese were driven from their homes. Later, a number of Japanese immigrants, just landed from a steamer, were attacked and in the riot that followed Baron Ishii, chief of the Japanese Bureau of Foreign Commerce, was severely injured. The Orientals, under the leadership of the Japanese, immediately organized for defense, and, having secured firearms and other weapons, the situation took on a very serious aspect."
The situation was made especially embarrassing to the British and Canadian Governments by the relations of alliance existing between Great Britain and Japan, and by the fact that the Hindus attacked are British subjects, having their established rights as such. But skilful and careful handling of the matter was successful in quieting the trouble, possibly in a lasting way. The Japanese Government, on its own part, has undertaken to restrict the emigration of its laboring classes to Canada as well as to the United States.
Important changes in the regulations governing the immigration of Chinese were announced in a despatch from Ottawa, July 11, 1909:
"While the poll-tax of £100 on coolies is retained, the restrictions applicable to students and the sons of Chinese merchants are considerably modified. Students who already possess a liberal education, but desire to pursue a higher course of study in any Canadian University or college, are exempt from the tax. Students who intend to pursue their studies in the Dominion but are unable to produce proof of their status on entry are required to deposit the amount of the tax, but the money will be refunded on production of a certificate that they have passed two scholastic years at some seat of learning. The present law permits all Chinese visiting China to return to Canada within a year without a second payment. This has been a hardship to Chinese who have been ill. The new regulation, therefore, extends the time of exemption in such cases to 18 months, provided that satisfactory proof be furnished."
{530}
RACE PROBLEMS: In Jamaica: Between White and Black: The Problem Non-existent. Solved by Good Sense, Right Feeling, and Just Law.
In the International Journal of Ethics for May, 1906, Professor Royce reports of several visits to Jamaica,—where 14,000 or 15,000 white inhabitants are living with about 650,000 black and mulatto people,—that he had found no race problem existing—no racial antagonism—no public discussion of race equality or superiority. He accounts for this untroubled relation between colored and uncolored fellow citizens and neighbors as follows:
"When once the sad period of emancipation and of subsequent occasional disorder was passed, the Englishman did in Jamaica what he has so often and so well done elsewhere. He organized his colony; he established good local courts, which gained by square treatment the confidence of the blacks. The judges of such courts were Englishmen. The English ruler also provided a good country constabulary, in which native blacks also found service, and in which they could exercise authority over other blacks. Black men, in other words, were trained,—under English management, of course,—to police black men. A sound civil service was also organized; and in that educated negroes found in due time their place, while the chiefs of each branch of the service were and are, in the main, Englishmen. The excise and the health services, both of which are very highly developed, have brought the law near to the life of the humblest negro, in ways which he sometimes finds, of course, restraining, but which he also frequently finds beneficent. Hence, he is accustomed to the law; he sees its ministers often, and often, too, as men of his own race; and in the main he is fond of order, and respectful toward the established ways of society. The Jamaica negro is described by those who know him as especially fond of bringing his petty quarrels and personal grievances into court. He is litigious just as he is vivacious. But this confidence in the law is just what the courts have encouraged. That is one way, in fact, to deal with the too forward and strident negro. Encourage him to air his grievances in court, listen to him patiently, and fine him when he deserves fines. That is a truly English type of social pedagogy. It works in the direction of making the negro a conscious helper toward good social order.
"Administration, I say, has done the larger half of the work of solving Jamaica’s race problem. Administration has filled the Island with good roads, has reduced to a minimum the tropical diseases by means of an excellent health service, has taught the population loyalty and order, has led them some steps already on the long road ‘up from slavery,’ has given them, in many cases, the true self-respect of those who themselves officially cooperate in the work of the law, and it has done this without any such result as our Southern friends nowadays conceive when they think of what is called ‘negro domination.’ Administration has allayed ancient irritations. It has gone far to offset the serious economic and tropical troubles from which Jamaica meanwhile suffers.
"Yes, the work has been done by administration,—and by reticence. For the Englishman, in his official and governmental dealings with backward peoples, has a great way of being superior without very often publicly saying that he is superior. You well know that in dealing, as an individual, with other individuals trouble is seldom made by the fact that you are actually the superior of another man in any respect.
The trouble comes when you tell the other man too stridently that you are his superior. Be my superior, quietly, simply showing your superiority in your deeds, and very likely I shall love you for the very fact of your superiority. For we all love our leaders. But tell me that I am your inferior, and then perhaps I may grow boyish, and may throw stones. Well, it is so with races. Grant, then, that yours is the superior race. Then you can afford to say little about that subject in your public dealings with the backward race. Superiority is best shown by good deeds and by few boasts."
RACE PROBLEMS: In South Africa: Between White and Black.
"The native population of Africa south of the Zambesi is ten millions. The white population is under one million. To-day the majority of the natives are in a semi-savage condition. But the day may come when they shall have emerged from that condition, and have attained the degree of civilisation which prevails amongst the negroes, their kindred, in the United States. The process of evolution has begun. When it is completed, the relative position of the black and white populations in South Africa will be—what? Look to the United States and you shall find some hint of the answer.
"The native population of Cape Colony, including the territories, is, in round numbers, 1,200,000, and the white population 377,000. Day by day the power of the native grows. The gate of the political arena stands wide open to him, and he is not slow to enter. With the exception of natives occupying lands under tribal tenure (an important exception, but one that is constantly diminishing), every male person, irrespective of colour, race, and creed, and above the age of twenty-one years, and born or naturalised a British subject, is entitled to the full franchise after one year’s residence in the Colony, provided he occupies property of the value of £75 or is in receipt of wages of not less than £50 annually, and is able to sign his name and state in writing his address and occupation. Such a franchise would horrify the average American in the South, and unquestionably it will have to be radically amended unless the colonists are prepared to endure political annihilation. At present neither Bondsman nor Progressive will face the situation. Neither wishes to alienate the substantial aid which his party gets from the natives. …
"Bitter as the feud between Englishman and Dutchman is to-day, it will pass when both realise, as they are bound sooner or later to realise, that only by presenting a solid front to the oncoming hordes of superficially civilised blacks can they escape complete annihilation. For generations, if not for all time, the natives in South Africa must enormously outnumber the whites. In the olden days, tribal wars and wars with the white man, to say nothing of famines, and pestilence, served to counterbalance the prolificness of the native. These checks are no more."
_Roderick Jones, The Black Peril in South Africa (Nineteenth Century, May, 1904)._
On the suffrage question for natives, connected with the Union of South African States.
See (in this Volume) SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1908-1909.
{531}
RACE PROBLEMS: A. D. 1903-1908. Between Boers and British Indians.
The British Government has many troublesome problems to deal with, as the consequence of its having drawn the reins of its sovereignty over the necks of a motley multitude of races; but none among them, perhaps, has been more delicately difficult than one which arose between its native subjects in India, who pressed with eagerness into South African fields of trade, and its Boer subjects in South Africa, who have been stubbornly opposed to their doing so. Great Britain has had the most pressing reasons for avoiding offence to either of these peoples, and no controversy could have arisen more unfortunately in its circumstances and time.
Before the Boer-British War, there had been Indian complaints of ill-treatment in the Transvaal, which added something to the controversies of Great Britain with the South African Republic. After the war, when British authority had become supreme at Pretoria, it found a legacy of existing law which was embarrassing at once. The situation was described in a despatch of May 11, 1903, from Viscount Milner, the British High Commissioner, to the Colonial Secretary at London, Mr. Chamberlain, in which he attempted to exhibit, as he said, "the difficulty which besets any kind of action on this thorny question." The Government, he wrote, is "between two fires. On the one hand, it is accused of not enforcing the present law with sufficient strictness and is called upon to legislate in the direction of a complete exclusion of Asiatics, except as indentured labourers. Even in that capacity, their introduction meets with strenuous opposition. On the other hand, the Asiatics, of whom British Indians form by far the most numerous section, not only protest against any fresh legislation but demand the repeal of the existing law.
"The position which the Government of the Transvaal have taken up in the matter is one of which I entirely approve. They are unwilling, without the previous approval of His Majesty’s Government, to embark on any legislation on this subject, to the difficulties of which they are fully alive, and have accordingly decided that, pending fresh legislation, they have no option but to carry out the existing law. They are anxious, however, to do so in the manner most considerate to the Indians already settled in the country, and with the greatest respect for vested interests, even where these have been allowed to spring up contrary to law. This is in accordance with the principle on which they have proceeded throughout, namely, that the laws of the late Republic, imperfect as they are in many respects, and contrary, very often, to British ideas, must, nevertheless, be enforced until they can be replaced by more satisfactory legislation."
The desired new legislation on this "thorny question" does not seem to have been attempted during the period in which local self-government in the Transvaal was entirely suspended; but in 1906, after the first step toward its restoration had been taken, the semi-autonomous authority then organized there adopted an ordinance on the subject of Asiatic residence in the Colony which Lord Elgin, who had succeeded Mr. Chamberlain in the Colonial Office, disapproved. In the next year, however, when the full measure of colonial autonomy had been conferred by the Imperial Government (see, in this Volume, SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1905-1907), essentially the same provisions were embodied in an enactment by the new Transvaal Legislature, entitled "The Asiatic Law Amendment Act, 1907," and Lord Elgin could not venture to disapprove them again, for the reasons which he stated thus to the Colonial Governor:
"The Act which is now submitted has behind it a very different weight of authority. It has been introduced by the first responsible Ministry of the Colony, and has been passed unanimously by both Houses of the new Legislature. I consider it my duty to place it on record that His Majesty’s Government do not consider the position of Asiatics lawfully resident in the Transvaal, as settled by this Act, to be satisfactory; that they adhere to the opinions which have been expressed by successive Secretaries of State as to the desirability of relaxing the restrictions to which Asiatics are at present subject; and that they commend this view to the Transvaal Government in the hope that it may be carefully considered how far practical effect can be given to it. But they feel that they would not be justified in offering resistance to the general will of the Colony clearly expressed by its first elected representatives; and I have accordingly to inform you that His Majesty will not be advised to exercise his power of disallowance with respect to the Act." This measure was followed presently by an "Immigrants’ Restriction Act, 1907," which accentuated still further the inhospitality of Transvaal legislation, and made more serious trouble for the British Government, not only with its Indian subjects, but with the Chinese. On the effect of the two acts upon British Indians Lord Elgin wrote to Mr. Morley, Secretary of State for India (October 10, 1907):
"The practical effect of Section 2 (4) will be to prevent the further immigration into the Transvaal of British Indians or other Asiatics. As Mr. Morley is aware, throughout the correspondence which has passed on this subject, His Majesty’s Government have practically limited themselves to endeavouring to secure more favourable treatment for those Asiatics who have already acquired a right to reside in the Colony, and the competence of the Colonial Legislature and Government to restrict further immigration by means of legislation similar to that already adopted in other self-governing Colonies has not been disputed. … Moreover, in the interests of British Indians themselves, it is probably desirable, in view of the state of Colonial feeling, that further immigration should be restricted. Lord Elgin does not, therefore, propose to raise any objection to this provision.
"Section 6 (c) must be considered in connection with the recent Asiatic Law Amendment Act. Under that Act, Asiatics failing to register may be ordered to leave the Colony; and failure to comply with such an order is punishable by imprisonment. The object of this section, as explained by the Attorney-General in his report is to enable the Government to deport, in lieu of imprisoning, Asiatics who fail to register under the Asiatic Law Amendment Act. {532} While Lord Elgin feels that the free exercise of so drastic a power would be greatly to be deprecated, he doubts whether His Majesty’s Government can consistently object to a provision the object of which is to enable the Colonial Government to enforce the observance of the Asiatic Law Amendment Act, which His Majesty’s Government have allowed to become law, and to which the British Indian community appears at present to be disposed to offer an organised resistance. He therefore proposes, subject to any representation which Mr. Morley may wish to make, to accept this provision also."
The India Office could only say in reply:
"Since the Asiatic Law Amendment Act, 1907, has received His Majesty’s sanction, Mr. Morley recognizes that it would be inconsistent to object to a clause framed merely in order to ensure the efficient administration of that Act so far as it affects persons already in the Transvaal. … It is true that under the Asiatic Law Amendment Act of 1907, the Colonial Government may grant temporary permits. Mr. Morley presumes that this power will, if the occasion arise, be used to prevent such a gross scandal as the exclusion from the Colony of ruling chiefs, Indians of distinguished position, and high officials of Asiatic descent on the ground that they are ‘undesirable immigrants.’ But he thinks that it would be satisfactory to obtain a definite assurance that in framing the present Bill the Colonial Government had no intention of refusing access to Asiatics of this type, and he trusts that such an assurance will be obtained and placed on record before the Royal Assent is given to the measure.
"It is unnecessary to point out to Lord Elgin the unfortunate effect upon public opinion in India which must be produced by the present Bill. The very peculiar circumstances of the Transvaal have been held to justify, during the period of administrative reconstruction, exceptional measures for dealing with the influx of immigrants; but Mr. Morley did not understand, when the provisions of the Asiatic Law Amendment Act were under discussion, that the forthcoming Immigration Restriction Bill would be so framed as to perpetuate the exclusion from the Colony of all future Asiatic immigrants without distinction.
"For these reasons I am to say that Mr. Morley trusts that Lord Elgin will find it possible to impress upon the Government of the Transvaal the very strong objections, from an Imperial point of view, which stand in the way of the acceptance of Section 2 (4) of the Bill."
The most obnoxious features of the two offensive acts were an educational qualification, which required applications for admission to the colony and for trading licenses in it, and other connected documents, to be written by the applicants in a European language, Yiddish being recognized as European, and a prescribed registration which required finger-prints as a means of identification. Both of these provisions of law were felt to be insulting and degrading by the Hindus of the better class, who organized a refusal of submission to them, and tested them without avail in the courts. Their language was treated contemptuously in the educational qualification, while, personally, they were classed with criminals by the fingerprint identification. The agitators of disaffection in India made much of these indignities, and the matter was extremely embarrassing to the British administration there. For months there seemed no prospect of a solution of the difficulty; but patient persuasion and tactful pressure brought, at last, what appeared to be a successful compromise, announced to the rejoicing Colonial Office at London by the following telegram from the Governor, January 30, 1908:
"Gandhi and other leaders of Indian and Chinese communities have offered voluntary registration in a body within three months, provided signatures only are taken of educated, propertied, or well-known Asiatics, and finger-prints of the rest, and that no question against which Asiatics have religious objection be pressed. Government have accepted this offer and undertaken pending registration not to enforce the penalties under Act against all those who register. Sentences of all Asiatics in prison will be remitted to-morrow. This course agreed to by both political parties."
Fresh discontents arose subsequently, when amendatory legislation was brought out, which did not open the colony to any fresh immigration of Asiatics, even if they could pass an educational test in a European language; but this has not appeared to have any of the seriousness of the former agitation, so far as India is concerned.
Of the intensity of feeling in India, a newspaper correspondent, writing from Bombay, December 29, 1909, said:
"There is no mistaking the depth of feeling regarding the protest against the treatment of Indians in the Transvaal. Every Indian, no matter what may be his politics, feels that his self-respect is insulted, and demands retaliation by refusing indentured labour to Natal. Extraordinary scenes followed Mr. Surendranath Banerjee’s appeal for funds for the Transvaal sufferers; jewels and money were thrown at his feet and rupees were poured into his hat. A thousand pounds was collected. The question is creating profound feeling among all classes."
RACE PROBLEMS: The Labor Question as a Race Question.
At a meeting of the Native Labor Association at Johannesburg, in April, 1909, the President of the Association stated that the present labor supply was entirely adequate, and that the mines were not likely to be faced with serious difficulty in this respect in the immediate future. In the course of 1908 the number of Chinese laborers had decreased in the natural course by repatriation by 23,303. On the other hand, the native complement had increased in the same period by 47,766, giving a net gain of 24,373, which had been further increased during the first three mouths of the present year. In explanation of the sudden expansion of the native labor supply, Mr. Perry pointed, first, to the collapse of the diamond market; secondly, to the emigration of Kaffirs from the Cape owing to failure of employment there. The De Beers Mines, as he was able to show, were actually employing 50,000 fewer hands than before, which, allowing for the difference in the periods of contract, probably meant a gain to the Rand of at least 25,000. Similarly, the native statistics published by the Cape Government indicated an enormous diversion of labourers to the Rand.
In January, 1909, the London Times, reporting the output of gold from the Transvaal in 1908 as having been £29,957,610,—an increase of £2,553,872 over 1907, gave the following statement of labor conditions at that time:
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"The increase has been gradual and quite regular, and may be expected to continue. The expansion in the gold production has resulted in the employment of nearly 1,800 more whites than were at work in January, but coloured labourers are some 4,000 less. The increase in the number of natives employed in gold mines has been 24,000, while the complement of Chinese coolies has been depleted by 20,000. At the beginning of the year some 17,500 whites, 133,500 coloured, and 33,800 Chinese were employed by gold mines; for October the figures read:—Whites 18,300, coloured 157,500, and Chinese 14,300. Native labour is perhaps the one serious problem which will place limitations on further expansion. Few of the Chinese will be left by the end of next year, and they will all have left before the expiry of 1910. Natives, however, are showing more tendency to work regularly, and the habit doubtless will grow. It is due to the Chinese to recognize that they have been useful workmen, for the improved efficiency of the coloured workman all round is largely due to the example which they set the native."
In March, 1909, Colonel Seely, Under Secretary for the Colonies, in reply to questions in the British House of Commons, gave the following figures: January, 1907, Chinese employed, 53,856; whites employed on gold mines, 17,874; December, 1908, Chinese employed, 12,275; whites employed on gold mines, 19,605. For 'Witwatersrand, taking natives and Chinese together the numbers were:—January, 1907, 148,077; December, 1908, 166,405. The corresponding figures for whites are:—January, 1907, 17,198; December, 1908, 18,687.
A Johannesburg letter of July 26 to the London Times reported a change in the situation, saying:
"For the half-year upon which we have just entered it requires no prophet to foretell a more rapid rate of progress, which, however, may to some extent be limited by a scarcity of native labour, signs of which have begun to loom on the horizon. After 18 months or more of steady increase in the number of native labourers available for work in mines, an increase which more than counterbalanced the outflow of Chinese labour through repatriation, the pendulum has begun to swing the other way, and already the pinch is beginning to make itself felt in certain mines. During the last two months the excess of time-expired natives and wastage over the number recruited has been more than 8000, and repatriated Chinese brings the total up to 10,000. Considering that the total coloured labour force employed on the Witwatersrand was over 180,000 in April, this comparatively small decline under normal conditions should hardly make itself felt at all. But the conditions are not normal. An era of expansion set in some 18 months ago which has been steadily growing, and which has called for an ever-increasing labour force and in the near future must require still more and more. How that demand is to be met is by no means clear."
RACE PROBLEMS: In the United States: Between its White and Black Citizens: Booker T. Washington’s solution in progress at Tuskegee.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1906.
RACE PROBLEMS: The "Niagara Movement." A National Committee for the Advancement of the Negro Race.
In July, 1905, a conference of colored men from North and South, among whom Professor W. E. Burghardt Du Bois, of Atlanta, appeared to be the leading spirit, was held at Buffalo, New York. Its outcome was an organization which has taken the name of "The Niagara Movement," and which has had some growth. At the latest annual meeting of the organization, in Sea Isle City, New Jersey, in August, 1909, ten States were reported to be represented, and the total membership of the "Movement" was said to be three hundred, distributed in forty States. Its objects are indicated in the following passages from an Address which this meeting adopted:
"For four years the Niagara Movement has struggled to make ten million Americans of negro descent cease from mere apology and weak surrender to aggression, and take a firm, unfaltering stand for justice, manhood, and self-assertion. We are accumulating property at a constantly accelerating rate; we are rapidly lowering our rate of illiteracy; but property and intelligence are of little use unless guided by the great ideals of freedom, justice, and human brotherhood.
"As a partial result of our effort we are glad to note among us increasing spiritual unrest, sterner impatience with cowardice, and deeper determination to be men at any cost. …
"That black men are inherently inferior to whites is a wide-spread lie which science flatly contradicts, and the attempt to submerge the colored races is one with world-old efforts of the wily to exploit the weak. We must, therefore, make common cause with the oppressed and down-trodden of all races and peoples; with our kindred of South Africa and the West Indies, with our fellows in Mexico, India, and Russia, and with the cause of the working classes everywhere.
"On us rests to no little degree the burden of the cause of individual freedom, human brotherhood, and universal peace in a day when America is forgetting her promise and destiny. Let us work on and never despair because pigmy voices are loudly praising ill-gotten wealth, big guns, and human degradation. They but represent back eddies in the tide of time."
Programme of future work adopted included the publication of a series of small tracts and an almanac, the founding of a monthly publication, and the purchase of a permanent place of meeting where an annual Chautauqua will be held.
A Conference of people of both races who are desirous of organizing more effective endeavors to better the status of the negro citizens of the United States was held in New York in May, 1909. It adopted a resolution providing for the "incorporation of a national committee to be known as a committee for the advancement of the negro race, to bring that race from slavery to full citizenship with all the rights and privileges appertaining thereto," and another resolution for a Committee of Forty charged with the organization of the national committee, with power to call the convention in 1910.
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Among other resolutions discussed and adopted were the following:
"As first and immediate steps toward remedying … national wrongs, so full of perils for the whites as well as the blacks of all sections, we demand of Congress and the Executive:
"(1.) That the Constitution be strictly enforced and the civil rights guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment be secured impartially to all.
"(2.) That there be equal educational opportunities for all and in all the States, and that public school expenditure be the same for the negro and white child.
"(3.) That in accordance with the Fifteenth Amendment the right of the negro to the ballot on the same terms as other citizens be recognized in every part of the country."
RACE PROBLEMS: Anti-Negro Riot at Atlanta.
"On the 22d and 23d of September [1906] anti-negro riots broke out in Atlanta, resulting in the death of twelve or more negroes and the injury of a great many. There had been an unusual number of reports of attacks upon white women and girls by brutal and criminal negroes in the vicinity of Atlanta during the previous days and weeks. Every report of this kind had been flaunted with great headlines in a sensational afternoon newspaper of Atlanta, as if to arouse the less orderly and thoughtful element of the white population not merely to the lynching of offenders but to an attack upon innocent and law-abiding colored people. For a time the riot was furious and negroes were indiscriminately assailed. It would seem that most of those who were killed were absolutely innocent of any offense whatsoever. Their crime consisted merely in belonging to the negro race. It would be the height of silliness for criticism to take on a geographical character. White people in the North are no more considerate of people against whom they may have a grievance or a prejudice than are white people in the South. The problem of adjusting the relations of two races so totally different as the white race and the negro race where they have to live together in the same communities is difficult under any circumstances, and it becomes increasingly so where the inferior race is present in large numbers and where many of its members are ill-disciplined, idle, and of criminal instincts."
_American Review of Reviews, November, 1906._
"Wherever a colored man was seen he was attacked. The mobs closed in upon the trolley-cars and dragged the colored passengers, unprepared for the onslaught, from their seats. A riotous crowd broke into a shop where there were two negro barbers, beat them to death and mangled their bodies. One negro was killed in the shadow of a monument; another was stabbed to death on the post-office steps. The Governor mobilized the militia, but the mobs, taking it for granted that the militiamen were in sympathy with them, showed little fear of the soldiers. The Mayor of the city remonstrated with the rioters, but with little result. He called out the fire department, which cleared the streets by turning the hose on the mobs. But this only resulted in diverting the riot from one place in the city to another. Only a rain on Sunday dampened the ardor of the rioters. Order was outwardly restored by Sunday evening, but even thereafter negroes were killed. Even though the riot differed from the Russian variety in that it was not instigated and abetted by the Government and the military, it brings nothing but shame to this Nation."
_The Outlook, September 29, 1906._
RACE PROBLEMS: The Georgia Railroad Strike.
One of the meanest of recent exhibitions of race animosity was presented in May and June, 1909, on the occasion of a strike of white men employed as firemen on the Georgia Railroad against the employment of blacks in the same capacity. Generally, the southern railroads have employed, for years, both white and black firemen. On the Georgia Railroad there were about sixty of the former and forty of the latter. The white firemen were eligible to promotion to be engineers; the blacks were not. By an unwritten law they were excluded from the higher and better paid service; but as firemen the best among them had gradually won promotion to the better trains and better "runs" on the road. It was this fact which caused the strike of their white associates. As a labor strike it would have caused little trouble; as a race and color question it inflamed the State and the South, and disturbed the country at large for several weeks. The conflict of the railroad company was not with its own employees but with mobs along its line, always ready to be maddened by the thought of a negro in any place which a white man wanted.
A mediation in the matter undertaken, at the instance of President Taft, by the United States Commissioner of Labor, Dr. Charles P. Neill, and the Chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commission, Mr. Martin A. Knapp, succeeded, with much difficulty, in arranging a reference of the dispute to arbitration. The chosen arbitrators were Hilary A. Herbert, named by the railroad company, T. W. Hardwick, named by the employees, and Chancellor David C. Barrow, of the University of Georgia, selected by these two. This board of arbitration gave hearings to both parties and rendered its award on the 27th of June. The main proposition submitted to it by the employees was in these words: "That the Georgia Railroad Company and its terminals at Atlanta will not use negroes as locomotive firemen on the road or in the yards, nor as hostlers nor assistant hostlers."
On this its decision was as follows: "The Georgia Railroad, when using negroes as locomotive firemen on the road or in the yards, or as hostlers, or as hostlers’ helpers, shall pay them the same wages as white men in similar positions." But the representative of the employees dissented from this decision in part, explaining his view, as follows: "In so far as the above finding permits the continued employment of negro firemen by the Georgia Railroad, I dissent therefrom, because I believe from the evidence that such employment is a menace to the safety of the travelling public. In so far as such finding requires that when negroes are so employed they shall receive wages equal to those paid white men, I concur therein, believing that such requirement, by removing the principal incentive for their employment, will result in the speedy elimination of this cheaper labor, and a consequent improvement of the service."
On most of the minor points in controversy the arbitrators were agreed in their conclusions, and the settlement of the whole matter was complete.
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RACE PROBLEMS: Oriental Labor in Competition with Western Labor. The Force of the Economic Objection to it in a Country under the Protective System.
"Behind the economic antipathy to Oriental laborers there is a justifiable feeling. Where there is established a system of protection, it is only just that it benefit not only the capitalist but also the laborer. If the American laborer must contend as best he can with the laborer whose standard of life is lower, then the American manufacturer, in fairness, ought to be let alone in his contest with the foreign manufacturer who does not pay so much for his labor. The Outlook believes that a condition of such open competition as has prevailed between the States of the Union would be wholesome between the nations of the world. But at present the protective system prevails and apparently is firmly established in America. So long, therefore, as American capital is protected, it is a benefit for the whole country to have American labor protected. And certainly if there is any body of laborers against which the working people of America need protection, it is the coolie labor of Asia. The fact that the Japanese and Chinese laborers enter industries in which there is a scarcity of whites does not affect the case, for it is not the direct loss of jobs, but the lowering—or at least the changing—of the standards of living that brings injury to the mass."
_The Outlook, September 21, 1907._
RACE PROBLEMS: Existing Treaties between the United States and China concerning the Admission of Chinamen. Enactments of Law on the Subject. Correspondence of Wu Ting-fang with Secretary Hay.
For a proper understanding of the questions of national honor and official civility that are involved in the existing laws and regulations of the United States which govern the admission of Chinamen to the country, either as visitors or immigrants, some attention must be given to a series of engagements by solemn treaty between the Governments of China and the United States, respecting the hospitality which each has pledged itself to give to the citizens of the other. Three of those treaties remain partly or wholly in force. The abrogation of the fourth one has a significance of its own.
The earliest of these treaties, negotiated in 1858, superseding one of 1844, provided very carefully for the good treatment of American citizens in China, but contains nothing on the subject of Chinamen in America, probably for the reason that few of that people had yet travelled so far abroad. The rights it stipulated for the American who visited or sought residence in the Celestial Empire were as follows:
"Article XI. All citizens of the United States of America in China, peaceably attending to their affairs, being placed on a common footing of amity and good will with the subjects of China, shall receive and enjoy for themselves and everything appertaining to them the protection of the local authorities of government, who shall defend them from all insult or injury of any sort. If their dwellings or property be threatened or attacked by mobs, incendiaries, or other violent or lawless persons, the local officers, on requisition of the consul, shall immediately despatch a military force to disperse the rioters, apprehend the guilty individuals and punish them with the utmost rigor of the law. Subjects of China guilty of any criminal act towards citizens of the United States shall be punished by the Chinese authorities according to the laws of China. And citizens of the United States, either on shore or in any merchant vessel, who may insult, trouble or wound the persons or injure the property of Chinese or commit any other improper act in China, shall be punished only by the Consul or other public functionary thereto authorized according to the laws of the United States. Arrests in order to trial may be made by either the Chinese or the United States authorities."
Treaty of Peace, Amity, and Commerce, 1858 (Compilation of Treaties in Force, 58th Congress, 2d Session, Senate Document Number 318, page 138).
Ten years later, in 1868, another treaty was negotiated, not to supersede that of 1858, but to supplement it; and in this agreement the reciprocation of hospitalities is pledged in the following distinct and cordial terms:
"Article V. The United States of America and the Emperor of China cordially recognize the inherent and inalienable right of man to change his home and allegiance, and also the mutual advantage of the free migration and emigration of their citizens and subjects, respectively, from the one country to the other, for purposes of curiosity, of trade, or as permanent residents. The high contracting parties, therefore, join in reprobating any other than an entirely voluntary emigration for these purposes. They consequently agree to pass laws making it a penal offence for a citizen of the United States or Chinese subjects to take Chinese subjects either to the United States or to any other foreign country, or for a Chinese subject or citizen of the United States to take citizens of the United States to China or to any other foreign country, without their free and voluntary consent, respectively.
"Article VI. Citizens of the United States visiting or residing in China shall enjoy the same privileges, immunities or exemptions in respect to travel or residence as may there be enjoyed by the citizens or subjects of the most favored nation. And, reciprocally, Chinese subjects visiting or residing in the United States shall enjoy the same privileges, immunities, and exemptions in respect to travel or residence, as may there be enjoyed by the citizens or subjects of the most favored nation. But nothing herein contained shall be held to confer naturalization upon citizens of the United States in China, nor upon the subjects of China in the United States.
"Article VII. Citizens of the United States shall enjoy all the privileges of the public educational institutions under the control of the Government of China, and, reciprocally, Chinese subjects shall enjoy all the privileges of the public educational institutions under the control of the Government of the United States, which are enjoyed in the respective countries by the citizens or subjects of the most favored nation. The citizens of the United States may freely establish and maintain schools within the Empire of China at those places where foreigners are by treaty permitted to reside, and reciprocally, Chinese subjects may enjoy the same privileges and immunities in the United States."
_Treaty of Trade, Consuls, and Emigration, 1868 (58th Congress, 2d Session, Senate Document Number 318, pages 157-158)._
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That this treaty, as well as that of 1858, is still obligatory in its hospitable spirit and intent, is a fact certified by the language of the preamble of the treaty negotiated next, by President Angell, of Michigan University, and other Commissioners, in 1880. The recital in that preamble of the purpose of the new agreement was this:
"Whereas, in the eighth year of Hsien Feng, Anno Domini 1858, a treaty of peace and friendship was concluded between the United States of America and China, and to which were added, in the seventh year of Tung Chih, Anno Domini 1868, certain supplementary articles to the advantage of both parties, which supplementary articles were to be perpetually observed and obeyed: and Whereas the Government of the United States, because of the constantly increasing immigration of Chinese laborers to the territory of the United States, and the embarrassments consequent upon such immigration, now desires to negotiate a modification of the existing Treaties which shall not be in direct contravention of their spirit: Now, therefore," &c. The following are the four articles of the treaty thus explained:
"Article I. Whenever in the opinion of the Government of the United States the coming of Chinese laborers to the United States, or their residence therein, affects or threatens to affect the interests of that country, or to endanger the good order of the said country or of any locality within the territory thereof, the Government of China agrees that the Government of the United States may regulate, limit, or suspend such coming or residence, but may not absolutely prohibit it. The limitation or suspension shall be reasonable, and shall apply only to Chinese who may go to the United States as laborers, other classes not being included in the limitations. Legislation taken in regard to Chinese laborers will be of such a character only as is necessary to enforce the regulation, limitation, or suspension of immigration, and immigrants shall not be subject to personal maltreatment or abuse.
"Article II. Chinese subjects, whether proceeding to the United States as teachers, students, merchants or from curiosity, together with their body and household servants, and Chinese laborers who are now in the United States shall be allowed to go and come of their own free will and accord, and shall be accorded all the rights, privileges, immunities, and exemptions which are accorded to the citizens and subjects of the most favored nation.
"Article III. If Chinese laborers, or Chinese of any other class, now either permanently or temporarily residing in the territory of the United States, meet with ill treatment at the hands of any other persons, the Government of the United States will exert all its power to devise measures for their protection and to secure to them the same rights, privileges, immunities, and exemptions as may be enjoyed by the citizens or subjects of the most favored nation, and to which they are entitled by treaty.
"Article IV. The high contracting powers having agreed upon the foregoing articles, whenever the Government of the United States shall adopt legislative measures in accordance therewith, such measures will be communicated to the Government of China. If the measures as enacted are found to work hardship upon the subjects of China, the Chinese minister at Washington may bring the matter to the notice of the Secretary of State of the United States, who will consider the subject with him; and the Chinese Foreign Office may also bring the matter to the notice of the United States minister at Peking and consider the subject with him, to the end that mutual and unqualified benefit may result.
This is the latest of the still obligatory engagements by treaty that bear on the admission of visitors or immigrants from China to the United States. A fourth treaty, pressed on the Chinese Government in 1894, permitted the United States, during a period of ten years, to prohibit entirely the coming of Chinese laborers within its territory; but the concluding article of that treaty was as follows:
"This Convention shall remain in force for a period of ten years beginning with the date of the exchange of ratifications, and, if six months before the expiration of said period of ten years, neither Government shall have formally given notice of its final termination to the other, it shall remain in full force for another like period of ten years." The Chinese Government did give the formal notice of termination within the stipulated time, and the treaty became void on the 7th of December, 1904.
Hence the Government of the United States is now under the engagements which it made with the Government of China in 1880, which included an engagement to be faithful to the hospitable spirit of the compact of 1868. When one has looked over those engagements of national honor, it seems hard to harmonize them in spirit, or even in letter, with some of the enactments which are regulating, at the present day, the treatment of people from China who venture to approach the entry ports of the United States. Such, for example, as the following, from "the Act of May 6, 1882, as amended and added to by the Act of July 5, 1884," which, according to a recent official publication of "Laws and Regulations governing the Admission of Chinese," was "continued in force for an additional period of ten years from May 5, 1892, by the act of May 5, 1892, and was, with all laws on this subject in force on April 29, 1902, reënacted, extended, and continued without modification, limitation, or condition by the act of April 29, 1902, as amended by the act of April 27, 1904":
"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That from and after the passage of this act, and until the expiration of ten years next after the passage of this act, the coming of Chinese laborers to the United States be, and the same is hereby suspended, and during such suspension it shall not be lawful for any Chinese laborer to come from any foreign port or place, or having so come to remain within the United States."
"Section 2. That the master of any vessel who shall knowingly bring within the United States on such vessel, and land, or attempt to land, or permit to be landed any Chinese laborer, from any foreign port or place, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars for each and every such Chinese laborer so brought, and may also be imprisoned for a term not exceeding one year." …
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"Section 6. That in order to the faithful execution of the provisions of this act, every Chinese person, other than a laborer, who may be entitled by said treaty or this act to come within the United States, and who shall be about to come to the United States, shall obtain the permission of and be identified as so entitled by the Chinese Government, or of such other foreign government of which at the time such Chinese person shall be a subject, in each case to be evidenced by a certificate issued by such Government, which certificate shall be in the English language, and shall show such permission, with the name of the permitted person in his or her proper signature, and which certificate shall state the individual, family, and tribal name in full, title or official rank, if any, the age, height, and all physical peculiarities, former and present occupation or profession, when and where and how long pursued, and place of residence of the person to whom the certificate is issued, and that such person is entitled by this act to come within the United States.
"If the person so applying for a certificate shall be a merchant, said certificate shall in addition to above requirements, state the nature, character, and estimated value of the business carried on by him prior to and at the time of his application as aforesaid: Provided, That nothing in this act nor in said treaty shall be construed as embracing within the meaning of the word ‘merchant,’ hucksters, peddlers, or those engaged in taking, drying, or otherwise preserving shell or other fish for home consumption or exportation.
"If the certificate be sought for the purpose of travel for curiosity, it shall also state whether the applicant intends to pass through or travel within the United States, together with his financial standing in the country from which such certificate is desired.
"The certificate provided for in this act, and the identity of the person named therein shall, before such person goes on board any vessel to proceed to the United States, be viséd by the indorsement of the diplomatic representatives of the United States in the foreign country from which such certificate issues, or of the consular representative of the United States at the port or place from which the person named in the certificate is about to depart; and such diplomatic representative or consular representative whose indorsement is so required is hereby empowered, and it shall be his duty, before indorsing such certificate as aforesaid, to examine into the truth of the statements set forth in said certificate, and if he shall find upon examination that said or any of the statements therein contained are untrue it shall be his duty to refuse to indorse the same.
"Such certificate viséd as aforesaid shall be prima facie evidence of the facts set forth therein, and shall be produced to the Chinese inspector in charge of the port in the district in the United States at which the person named therein shall arrive, and afterward produced to the proper authorities of the United States whenever lawfully demanded, and shall be the sole evidence permissible on the part of the person so producing the same to establish a right of entry into the United States; but said certificate may be controverted and the facts therein stated disproved by the United States authorities."
It will be observed that Article IV. of the Treaty of 1880 provides that, if measures enacted in the United States "are found to work hardship upon the subjects of China, the Chinese minister at Washington may bring the matter to the notice of the Secretary of State of the United States, who will consider the subject with him." One who consults the annual reports that are published, of "Papers relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States," will find that the Chinese Minister at Washington has had occasion very often to bring cases of the kind thus referred to in the Treaty to the notice of the Secretary of State, and discovered, when he did so, almost invariably, that under the enactments complained of the Secretary of State had no power even to "consider the subject" of complaint with him. The highly intelligent and keenly logical Mr. Wu Ting-fang, who represented China at Washington in 1900-1902, had much correspondence on such matters with Secretary Hay, whose sympathetic friendliness to China was well proved; but Mr. Hay could never do more than refer Mr. Wu’s representations to the Treasury Department and its officials, who held all authority in the matter, and politely return to the Chinese Minister such responses as they put into his hands. The following is one example of Mr. Wu Ting-fang’s communications. It is dated at Washington, December 26, 1900:
"I have received from the imperial consul-general and from reputable Chinese merchants in San Francisco such urgent complaints that I feel it my regrettable duty to again address you on the subject of the manner in which the immigration laws of Congress are being enforced against Chinese subjects. They represent what I set forth in my note of the 30th ultimo, that under the rulings of the authorities of the port of San Francisco Chinese students holding certificates in conformity to the treaty and law of Congress are virtually debarred from entering the United States, it being held by the said authorities that such students must come here with a knowledge of the English language and with an education that will permit them to forthwith enter a college or take up an advanced professional course of study. They further represent that under the act of November 3, 1893, the Government of the United States issued certificates of residence to a large number of Chinese persons, not laborers—merchants and others— and that the rights acquired under these certificates are being entirely ignored. Holders of such certificates desiring to make a temporary visit to China are denied the privilege, and persons who have departed holding such certificates are denied the privilege of reentering the United States. They state that merchants returning to San Francisco after a temporary visit to China are often imprisoned in the detention dock for weeks and months pending their landing. Their Caucasian witnesses are put to all sorts of inconveniences and annoyances and treated with suspicion and discourtesy. When present to sign identification papers they are compelled to await the pleasure of the Chinese bureau for examination, and are plied with all sorts of immaterial questions from an inspector, who assumes the character of an inquisitor. {538} The result of this is that it is now very difficult for Chinese desiring to visit their native land to obtain the necessary signatures for their identification papers, thus causing them untold mental and financial suffering. They report that it has been heretofore the custom in San Francisco for years to allow the attorney for the persons desiring to enter the United States to be present at the Chinese bureau pending the taking of evidence on their behalf, thus affording a protection to the Chinese applicants and operating as a restraint upon overzealous subordinate officials. It has just been ordered by the port authorities that henceforth no attorneys shall be allowed to be present at the taking of such testimony, or of any testimony on behalf of Chinese desiring to enter that port. They assert that this action makes the immigration inspector, whose avowed policy is to cause the return to China of every Chinese he possibly can, the master of the situation and throws all Chinese applicants at his feet."
_Minister Wu to Secretary Hay, December 26, 1900 (Foreign Relations, 1901, page 64)._
In a previous communication the Chinese Minister had expressed the opinion that the matter demanded the attention of the President; to which Secretary Hay replied that "in the Department’s view the immigration acts do not confer upon the President any power to interpose in the matter. The act of August 18, 1894, provides that ‘in every case where an alien is excluded from admission into the United States under any law or treaty now existing or hereafter made, the decision of the appropriate immigration or customs officers, if adverse to the admission of such alien, shall be final, unless reversed on appeal to the Secretary of the Treasury." On this statement Mr. Wu now remarked:
"I beg to say that I was aware of the law which is quoted in your note of the 5th instant, when I suggested the interposition of the President of the United States, but I am advised that it can hardly be interpreted as a prohibition against the exercise by that supreme official of the nation of his influence with one of his own Secretaries, if he was convinced, upon examination of the facts, that a solemn treaty guaranty was being violated and a great wrong being done to subjects of a friendly Government. I am further advised that it was not the intent of Congress, by the act cited, to take from the President the duty, which I have understood was imposed on him by your great and wise Constitution, to ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed,’ and by the same instrument the treaties with foreign nations are declared to be ‘the supreme law of the land.’ I feel persuaded that if you will lay the questions presented in the present note and that of the 30th ultimo before the President, he will be inspired by his high sense of justice to induce the honorable Secretary of the Treasury to revise the decisions which have been made by the official of his Department, or that he will at least submit the question to the Attorney-General for a construction of the treaty and the laws depending thereon."
_Foreign Relations, 1901, page 65._
Any fair-minded reader of the correspondence between Chinese and American officials, relative to the treatment of Chinamen in the United States, is likely to find himself quite generally in sympathy with the former, and compelled to doubt whether the subjects of China would lose anything if all the treaty engagements supposed to be in force, between their Government and the Government of the United States, were cancelled to-morrow.
RACE PROBLEMS: Anti-Japanese Agitation in California. Segregation of Orientals in San Francisco Schools. Japanese Resentment. The Labor Question at the Bottom. State Rights and Treaty Rights.
"The events noted in this article belong mostly to San Francisco, but to a very considerable extent the agitation is one of state and national importance.
"In November, 1904, the American Federation of Labor held its annual meeting in San Francisco. It adopted a resolution demanding that the terms of the Chinese Exclusion Act should be so extended ‘as to permanently exclude from the United States and its insular territory all classes of Japanese and Coreans other than those exempted by the present terms of the act.’"
"In February, 1905, the San Francisco Chronicle, a daily newspaper of state-wide reputation, began to publish a series of articles having the general object of representing the immigration of Japanese, particularly of Japanese laborers, as a menace to the interests of the people of California and of the nation as well. On the date of the first publication, February 23, 1905, the purpose of the series was thus announced editorially:
"‘With this issue we summon the attention of the public to a matter of grave import, a matter that no longer admits of delay if we are to preserve the integrity of our social life not only in California but throughout the Union. The Japanese invasion with which we are confronted is fraught with a peril none the less momentous because it is so silent, none the less attended with danger to American character and to American institutions because it is so peaceful. … It will be well for us to choose now the line of least resistance, to determine now and forever whether this State and this country are to be American or whether they are to be Asiatic, whether they are to continue under the sway of American thought and aspiration or whether they are to become a seminary, an abiding place, and an inheritance for the Oriental peoples. … This is a matter first for California and for the Pacific Coast and secondly for the whole Nation. California stands to-day as an open door for Japan and for Asia and when these portals have been passed the road to the Atlantic is unbarred.’
"The series of articles printed conspicuously on the front page at intervals of two or three days sought to establish as fact a rapidly increasing inflow of Japanese laborers, ready to work at wages far below the white standard, and sending native-born white men into the ranks of the unemployed.
"By a unanimous vote in each House, and with only few absentees, the California Legislature on March 1 and 2, 1905, placed itself on record with respect to Japanese immigration in the adoption of a concurrent resolution. After a lengthy preamble, the Legislature—
"‘Resolved, that in view of the facts and reasons aforesaid, and of many others that might be stated, we, as representatives of the people of the State of California, do earnestly and strenuously ask and request, and in so far as it may be proper, demand for the protection of the people of this State and for the proper safe-guarding of their interests, that action be taken without delay, by treaty, or otherwise, as may be most expeditious and advantageous, tending to limit within reasonable bounds and diminish in a marked degree the further immigration of Japanese laborers into the United States.
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"‘That our Senators and Representatives be, and they are hereby, requested and directed to bring the matters aforesaid to the attention of the President and the Department of State.’
_California Statutes, 1905, Concurrent & Joint Res. chapter xxiv._
"On Sunday May 7, 1905, there was held in Lyric Hall, San Francisco, a sort of convention of representatives of various Labor organizations and Improvement Clubs of San Francisco and near-by cities,—such as the Building Trades Council, District Council of Painters, Carpenters’ Union No. 22, Federation of Mission Improvement Clubs, et al. After much speech-making of a demagogic character, committees were appointed and an adjournment taken to the following Sunday. On that day, May 14, organization was perfected by the election of the usual officers. All of these were men active in the promotion of labor organization.
"On May 6, 1905, the San Francisco Board of Education adopted a resolution expressing its determination ‘to effect the establishment of separate schools for Chinese and Japanese pupils … for the higher end that our children should not be placed in any position where their youthful impressions may be affected by association with pupils of the Mongolian Race.’ But finding itself without sufficient funds for equipment of a separate school, the Board did not pursue the matter at this time. Its zeal in the matter was not abated by the vast amount of labor required to reëstablish the schools after the great fire of April, 1906, and on October 11, 1906, it adopted and put into effect the following resolution:
"‘Resolved, That in accordance with Article X, Section 1662, of the School Law of California, principals are hereby directed to send all Chinese Japanese or Corean children to the Oriental public school, situated on the south side of Clay street, between Powell and Mason streets, on and after Monday, October 15, 1906.’
"The Consul of Japan in San Francisco at once addressed protests to the Board of Education, urging that the requirement would work great hardship upon Japanese children, by reason of distance and the difficulties of travel, street-car transportation at the time being very uncertain on account of the derangements produced by the great conflagration of April, 1906. Protests and appeals were alike turned aside in California, but they received instant attention in Washington by President Roosevelt, who sent Honorable V. H. Metcalf, the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, to San Francisco to investigate on the ground.
"There seemed to be a possible solution of the school question by securing a judicial determination of the matter as a violation of treaty rights. Upon these points Secretary Metcalf reported to the President substantially as follows:
"1st. There is no ‘favored nation’ clause in any treaty between the United States and Japan which clearly guarantees the right of education. The action of the San Francisco School Board is therefore not the denial of a treaty right.
"2nd. Two points remain upon which the validity of the resolution of the School Board might be questioned, as follows:
"a. May the sovereign State of California delegate legislative rights to district school boards or other municipal or local bodies?
"b. Are the Japanese Mongolians, and as such covered by the state statute governing the establishment of schools?
"Suit upon these points is inadvisable for the reason that in case of a favorable decision, the next legislature would hasten to enact legislation especially singling out the Japanese for discrimination.
"In December, 1906, however, the United States District Attorney was summoned from San Francisco to Washington for conference with the President and Attorney-General, and upon his return to San Francisco two suits were commenced. One was a petition for a writ of mandate in the Supreme Court of California, the other was a suit in equity in the United States Circuit Court for the Northern District of California. Neither suit was prosecuted, and both actions were subsequently dismissed.
"The influence of the Japanese Consul and of the leaders among the Japanese resident in San Francisco was strongly exerted toward allaying excitement and preventing any acts that might give ground for complaint. However, it was impossible to conceal the fact that the effort of the School Board toward segregation was a stinging blow to Japanese national pride.
"The San Francisco school question was suddenly lifted into national prominence by President Roosevelt, who included pointed criticism of the San Francisco authorities in his annual message to Congress, as follows:
"‘Not only must we treat all nations fairly, but we must treat with justice and good will all immigrants who come here under the law. … Especially do we need to remember our duty to the stranger within our gates. … I am prompted to say this by the attitude of hostility here and there assumed toward the Japanese in this country. … It is most discreditable to us as a people and it may be fraught with the gravest consequences to the nation. … Here and there a most unworthy feeling has manifested itself toward the Japanese—a feeling that has shown itself in shutting them out from the common schools in San Francisco, and in mutterings against them in one or two other places, because of their efficiency as workers. To shut them out from the public schools is a wicked absurdity, when there are no first-class colleges in the land, including the universities and colleges of California, which do not welcome Japanese students and on which Japanese students do not reflect credit.’ The president then specifically recommended to Congress the enactment of legislation for the naturalization of Japanese and for the enlargement of the powers of the federal government for the better protection of resident aliens against infringement of treaty rights.
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"The effect of the president’s utterances was to raise new questions and to bring new and powerful influences to the support of the San Francisco authorities. In California the San Francisco School Board received at once the credit of heroic defense of the principle of state sovereignty. Expression of the same sentiment in Congress was immediate and direct.
"Early in 1907, President Roosevelt invited the San Francisco Board of Education to come to Washington. This invitation was accepted, and the Board, accompanied by the Mayor of San Francisco, journeyed across the continent. Several conferences were held, and after their return to San Francisco, public statements of results were made both by the Board of Education and by the Mayor. On March 13, 1907, the offending resolution of the previous October was repealed.
"The action of the San Francisco authorities aroused very general comment throughout the country. The actual facts in regard to the Japanese in the schools were not inquired into by the San Francisco press, nor in fact were they accurately known at the time even to the school authorities of the city. The exact facts were published by The Outlook on June 1, 1907, from accurate investigation on the ground. The Superintendent of Schools had given as the main reason for segregation, that 95 per cent. of the Japanese pupils were young men and ‘we object to an adult Japanese sitting beside a twelve year old girl.’ The facts were that on December 8, 1906, in all schools of primary and grammar grade there was an enrollment of 28,736 pupils. Of these there were 93 Japanese, nearly one-third of whom were born in the United States. There were 28 girls and 65 boys. Of the 65 boys 34 were under 15 years of age, and of the remaining 31 only 2 were 20 years. 25 of the boys over 15 years were in the grammar grades, leaving but 6 to justify the objection of adults ‘sitting beside children of tender years.’ The conclusion of the Outlook inquiry was that there was nothing in the situation that could not have been met by simpler remedies than the attempted segregation, and that the underlying motive in the whole matter was a desire to win the political support of the labor unions.
"The great fire in San Francisco in 1906 drove the Japanese from their established quarters. Their attempts to gain new locations in districts previously occupied wholly by white residents tended to draw attention to them. For a time the policing of the city was inadequate, and cases of bodily violence toward Japanese were not infrequent. Anything like organized action took the form of boycotts directed against Japanese restaurants that sought white patronage and subsequently against the Japanese laundries.
"The biennial sessions of the legislature since 1905 have regularly furnished a large supply of anti-Japanese resolutions and bills, introduced for effect and without sufficient support for enactment. However, in 1909 legislation was attempted looking toward prohibiting Japanese from becoming owners of real property. It was only the strenuous protests of President Roosevelt actively supported by the governor of the state that prevented for this session the enactment of some such measure. The legislature finally contented itself with making an appropriation for a state census of Japanese.
"This census was intrusted to the state commissioner of labor, and is now (July, 1909) in progress. It may be regarded as a step toward an authoritative inquiry as to facts upon which later action may be based, if deemed necessary.
"The Japanese on the Pacific Coast uniformly exercise a most commendable self-restraint, and their officials take advantage of every opportunity to display a spirit of friendliness. This is illustrated by liberal contributions to the city’s fund for the entertainment of the sailors of the Atlantic Fleet during its visit to San Francisco in May, 1908, and by an invitation extended by the Chambers of Commerce of the large cities of Japan in July, 1908, to similar bodies in the Pacific Coast states to visit Japan as guests of the country. This invitation was accepted by numerous commercial representatives of the cities from Los Angeles northward to Seattle."
_Frederick H. Clark, Head of History Department, Lowell High School, San Francisco._
"'If you provide a system of education which includes alien children you must not exclude these particular alien children.'"
Inasmuch as the Constitution and the laws of the United States made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made under the authority of the United States, are declared to be the supreme law of the land, and that the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding, this prohibitory power was shown to be incontestable.
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The common-sense ground of opinion and feeling on the whole subject in America could not be set forth more indisputably than it was by Mr. Roosevelt, after he had ceased to be President, when he wrote as a private citizen, in his editorial connection with The Outlook, on the 8th of May, 1909, this:
"The Japanese are a highly civilized people of extraordinary military, artistic, and industrial development; they are proud, warlike, and sensitive. I believe that our people have, what I personally certainly have, a profound and hearty admiration for them; an admiration for their great deeds and great qualities, an ungrudging respect for their national character. But this admiration and respect is accompanied by the firm conviction that it is not for the advantage of either people that emigrants from either country should settle in mass in the other country. The understanding between the two countries on this point should be on a basis of entire mutuality, and therefore on a basis which will preserve unimpaired the self-respect of each country, and permit each to continue to feel friendly good will for the other. Japan would certainly object to the incoming of masses of American farmers, laborers, and small traders; indeed, the Japanese would object to this at least as strongly as the men of the Pacific Coast and Rocky Mountain States object to the incoming in mass of Japanese workmen, agricultural laborers, and men engaged in small trades. The Japanese certainly object to Americans acquiring land in Japan at least as much as the Americans of the far Western States object to the Japanese acquiring land on our soil. The Americans who go to Japan and the Japanese who come to America should be of the same general class—that is, they should be travelers, students, teachers, scientific investigators, men engaged in international business, men sojourning in the land for pleasure or study. As long as the emigration from each side is limited to classes such as these, there will be no settlement in mass, and therefore no difficulty."
That the emigration from Japan has been thus closely limited was shown in September, 1909, by the issue of a statistical circular from the office of the Japanese Consul-General at San Francisco, dealing in tabulated form with the arrivals and departures from Japan for the year 1908 and for the first six months of the year 1909. It shows that the number of the excess arrivals in Japan over the departures for 1908 was 1807, and for the first six months of the present year 737, making a total excess of arrivals in Japan over departures for the 18 months of 2544. The circular states that "no new labourers are now leaving Japan for American territory," and this may be taken as the official Japanese reply to the continued assertions of the California labour unions that large numbers of coolies are still reaching the country by way of the Canadian and Mexican frontiers.
RACE PROBLEMS: Exclusion of Chinese. The Law and its Administration. The Chinese Resentment expressed in a Boycott. President Roosevelt’s Vain Appeal to Congress. Opinion of Secretary Straus.
Resentful feeling aroused in China by the immigration and exclusion laws of the United States, in their special application to incoming Chinese and in the harshness of their administration, began to have expression at Shanghai in May, 1905, when resolutions were adopted at a meeting of the merchant guilds of that city which initiated an extensive boycotting of American goods and of everything connected with America. A report of the meeting and of its recommendations was sent to all parts of the Empire and elicited a quick and general response. The undertaking of the movement was to stop the buying of American goods; to socially ostracise tradesmen who continue to handle them, and to render no service to Americans in China, except for higher pay than is demanded from others. This boycotting attitude of large numbers in China was persisted in throughout the year, and not only made itself felt seriously in commercial circles, but impressed the American public with a proper sense of the indignities they were allowing to be imposed on a people who deserve their respect. The President, in his Message to Congress at the opening of the session in December, dealt justly with the subject, as follows:
"The conditions in China are such that the entire Chinese coolie class, that is, the class of Chinese laborers, skilled and unskilled, legitimately come under the head of undesirable immigrants to this country, because of their numbers, the low wages for which they work, and their low standard of living. Not only is it to the interest of this country to keep them out, but the Chinese authorities do not desire that they should be admitted. At present their entrance is prohibited by laws amply adequate to accomplish this purpose. These laws have been, are being, and will be, thoroughly enforced. … But in the effort to carry out the policy of excluding Chinese laborers, Chinese coolies, grave injustice and wrong have been done by this Nation to the people of China, and therefore ultimately to this Nation itself. Chinese students, business and professional men of all kinds—not only merchants, but bankers, doctors, manufacturers, professors, travelers, and the like—should be encouraged to come here and treated on precisely the same footing that we treat students, business men, travelers, and the like of other nations. Our law's and treaties should be framed, not so as to put these people in the excepted classes, but to state that we will admit all Chinese, except Chinese of the coolie class, Chinese skilled or unskilled laborers. There would not be the least danger that any such provision would result in any relaxation of the law about laborers. These will, under all conditions, be kept out absolutely. But it will be more easy to see that both justice and courtesy are shown, as they ought to be shown, to other Chinese, if the law or treaty is framed as above suggested. Examinations should be completed at the port of departure from China. For this purpose there should be provided a more adequate consular service in China than we now have. The appropriations, both for the offices of the consuls and for the office forces in the consulates, should be increased.
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"As a people we have talked much of the open door in China, and we expect, and quite rightly intend to insist upon, justice being shown us by the Chinese. But we can not expect to receive equity unless we do equity. We can not ask the Chinese to do to us what we are unwilling to do to them. They would have a perfect right to exclude our laboring men if our laboring men threatened to come into their country in such numbers as to jeopardize the well being of the Chinese population; and as, mutatis mutandis, these were the conditions with which Chinese immigration actually brought this people face to face, we had and have a perfect right, which the Chinese Government in no way contests, to act as we have acted in the matter of restricting coolie immigration. That this right exists for each country was explicitly acknowledged in the last treaty between the two countries. But we must treat the Chinese student, traveler, and business man in a spirit of the broadest justice and courtesy if we expect similar treatment to be accorded to our own people of similar rank who go to China."
_President's Message to Congress, December 5, 1905._
No effective impression on the moral sense or the rationality of Congress was made by the President’s appeal, and the laws which are contemptuous of national treaties and indifferent to the national honor remain on the statute books unchanged. That others than the President in the Federal Administration felt the wrong and the shame of the law which it had to administer, was shown by an article from the pen of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, published in the spring of 1908. The following are some passages from the article:
"It is not the policy of the Government with reference to Chinese immigration, but the manner in which it is, of necessity, carried out, by reason of the way in which the laws are framed, that causes constant friction and dissatisfaction. … The attitude of the Chinese Government may be inferred from the fact that in 1904, after the convention of 1894 had been in force ten years, China availed herself of her reserved right and formally denounced the treaty, refusing longer to be a party to an arrangement which, as carried into effect, was offensive to her national pride. …
"For proof of the feeling of the Chinese people it is only necessary to refer to the boycott of American goods, inaugurated by various trade guilds and business and commercial associations of the Empire during the summer of 1905. At that time China held first rank among Oriental countries as a consumer of American products. In that year, her total commerce amounted to $497,000,000, of which $329,000,000 were imports; $57,000,000, or more than seventeen per cent., being supplied by the United States. The exports from the United States to China had grown to these proportions by rapid strides. They were less than $3,000,000 in the seventies. They only reached $7,500,000 in 1886, $12,000,000 in 1897, $15,000,000 in 1900, $24,000,000 in 1902, $57,000,000 in 1905. It was reasonable to believe that American trade would continue to progress in something like the same ratio, and a larger and larger share of the foreign trade of China accrue to the United States. Instead of that, the exports of the United States to China, according to our statistics, fell to $44,000,000 in 1906, and to $26,000,000 in 1907.
"It is not necessary to attribute the decline wholly to the boycott of 1905, but a drop in our exportations to that country of fifty per cent. in two years is sufficiently startling to challenge attention. But on higher grounds than those of mere commercial interest should the frame of the laws be changed. …
"I would not suggest a change in the established policy of rigidly excluding Chinese laborers of every description, both skilled and unskilled. The policy has been and will continue to be as effectively enforced as circumstances will permit. But, at a time when this policy of exclusion has been so thoroughly applied that there remain in the United States only about 70,000 Chinese—less than one-tenth of one per cent, of our population—little danger need be apprehended from a full and fair reconsideration of the subject and a recasting of the laws upon a juster basis. …
"By making admission the rule, and exclusion the exception, we could easily preserve the present policy in all its integrity, and even strengthen the real prohibitory features thereof, at the same time entirely removing a material cause of friction, dissatisfaction and unnecessary humiliation to the people of a friendly nation."
_Oscar S. Straus (Secretary of Commerce and Labor), The Spirit and Letter of Exclusion (The North American Review, April, 1908)._
A much stronger expression was given to the shamed feeling of honorable Americans on this subject by the veteran diplomatist and former Secretary of State, Honorable John W. Foster, in an article written in 1906. The following is a passage from the article:
"I do not know how I can better illustrate the kind of protection, or want of protection, extended to the Chinese, as guaranteed by the Constitution, the treaties, and the solemn promises of the government of the United States, than by recalling a notorious case which occurred, not on the sand lots of California, not under the auspices of labor agitators, but in the enlightened city of Boston and under the conduct of Federal officials.
"The following narrative is condensed from the newspapers of that city. At about half past seven o’clock on the evening of Sunday, October 11, 1902, a number of United States officials of Boston, New York, and other cities charged with the administration of the Chinese exclusion laws, assisted by a force of the local police, made a sudden and unexpected descent upon the Chinese quarter of Boston. The raid was timed with a refinement of cruelty which did greater credit to the shrewdness of the officials than to their humanity. It was on the day and at the hour when the Chinese of Boston and its vicinity were accustomed to congregate in the quarter named for the purpose of meeting friends and enjoying themselves after a week of steady and honest toil. The police and immigration officials fell upon their victims without giving a word of warning. The clubs, restaurants, other public places where Chinese congregated, and private houses were surrounded. Every avenue of escape was blocked. To those seized no warrant for arrest or other paper was read or shown.
"Every Chinese who did not at once produce his certificate of residence was taken in charge, and the unfortunate ones were rushed off to the Federal Building without further ceremony. There was no respect of persons with the officials; they treated merchants and laborers alike. In many cases no demand was made for certificates, the captives were dragged off to imprisonment, and in some instances the demand was not made till late at night or the next morning, when the certificates were in the possession of the victims at the time of their seizure.
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"In the raid no mercy was shown by the government officials. The frightened Chinese who had sought to escape were dragged from their hiding-places, and stowed like cattle upon wagons or other vehicles, to be conveyed to the designated place of detention. On one of these wagons or trucks from seventy to eighty persons were thrown, and soon after it moved it was overturned. A scene of indescribable confusion followed, in which the shrieks of those attempting to escape mingled with the groans of those who were injured. …
"About two hundred and fifty Chinese were thus arrested and carried off to the Federal Building. Here they were crowded into two small rooms where only standing space could be had, from eight o’clock in the evening, all through the night, and many of them till late in the afternoon of the next day. There was no sleep for any of them that night, though some of them were so exhausted that they sank to the floor where they stood. Their captors seemed to think that they had to do with animals, not human beings. Some of them were released during the night, when relatives brought their certificates or merchants were identified. But the greater part were kept till the next day, when the publicity of the press brought friends, or relief through legal proceedings. …
"So strong was the indignation of the respectable citizens of Boston, that a large public meeting was held in Faneuil Hall to denounce the action of the immigration officials and the police. … It was announced by the immigration officials that their raid was organized under the belief that there were a number of Chinese in Boston and its vicinity unlawfully in the United States, and this method was adopted for discovering them. The official report of the chief officer soon after the event showed that two hundred and thirty-four Chinese were imprisoned, that one hundred and twenty-one were released without trial or requirement of bail, and that only five had so far been deported, but that he hoped that he might secure the conviction and deportation of fifty; as a matter of fact, however, the deportations fell much below that number."
_J. W. Foster, The Chinese Boycott (Atlantic Monthly, January, 1906)._
In the same article Mr. Foster recalled facts connected with the negotiation of the Treaty of 1880 which deepen the shame to the United States of what followed: "In communicating to the Secretary of State," he said, "the signature of the treaty of 1880, the American commissioners wrote: ‘In conclusion, we deem it our duty to say to you that during the whole of this negotiation the representatives of the Chinese Government have met us in the fairest and most friendly spirit. They have been, in their personal intercourse, most courteous, and have given to all our communications, verbal as well as written, the promptest and most respectful consideration. After a free and able exposition of their own views, we are satisfied that in yielding to the request of the United States they have been actuated by a sincere friendship and an honorable confidence that the large powers recognized by them as belonging to the United States, and bearing directly upon the interests of their own people, will be exercised by our government with a wise discretion, in a spirit of reciprocal and sincere friendship, and with entire justice.’
"But even this treaty, which had been obtained from China so reluctantly, yet with the generous exhibition of friendship on her part just described, did not prove satisfactory to the increasing demands of the labor unions. Before ten years were passed, under the spur and excitement of the presidential campaign of 1888, and upon the hesitation of the Chinese government to make a further treaty modification, the Scott Act was passed by Congress, which was a deliberate violation of the treaty of 1880, and was so declared by the Supreme Court; but under our peculiar system it became the law of the land. Our government had thus flagrantly disregarded its solemn treaty obligations. Senator Sherman, then chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, stated in the Senate that we had furnished China a just cause for war."
----------RACE PROBLEMS: End--------
RACE-TRACK GAMBLING.
See (in this Volume) GAMBLING.
RADIO-TELEGRAPHY.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE AND INVENTION: ELECTRICAL: TELEGRAPHY, WIRELESS.
RADIUM, and Radio-activity.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE, RECENT: RADIUM; See also PHYSICAL.
RADOLIN, Prince de: Arrangement with France for the Algeciras Conference.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1905-1906.
RAIGOSA, Don Genaro: President of Second International Conference of American Republics.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
----------RAILWAYS: Start--------
RAILWAYS
RAILWAYS: Abyssinia: French Projects.
See (in this Volume) ABYSSINIA: A. D. 1902.
RAILWAYS: Africa: A. D. 1909. Progress of the Cape to Cairo Line.
A telegram from Broken Hill, Northern Rhodesia, November 10, 1909, announced that the Cape-to-Cairo Railroad had reached the Congo frontier on the 16th.
RAILWAYS: Argentina-Chile: A. D. 1909. The Transandine Railway Tunnel.
The great work, of boring a tunnel through the chain of the Andes at an altitude of over 10,000 feet above sea level for the trains of the Transandine Railway was practically completed in the fall of 1909. "Early in April next the rails will be laid, and from then onward the journey from Buenos Ayres, on the eastern side of the South American continent, to Valparaiso, on the Pacific Coast, may be undertaken in comfort in a railway carriage all the year round. Up to the present time passengers from the east have had to leave the rail at Las Cuevas and proceed by a zigzag road over the mountains on mule-back or in coaches to Caracoles, the rail head on the Chilian side—a journey which occupies about two hours; but this route is only open during the summer months. In the winter, when the pass is closed by snow, travellers have to go round by sea. The route under the Andes will effect a saving of about twelve days. The work of boring the two-mile tunnel was begun four years ago and has presented exceptional difficulties."
{544}
RAILWAYS: Australia: Government Ownership. Difference of Gauge. Each State having its own.
"Warfare against monopoly is easier in Australia than in some other countries for the reason that in Australia the close relation between monopoly and transportation is generally understood and is not an issue. Some few and for the most part small railroad projects, including mining and timber lines, are still in private hands. All the other railroads are publicly owned and publicly operated. So far the ownership is vested in the several states, each having its own system. In the good old conservative days before the Labor demon raised its head, there was much childish jealousy among the different governments. In the conservative view the destiny of Australia was not to be a nation but a handful of nice little colonies vying with one another in expressing loyalty to the monarchical idea and the established order. When these came to build railroads each colony established its own gauge and stuck thereto. A more preposterous notion never bewitched the human mind, but the truth is that a gauge of 4 feet 8½ inches in New South Wales actually seemed a reason (to the conservative intellect) for a gauge of 5 feet 3 inches in Victoria and a gauge of 3 feet 6 inches in Western Australia. The annoyance, delay, and expense resulting to through traffic make the thing seem like a section of Bedlam. Between Melbourne and Sydney, for instance, a line with an immense business and with otherwise excellent accommodations, you must change cars on the frontier and all the freight must be transferred. Eventually the federal Government is to take over and unify the systems of the different states. Considering the multiplicities of systems and gauges, the task that will then confront the federal Government will not be for a holiday."
Charles E. Russell, The Uprising of the Many, chapter 27 (Doubleday, Page & Co., New York, 1907).
RAILWAYS: Canada: A. D. 1903-1909. The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway.
See (in this Volume) CANADA: A. D. 1903-1909.
RAILWAYS: Canada: A. D. 1904. Establishment of the Board of Railway Commissioners with large Regulative Powers.
In Moody’s Magazine of January, 1906, the Honorable Robert Bickerdike, M. P., of Montreal, gave a favorable account of the operation of the Canadian Act of two years before which created a Board of Railway Commissioners, taking the place of the former Railway Committee of the Privy Council, and exercising large powers of control over rates, construction of road, and speed of trains. "No toll" (that is, freight rate), he said, "may be charged which unjustly discriminates between different localities. The board shall not approve any toll which for like goods or passengers, carried under substantially similar conditions in the same direction over the same line, is greater for a shorter than a longer distance, unless the board is satisfied that, owing to competition, it is expedient to do so. Where carriage is partly by rail and partly by water, and the tolls in a single sum, the board may require the company to declare, or may determine, what portion is charged in respect of carriage by rail, to prevent discrimination. Freight tariffs are governed by a classification which the board must approve, and the object is to have this classification uniform. Railways shall, when directed by the board, place any specified goods in any stated class. Tariffs shall be in such form and give such details as the board may prescribe. The maximum mileage tariff shall be filed with the board and be subject to its approval; when approved, the company shall publish it in the Canadian Gazette, the official publication. As respects this act, the board is invested with the rights, privileges, and powers of a superior court. None, therefore, may oppose it."
RAILWAYS: Canada: A. D. 1906. Government Ownership and Operation of a Railway Line.
See (in this Volume) CANADA: A. D. 1906-1907.
RAILWAYS: Canada: A. D. 1908-1909. Projected Railway from the Canadian Northwest to Hudson Bay.
In a speech at Niagara Falls, in September, 1908, the Canadian premier, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, announced positively that his government had undertaken the construction of a railway from the Canadian Northwest to Hudson Bay; that surveyors are in the field determining the route, and that plans for the construction of the road are being prepared. For a few weeks in the year this will give another outlet to the greatest wheat region of the continent for its harvests; and even a few weeks will afford important relief, no doubt, to the pressure of its need. Unfortunately, the passage from Hudson Bay to the ocean, through Hudson Strait, is sealed up with ice during much the greater part of the year. Quite recently there were reports of the return of a vessel from the strait which had found it blocked in July.
Notwithstanding the limit thus put on the usefulness of the Hudson Bay route, the Northwest is counting on immediate advantages from it. The Manitoba Free Press exclaims: "To bring uncounted millions of acres of wheat in Western Canada a thousand miles nearer to the market in Europe, and make a saving of many millions of dollars every year in transportation charges, thereby ensuring higher prices to the farmers of the Prairie Provinces—this is what the opening up of the Hudson Bay outlet will achieve. It will mean a revolution in traffic routes and traffic rates. The immense amount of territory within the cost-saving reach of Hudson Bay, the New-World Mediterranean, will make this route one of the greatest trade arteries of the world. It will place the grain-growers of Western Canada in control of the markets of the world by making possible a great reduction in the cost of transportation. This saving will be brought about because the Hudson Bay route is by a very considerable distance the shortest route, and the saving is in the rail haul. … The total cultivable area in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta is some 175,000,000 acres. Even estimating the as yet uncultivated area as being only one-half as productive as that which has already come under the plow, a tenfold increase of the present production is to be counted upon."
{545}
"Roughly speaking," says a magazine article on the subject, "Churchill [one of the proposed Hudson Bay terminals] is just 1000 miles from the grain areas of Hill’s roads. New York is 2000 miles. Churchill is 1500 miles from Oregon. New York is nearly 3000. … The harbor itself could not have been better if it had been made to order. It is a direct 550-mile plain, open deep-water sailing from the west end of the Straits,—no shoals, no reefs, deep enough for the deepest-draft keel that ever sailed the sea."
Tentative surveys of two routes from Winnipeg were undertaken in October, 1908, and a report of them made in the following spring. They were favorable to the project on either line. That to Fort Churchill would have 465 miles of length and its cost was estimated at $11,608,000. The alternative line, to Fort Nelson, at the mouth of Nelson River, would be 397 miles long, and have an estimated cost of $8,677,000; but harbor construction at Fort Nelson would cost heavily. The report, however, recommended the latter route. Moreover, abundant water power is waiting development along the Nelson River, which might result in an economical electrification of the road. Furthermore, the report suggested possibilities of a canal along the river from Hudson Bay to Lake Winnipeg, and from the latter to Winnipeg city, through which ocean craft might ultimately reach the Manitoba metropolis.
In connection with this projected opening of a commercial route from America to Europe through Hudson Bay, a Danish writer has lately urged the Danish Government to bring Greenland into touch with it.
RAILWAYS: Canada: A. D. 1909. Important Ruling by the Railway Commission, affecting American Railways.
In June, 1909, an important decision of the Canadian Railway Commission was announced, "in the case of the Dawson Board of Trade against the Yukon and White Pass Railway Company, an English Corporation, laying down that by the amendment of the Railway Act passed last session all railways, whether originating in the United States or not, are under the jurisdiction of the Canadian board. The point involved is the question of rates on the White Pass, as to which counsel asserted that if ordinary rates were ordered to prevail it would be impossible to pay dividends. The board takes time to consider the question of rates in view of the details involved, but orders both the American and Canadian sections of the line to file figures before the board. It is probable that the rates of all American railways crossing Canada will by this decision come under the jurisdiction of the board. This will affect the Vanderbilt lines, which cross the Niagara peninsula, also the Hill lines, which enter Canada from Washington, Oregon, and other States. Railway men regard the decision as the most important in the history of Canada, because it gives the Canadian Commission power to regulate rates on American railways entering Canada."
RAILWAYS: Central Africa: A. D. 1909. Lines to Katanga.
In March, 1909, the Temps, of Paris, published information according to which the work of constructing the railway from the Upper Congo to the great Central African lakes was making such progress that communication with the Katanga mine fields would probably be established by the end of 1910. The British South Africa lines, also, are being pushed toward Katanga.
RAILWAYS: Chile-Bolivia: A. D. 1909. The Arica-La Paz Railway.
According to a Press despatch from Santiago de Chile, April 5, 1909, a contract for the great railway to be made across the Andes from Arica, in Chile, to La Paz, in Bolivia, attaining an elevation of upwards of 12,000 ft. and having a length of a little over 300 miles, had just been given to an English firm. The actual money voted for the scheme was said to be £3,000,000.
RAILWAYS: China: Extent of Railway Travel. Unused Concessions.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1904.
RAILWAYS: China: A. D. 1904-1909. The Hankau-Sze-chuan Railway Loan. American participation.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1904-1909.
RAILWAYS: China: A. D. 1909. The Fa-ku-menn Railway and the Antung-Mukden Railway questions between China and Japan.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1905-1909.
RAILWAYS: China: A. D. 1909. The Chinese Eastern Railway. New Russo-Chinese Agreement. Municipalities on the Line.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1909 (MAY).
RAILWAYS: China: A. D. 1909. Opening of the Peking-Kalgan Line. A purely Chinese undertaking.
The opening, October 2d, 1909, with grand ceremonies, of the Peking-Kalgan Railway, was an event of especial pride and satisfaction to the Chinese people. It has been, wrote a newspaper correspondent, "a purely Chinese undertaking, the chief engineer of which, Jeme Tienyow, a member of the Institute of Civil Engineers, and every employé are Chinese; but the rails and rolling stock are foreign. It has been paid for from the earnings of the Northern Railways, without foreign financial assistance.
"The line, the length of which is 122 miles, joins Peking with the important trade mart of Kalgan, piercing the Nankau Pass by four tunnels, the longest, under the Great Wall, being 3,580 ft. It taps extensive coalfields and is well and economically laid. Already the traffic is astonishing and will add to the wealth of the province and increase the earnings of the Northern Railways.
"The construction of the line has given training and experience to a body of young Chinese engineers, who will find ready employment in the future. The line will now be continued westwards through populous country to Kwei-hua-cheng and the Yellow River, a distance of 275 miles, the route for which was surveyed last year. This line will also be paid for from the earnings of the Northern Railways."
RAILWAYS: China: A. D. 1909-1910. Proposal to neutralize Manchurian Railways and to internationally finance a Chinchow-Aigun Line.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1909-1910.
RAILWAYS: England: A. D. 1907-1909. Adopted System in Great Britain for pacific Settlement of Labor Disputes in the Railway Service.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: ENGLAND: A. D. 1907-1909.
RAILWAYS: England: A. D. 1908. No Passengers killed by Train Accidents.
The British public had the happiness of being informed that no passenger was killed by a train accident on the railways of Great Britain in 1908, and also that the number of passengers injured—283—was not only 251 less than in 1907 and 345 less than in 1906, but, like the number of killed, was less than any previously recorded.
{546}
RAILWAYS: France: A. D. 1908. Government purchase of the Western Railway.
In June, 1908, the French Government secured legislation authorizing it to purchase the Western Railway of France, which adds 3100 miles to the previous 2500 miles of State-owned railways. The purchase is said to have been made with the expectation "that sufficient pressure will be brought on the other railway companies to make them adopt the methods of management applied by the State to its railways."
RAILWAYS: France: A. D. 1909. The Pensioning of State Railway Employés.
See (in this Volume) POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: FRANCE.
RAILWAYS: Mexico: A. D. 1906. Nationalizing of the Mexican Railway System. Opening of the Tehuantepec Railway.
"1906 was a year of railway consolidations in Mexico. In March last, the National Railway of Mexico bought the Hidalgo Railway, which starts from the capital, passes through the important mining camp of Pachuca, and will ultimately reach the port of Tuxpam on the Gulf of Mexico. But by far the most important operation of the year along these lines was announced by Finance Minister Limantour on December 14. The Minister, in an address to Congress, informed that body that the negotiations, which for some time past had been in progress, for the reorganization of the finances of the Mexican Central Railway, had culminated in a plan for the consolidation of that property with the Mexican National, and the incorporation of a new company, with headquarters in the City of Mexico, to own and operate the merged system. Moreover, the Minister informed the legislature that the Mexican government, which had owned a controlling interest in the Mexican National, would hold an absolute majority of the stock of the new corporation.
"The transaction is an important one, as by it the Mexican government gains unquestioned control of the transportation system of the Republic."
_F. R. Guernsey, The Year in Mexico (Atlantic Monthly, March, 1907)._
Early in November, 1906, President Diaz formally opened the Tehuantepec Railway. The event marks the completion of the plan first proposed by Cortez four hundred years ago, when he wrote to the king of Spain concerning the feasibility of a canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific by this route, though he little dreamt of a railway.
RAILWAYS: Mexico: A. D. 1909. Extended Governmental Control of Railways.
"The most important step ever taken by the Mexican Government in connexion with transportation was completed on February 1, when the amalgamation of the National lines and the Mexican Central Railway became operative. With this achievement the Government secured control of 7,012 miles of railway, thus possessing a majority of the stock of the national lines and 70 per cent. of the stock of the Mexican Central. The combination includes, apart from the Mexican Central, the National, International and Interoceanic lines. The Government likewise controls the Vera Cruz and Pacific Railroad, with 265 miles, and the Tehuantepec National, with 206 miles."
_Correspondence London Times, July 16, 1909._
RAILWAYS: Mono-Rail System, The Brennan Gyroscopic.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE AND INVENTION: RAILWAYS.
RAILWAYS: Netherlands: Laws against Railway Strikes.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1903.
RAILWAYS: New York: A. D. 1907. The Public Service Commissions Act.
See (in this Volume) NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1906-1910; and PUBLIC UTILITIES.
RAILWAYS: New Zealand: A. D. 1909. No more building by the Government of Railways not likely to pay Interest on Cost.
A despatch from Wellington, New Zealand, to the English Press, October 18, 1909, reported that "the Premier has made an important announcement regarding his future railway construction policy. He said that the Government would not undertake the building of any more lines that were likely not to pay. If the people wanted such lines they would have to guarantee their earnings up to 3 per cent."
RAILWAYS: Nigeria: A. D. 1909. Rapid development of the Railway System.
Early in 1909 Press despatches to London announced that "a junction had been effected between the rails proceeding northwards from Lagos and the rails proceeding southward from Jebba on the Niger River. This places the Niger River, at a point some 500 miles from its mouth, in direct communication by rail with the town of Lagos, the capital of Southern Nigeria, and fulfils the wishes of the inhabitants of Lagos that ‘the iron horse should drink of the waters of the Niger.’"
"The completion of the southern branch of the Nigerian railway system," said a correspondent, "as far as Jebba on the Niger is an event of considerable significance in the history of British action in West Africa. The Anglo-French Agreement of 1898 secured us in the possession of what is undoubtedly the most interesting portion of West Africa; interesting above all from the character of its varied inhabitants—the agricultural Yoruba, the keen Hausa trader and manufacturer, the Fulani, by turn statesman and ruler or wandering herdsman. To this region—to many parts of it at least—Islam has brought its schools, its literature, and an effective system of administration."
RAILWAYS: Rhodesia: Rapid Extension of Railways.
See (in this Volume) RHODESIA.
RAILWAYS: Switzerland: A. D. 1905. Completion of the Tunnel under the Simplon Pass.
The tunnel under the Simplon Pass, between Brigue, Switzerland, and Iselle, Italy, was finished February 24th, 1905, after seven years work and at a cost of $14,000,000. It is twelve miles long,—two and three-quarters miles longer than the St. Gothard tunnel. It opens direct railway communication between Paris and Milan.
RAILWAYS: Switzerland: A. D. 1909. Government Purchase of the St. Gothard Railway.
The St. Gothard Tunnel and Railway were built under an agreement (1879) with the Swiss Government under which the latter reserved the right of buying the St. Gothard within thirty years, and the price arranged was twenty-five times the amount of the net profits of the line during the last ten years of working. The right was exercised in the spring of 1909, and thus the last of the principal Swiss lines passed into the possession of the Government. The St. Gothard Company at first demanded 215,800,000 francs, but eventually accepted 212,500,000 francs. The Confederation took over the debt of the company--117,090,000 francs ($23,418,000) with 3½ per cent. interest, and paid six million francs for expenses of the issue of the company’s loans.
{547}
RAILWAYS: Turkey: A. D. 1899-1909. The Bagdad Railway.
In January, 1902, the Turkish Sultan signed a convention which provides a guarantee, to the extent of 12,000 francs per kilometre for the undertaking of the Bagdad Railway, to build which a concession had been obtained by a German syndicate in 1899.
See, in Volume VI. of this work, TURKEY: A. D. 1899--NOVEMBER).
The new railway was to be an extension of the existing Anatolian Railway, starting from the terminus of the latter at Konieh and running, via Bagdad, to some point on the Persian Gulf, the selection of which was left for future arrangement. The line, with its branches, was to have a length of 2,500 kilometres or about 1550 miles.
A further convention respecting this project was signed in March, 1903, concerning which the following statement was made in the British Parliament on the 23d of that month by the Premier, Mr. Balfour: "A copy of the convention, concluded March 5, 1903, between the Turkish Government and the Anatolian Railway Company is in our possession. It leaves the whole scheme of railway development through Asia Minor to the Persian Gulf entirely in the hands of a company under German control. To such a convention we have never been asked to assent, and we could not in any case be a party to it."
Mr. David Fraser, a young traveller of experience, was commissioned by the Times of India in 1907 to follow the proposed route of the Bagdad Railway and report on its prospects. He started from Constantinople, and traversed the completed portion of the line to where it breaks off suddenly some ten kilometres east of Eregli, "with its pair of rails," he wrote, "gauntly projecting from the permanent way and pointing in dumb amazement where the Taurus shares the horizon with the very skies." "They have now," said the London Times not long since, "been pointing thus for nearly five years, to the bewilderment of those who, not knowing the country, imagined, in 1904, that with Germany determined and Turkey desirous to push ahead, the Bagdad line would go forward with inevitable march towards its distant goal."
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1908. Damascus to Mecca. The Pilgrims’ Road.
"The Damascus to Mecca Railway has many remarkable features which distinguish it from other lines. Its principal object is to provide a means for faithful Moslems to perform their pilgrimage to the holy places of Mecca and Medina with a greater degree of comfort than formerly. Its inception is due to the initiative of the present Sultan, and the enthusiasm created by its first announcement brought in subscriptions from the faithful in all parts of the Islamic world."
The length of the line from Damascus to Mecca is 1097 miles.
"The gauge of the line is the somewhat curious one of 1.05 meter (3 feet 5¼ inches), which was necessary, when the line was first commenced, to correspond with the gauge of the Beirut-Damascus line, over which the rolling stock had to be brought."
_Colonel F. R. Maunsell, National Geographic Magazine, February, 1909._
The line was opened to Medina early in the autumn of 1908.
RAILWAYS: United States of America: A. D. 1870-1908. Railway Rate Regulation. Its slow Development. "Granger" Legislation in the Middle West. State Commissions. Defiant Rebating. Tardy Federal Legislation. The Interstate Commerce Act, 1887, 1906. President Roosevelt on the subject.
The creation of largely capitalized and therefore powerful corporations was first developed in a rapid and extensive way by the modern enterprise of railway building; and the railways became soon so essentially related to every kind of interest, personal or general, that they naturally gave rise to the earliest of the specially modern problems of public policy concerning corporations which required to be solved. For a long period society had no call to defend itself against monopolistic combinations among its railway corporations; because it was long before seriously competitive lines of rail could be built. Each served its own belt of country; but each company owning and managing a line held therefore, in itself, a monopoly of the transportation agency it had created, and could, in an unchecked management of that agency, either wrong its whole clientele by excessive rates of charge, or wrong one part of it by some favoritism of unequal rates. Those were the original abuses of opportunity and power which provoked defensive measures of law. Naturally the earlier undertakings of defence in the United States were by State legislation, since nearly all charters of incorporation for business purposes have been derived from the States. Wherever the operations of business conducted under such charters extend over more than a single State, the constitutional power of Congress to "regulate commerce … among the several States" gives it an undoubted right to take part in the regulation of them; but it was slow to exercise that right. The following abridgment of an excellent sketch of the slow development of railway-rate regulation gives the essential facts. It is quoted from extensively by kind permission of its authors and of The Boston Evening Transcript for which it was prepared:
"Perhaps the most remarkable fact in the whole history of interstate transportation is that, despite flagrant abuses, Federal regulation was held off until 1887. Within the States themselves railroad rates had been often subjected to severe regulation: yet even the public excitement which accompanied the ‘granger’ legislation between 1870 and 1880 did not result in Federal legislation. In several States, notably in the Middle West, during that epoch, detailed statutes were passed fixing maximum rates which by no present standard could be said to be anything but outrageous. In those times the Federal courts held that they would not consider legislation as confiscatory if it left to the railroad one cent of net profit above operating expenses. But even with this rule, now almost incredible, it was found in the next decade that much of the rate-fixing under the State statutes was unconstitutional. {548} Nor was the situation much ameliorated by the later establishment of State commissions, for many of them, according to the present standards, flagrantly abused their powers. … After the first outburst more conservative counsels generally prevailed. The movement met much opposition in its progress throughout the country, and although commissions were generally created in the East, they were given no final powers over rates. Then a reaction set in, due in part to the prostration of the Western roads. … Much wise legislation dates from this period, and many State commissions acted in a moderate spirit. The history of railroad legislation in these seventeen years illustrated, however, the slow process by which a popular movement culminates in Federal legislation; and good law or bad, proper action or improper action, the legislation of the States supplied experience in view of which Congress could act wisely when, in 1887, Federal legislation became inevitable. That this legislation had become inevitable was due very largely to the continued abuse of their commercial power by the railroad managers. For several years public opinion as to railroad discrimination had become so well settled as to work a real change in the common law, yet the railroad officials persistently defied it. Rebating, which, as late as 1875, was at common law merely a doubtful practice, by 1885 had become generally accepted as an illegal business; but this change the railroads refused to recognize in any other way than to make their practices more secret. It was public indignation against long continued illegal discrimination and undue preference which brought down upon the railways the inter-State commerce legislation in 1887. The wonder is, in view of the railway practices, that it did not come sooner. But however well behaved the railways might have been, Federal regulation would have come inevitably long before the end of the nineteenth century, in accordance with the general current of public opinion that public services could no longer go without governmental regulation. Still the act itself as finally passed was really very conservative, when the nature of the crisis is considered. … By the principal provisions of the Interstate Commerce act the railways were forbidden: (1) To charge unreasonable rates; (2) To discriminate between persons; (8) To give preference between localities; (4) To charge less for a long haul than for a shorter haul included within it ‘under substantially similar circumstances.’ These provisions were undoubtedly intended by the majority of those who framed the act as rather radical legislation, which should materially affect the practice of the railroads; but the conservative force of judicial decision soon modified the intended force of the act. From the outset the commission claimed that it not merely had power under the act to forbid any unreasonable rate upon complaint made, but that also, in giving relief, it might indicate to the railroad what should be the reasonable rate thenceforth. But within ten years the Supreme Court decided that the commission had no power to fix rates at all. This was a famous victory for the railroad bar, for without an authoritative statement by the commission of what rate it would regard as reasonable, even a railroad which yielded obedience to the decree of the commission without appeal to the courts, could make a slight reduction in the rate, and any dissatisfied shipper would be obliged to enter again into an expensive and dilatory litigation. In this way the railroads tired out objecting shippers; but in the process they stimulated a widespread demand for a power in the commission to fix rates similar to that given to many State commissions and to the corresponding body in Great Britain. The long and short haul clause provided that exceptions to it must be by special dispensation from the commission. … But tucked away in the section was the vague phrase, ‘under substantially similar circumstances,’ which proved its destruction. At first the commission began to enforce the act according to its obvious reading, and to grant dispensations from its operation on petition of the railroad in proper cases. But the whole effort of the railway counsel was concentrated upon the courts, and it was finally held that wherever there was competition at the distant points, the conditions were dissimilar with those at the intervening points of any benefit from the clause. Water competition was first held an excuse for a lower rate for the longer haul. Then rail competition was recognized. Next potential competition over existing routes was held enough. But finally the courts refused to consider the mere possibility of new routes. … Commercial cities and towns were left at the mercy of the railways, as they had been before the act, and the long and short-haul clause became a dead letter. This was a cause of most bitter complaint; yet, singularly enough, when the amendments of 1906 were adopted, no attempt was made to amend this clause. … Further action by the Federal Government was foreshowed as before by a very considerable body of legislation throughout the United States, between 1900 and 1905. In many States there was an unfortunate recrudescence of the ill-advised ‘granger’ legislation, by the passing of statutes fixing maximum rates; but this time it was passenger rates which were chiefly attacked, while before it had been freight rates. The two-cent fare was a popular programme in this period, and it all but swept the country. Some legislatures, however, defied it, and some governors stood out against the legislatures. … The legislation of this period had, however, another branch which was well-advised. It is the general characteristic of this legislation that it confers on the railroad commission the power, while setting aside unreasonable rates, of fixing a maximum rate. The giving of such power to the interstate Commission was the principal point in the programme for further Federal legislation. One other general power that has been given to State commissions in the legislation since 1900 is the authority to compel railroads to furnish proper facilities, together with power of supervision of management in other respects, which is adopted in the Federal legislation of 1906 in an experimental way. Those who would understand the Federal legislation in its latest form should study the most recent railroad regulation in Minnesota and Wisconsin, Indiana and New York. … As finally adopted, the act of 1906 [known as the Hepburn Act] is in form of a series of amendments to the original act of 1887. … The main object in most of the legislation was to strengthen still further the power of the commission over rates and rebates. {549} In regard to these, the amendments affected change chiefly along these two lines. (1) Power is given to the commission to fix maximum rates in cases where, upon complaint, the rates fixed by the railroad were found to be excessive. This includes the power to fix joint through rates. (2) Rebating is forbidden under heavy penalties, civil and criminal, both to the railroad and to the shipper; and the cases in which a reduced rate can be given are enumerated."
_Joseph H. Beale and Bruce Wyman, Two Years of the Railroad Rate Law (Boston Evening Transcript, October 10, 1908)._
It was through no fault of the President that effective legislation to suppress secret rebates and other practices of favoritism to large shippers by the railways came so tardily from Congress, as appears above. In his first Message, of December, 1901, he began urging the needed amendments to the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, saying:
"That law was largely an experiment. Experience has shown the wisdom of its purposes, but has also shown, possibly, that some of its requirements are wrong, certainly that the means devised for the enforcement of its provisions are defective. … The act should be amended. The railway is a public servant. Its rates should be just to and open to all shippers alike. The Government should see to it that within its jurisdiction this is so and should provide a speedy, inexpensive, and effective remedy to that end. At the same time it must not be forgotten that our railways are the arteries through which the commercial life-blood of this Nation flows. Nothing could be more foolish than the enactment of legislation which would unnecessarily interfere with the development and operation of these commercial agencies. The subject is one of great importance and calls for the earnest attention of the Congress."
For five years after this reasonable and most just recommendation was addressed to Congress, the special interests opposed to public interests in the matter were represented so controllingly in that body that the impotences of the law remained uncured. In the Presidential Message of 1904 a more imperative language on the subject was used. "It is necessary," said the Chief Magistrate, "to put a complete stop to all rebates. Whether the shipper or the railroad is to blame makes no difference; the rebate must be stopped, the abuses of the private car and private terminal-track and side-track systems must be stopped, and the legislation of the Fifty-eighth Congress which declares it to be unlawful for any person or corporation to offer, grant, give, solicit, accept, or receive any rebate, concession, or discrimination in respect of the transportation of any property in interstate or foreign commerce whereby such property shall by any device whatever be transported at a less rate than that named in the tariffs published by the earner must be enforced. … The Government must in increasing degree supervise and regulate the workings of the railways engaged in interstate commerce; and such increased supervision is the only alternative to an increase of the present evils on the one hand or a still more radical policy on the other. In my judgment the most important legislative act now needed as regards the regulation of corporations is this act to confer on the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to revise rates and regulations, the revised rate to at once go into effect, and to stay in effect unless and until the court of review reverses it."
Still Congress did nothing in response to this demand, which was the demand of the American public, uttered by its chief and truest representative. Another year passed, and when the next annual communication of counsel from the national executive to the national legislature came forth, all other topics in it were overshadowed by this. The force of argument, admonition, and pleading in the Message was fairly overpowering, and it went to a newly chosen Congress in which the people had represented themselves with somewhat better effect. The result was the amending act of 1906.
In the energy of the President’s advocacy of this legislation there was nothing of animosity to the railway corporations. His most impressive arguments, for example, were such as these: "I believe that on the whole our railroads have done well and not ill; but the railroad men who wish to do well should not be exposed to competition with those who have no such desire, and the only way to secure this end is to give to some government tribunal the power to see that justice is done by the unwilling exactly as it is gladly done by the willing. Moreover, if some Government body is given increased power the effect will be to furnish authoritative answer on behalf of the railroad whenever irrational clamor against it is raised, or whenever charges made against it are disproved. I ask this legislation not only in the interest of the public but in the interest of the honest railroad man and the honest shipper alike, for it is they who are chiefly jeoparded by the practices of their dishonest competitors."
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1890-1902. Application of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law of 1890 to Railway Combinations and Poolings of Rates. The Trans-Missouri Freight Association Case. Decision of the Supreme Court. Remarks of the Industrial Commission.
In the period between 1870 and 1880 the widening of combination and organization in all fields of heavily capitalized industry began, especially in America, to attain proportions that could be dangerous to social interests in many ways, by its concentration of the power that money commands. Alarming possibilities of monopoly, of oppression to labor, of political corruption, of commercial tyranny exercised in many forms, were all involved. At the same time the processes working in this matter were wholly those of a natural evolution, and were shaping human industry, very plainly and surely, to perfected economic conditions and results. Serious problems in government were thus pressed on public attention for the first time. How to realize the economic benefits which industrial organization on the large scale can produce, and which are unattainable without it, and be at the same time securely defended in all social and common interests against selfishly hostile uses of the power so engendered, became then a subject of anxious debate, and the satisfying answer to it has not yet been found.
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Railway companies were now no longer alone, as corporations that challenge the exercise of public authority to control their performance of the public service for which they were chartered. The growth of mammoth organisms of business in other fields—such, for example, as the Standard Oil Company—had reached startling proportions, and the power of oppression in them was being displayed. Economists, jurists, and thoughtful legislators were giving earnest study to the problems they raised. The difficulty of the problem, in the United States more than in other countries, because of the divided jurisdictions in government under the federal system, is made plain by Mr. E. Parmalee Prentice, in the seventh chapter of his treatise on "The Federal Power over Carriers and Corporations." Before Congress attempted legislation for a general control of commercial combinations that were operative in the country at large, there was much searching for an adequate ground of constitutional power. In the first instance it was sought for, not in the authority to regulate commerce, but in the taxing power, or the right of government to protect itself from injury to the operation of its revenue laws. When this was given up there were efforts to frame an act "in restraint of competition in the production, manufacture or sale of goods ‘that in due course of trade shall be transported from one State’ to another." But, says Mr. Prentice, "a statute of this nature could be sustained only on the ground of an anticipating and continuing jurisdiction over every article which, at any period in its history—from production commenced to consumption completed—had ever crossed, or would cross, State lines, and over every buyer and every seller of such article." This, too, was abandoned, as "an attempt to do the impossible." "The clause relating to diversity of citizenship was stricken out, and the bill once more rested upon the narrow power to regulate commerce." As it finally passed the two houses of Congress and was approved by the President, July 2d, 1890, this much discussed and much litigated piece of legislation, known as the Sherman Act, embodied its purpose in the first two sections, which read as follows:
"Section 1. Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is hereby declared to be illegal. Every person who shall make any such contract or engage in any such combination or conspiracy, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court.
"Section 2. Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court."
"In a number of early cases," says the writer already quoted, "the act was applied to combinations of laborers to interrupt the free passage from State to State, the defendants in most instances being railroad employees. At this point in the process of judicial construction the case of the Freight Association [United States v. Trans-Missouri Freight Association] presented to the Supreme Court the question whether the act applied to interstate carriers. Of the intention of Congress there is probably little doubt. Railroad transportation had been covered in 1887 by the Interstate Commerce Act. The Sherman Act of 1890 was intended to cover not transportation, but trade."
The suit of the United States against the Trans-Missouri Freight Association, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad Co., and others, was brought for the dissolution of an association or combination alleged to be in restraint of trade, and in violation therefore of the Act of July 2, 1890, called the Sherman Anti-Trust Law. It was tried originally in November, 1892, before United States District Judge Riner, of the Kansas District, who ruled that the law did not apply, and dismissed the case. On appeal it was tried again with the same result the next year before Circuit Judge Sanborn and District Judges Shiras and Thayer. Judges Sanborn and Thayer affirmed the judgment of the District Court, while Judge Shiras dissented. The question then went for final adjudication to the Supreme Court, where it was argued on the 8th and 9th of December, 1896, and decided on the 22d of March, 1897. The opinion of the Court, delivered by Justice Peckham, reversed the judgment of the courts below, affirming that the Anti-Trust Act applies to railroads, and that it renders illegal all agreements which are in restraint of trade. The case was accordingly remanded to the Circuit Court "for further proceedings in conformity with this opinion." Justices White, Field, Gray, and Shiras dissented from the opinion of the majority.
"In the Final Report (transmitted to Congress in February, 1902), of the Industrial Commission, created by Act of Congress in 1898, this case of the Trans-Missouri Freight Association, and the general status at that time of questions involved in it, are discussed at length, and partly as follows:
"It is of peculiar interest to note that this leading case was decided, not upon interpretation of the interstate commerce act itself, but under the provisions of the Sherman anti-trust law of 1890. … Two questions were plainly before the court: First whether the Sherman anti-trust law applied to and covered common carriers by railroad; and secondly, whether the Trans-Missouri Freight Association violated any provision of that act by being an unreasonable restraint upon trade. The court itself acknowledged that it was doubtful whether Congress originally intended to include railroads under the prohibitory provisions of the anti-trust law. Counsel for the carriers showed, it would seem conclusively, that an amendment proposed by Mr. Bland to include railroads in the prohibition was rejected. The dissenting Supreme Court justices maintained that in the absence of a specific application of the anti-trust law to railroads, inasmuch as the anti-trust law was a general act, while the act to regulate commerce, antedating it by three years, was specific, the latter exempted the railroads, in any case, from the drastic provisions of the Sherman Act against combinations in restraint of trade. The court refused to consider other than mere questions of law, holding that if pooling were excepted it was the province of Congress to take appropriate action. …
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"It has very frequently been asserted that a primary cause of the notable tendency toward railroad consolidation since 1898 was the definitive prohibition of all varieties of traffic contracts or agreements by the Trans-Missouri Freight Association decision of 1897. This decision, as has already been indicated, was rendered upon the basis of the Sherman anti-trust law, without contemplation of the prohibitive provision of the Act to regulate commerce of 1887. According to the opinion of many jurists, in fact, the latter act could not reasonably have been construed to prohibit many of the traffic agreements which have been customary between carriers. It has been urged with great force that coöperation among the railroads having been finally adjudged illegal, it became necessary to have recourse to a more drastic remedy, namely, consolidation in some of its various forms. … The first difference to be noted between pooling and consolidation is that the latter is much more comprehensive in its scope. … Agreements for the division of traffic constitute but the mere machinery by which a certain result is to be attained. … Experience has abundantly shown that it is possible for railroads to maintain a large part of their identity, even reserving to themselves the power to make rates independently, under a pool, in exceptional cases, without thereby entirely nullifying the steadying influences of such traffic agreements. Consolidation, however, necessarily involves the unification of all interests as between railroads. … In brief, pooling may still permit competition in respect to facilities. It may merely eliminate the ruinous phases of competition in rates, leaving still in force the healthful influences of reasonable rivalry. Consolidation proceeds to the uttermost to stifle competition of all kinds, whether in respect of rates or of facilities. … A second point to be kept in mind as between the effects of consolidation and pooling lies in the fact that consolidation can never hope to accomplish the steadying influence upon rates which is claimed for railroad pools, until such time as every railroad within a given competitive territory shall have been bought up and absorbed. … A division of territory into a number of specific groups, each absolutely monopolized by one interest, seems to be the only logical outcome of the consolidations which have been already accomplished. …
"Pools and pooling still exist: although outwardly called gentlemen’s agreement or disguised in some other way, it is incontestable that in every case where consolidation has not proceeded to its uttermost limits, as in New England, traffic agreements exist. Railroad men are almost unanimous in the expression of their desire to have the inhibition removed. Representatives of commercial interests have, in the main, acceded to this opinion. As has been shown, the prohibition was not contemplated originally. It was included in the act only as a concession to certain opponents of pooling in the House of Representatives. … On the other hand, it is universally recognized that certain dangers to the shipper are incident to such action. Railroad pools may, and certainly have, in some instances, operated either to raise rates, or to maintain them in face of a tendency to decline. As a consequence, the majority of these appeals for remedial legislation are accompanied by a demand that pooling, if once more permitted by law, shall be subject to governmental approval and supervision."
Final Report of the Industrial Commission, pages 338-348.
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1901-1905. The Northern Securities Case. Another test of the Sherman Act. The question of the Legality of Combination between Corporations through a "Holding Company."
At about the time when the Industrial Commission was producing its final report, from which the above is taken, the courts of the United States were called on to give attention to another mode, distinctly different from either "pooling" agreements or corporate consolidation, by which an effective combination of railway lines could be secured. It came to the consideration of the courts in the case of the Northern Securities Company, which was famous in its day. Briefly related, the case arose as follows:
Although the Great Northern Railway and the Northern Pacific Railway traverse the same Northwestern section of the United States, from the Mississippi River and the western extremity of the Great Lakes to the Pacific Coast, at no great distance apart, there was not rivalry, but a community of interest between them, in 1901, when the corporations to which they belong became joint purchasers of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railway system, in order to secure for each of them a direct connection with Chicago, under their joint control. This achievement of the powerful railway interests controlled by James J. Hill was followed by what is known in Wall Street as a "raid" on the stock of the Northern Pacific, by the Union Pacific interests, headed by E. H. Harriman, with the object of securing votes to elect the next board of directors in that corporation, and thus control the whole Northern transcontinental combination. The outcome of the fierce struggle was a compromise, from which issued the famous "holding company" known as the Northern Securities Company, incorporated on the 12th of November, 1901, under the accommodating laws of the State of New Jersey. The term "holding company" describes precisely the function which this corporation was created to perform. In the language of its charter, "the objects for which the corporation is formed are: To acquire by purchase, subscription or otherwise, and to hold as investment, any bonds or other securities or evidences of indebtedness. … To purchase, hold, sell, assign, transfer, mortgage, pledge, or otherwise dispose of, any bonds or other securities or evidences of indebtedness created or issued by any other corporation. … To purchase, hold … etc., shares of capital stock of any other corporation … and, while owner of such stock, to exercise all the rights, powers and privileges of ownership, including the right to vote thereon."
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The specific plan of operation was set forth in a circular issued by the Northern Securities Company, on the 22d of November, 1901, to holders of the stock of the Great Northern Railway Company, which said: "The Northern Securities Company, incorporated under the laws of the State of New Jersey, with an authorized capital stock of $400,000,000, and with power to invest in and hold the securities of other companies, has commenced business, and has acquired from several large holders of stock of the Great Northern Railway Company a considerable amount of that stock. A uniform price has been paid of $180 per share, in the fully paid stock of this company, at par. This company is ready to purchase additional shares of the same stock at the same price, payable in the same manner, and will accept offers made on that basis if made within the next sixty days."
"It seems," says Professor Meyer, in his "History of the Northern Securities Case," "that the capitalization of $400,000,000 was fixed at that figure in order to cover approximately the combined capital stock of the Northern Pacific and Great Northern at an agreed price apparently based upon earning capacity. The par value of the outstanding capital stock of the Great Northern was $123,880,400, and that of the Northern Pacific amounted to $155,000,000. The Northern Securities Company purchased about seventy-six per cent. of the former and ninety-six per cent. of the latter, on the basis of $115 per share of $100 of Northern Pacific and $180 per share of $100 of the Great Northern."
From the side of the railway interests concerned, this holding together of the stocks of the two corporations which owned between them the connecting Burlington line to Chicago was a necessary business transaction. Their view of it was stated subsequently by Mr. Hill, in testimony given during proceedings which tested the legality of the holding company, when he said: "With the Northern Pacific as a half-owner in the shares of the Burlington and responsibility for one-half of the purchase price of these shares, the transfers of the shares of the Northern Pacific or the control of the Northern Pacific to an interest that was adverse or an interest that had greater investments in other directions, the control being in the hands of companies whose interests would be injured by the growth and development of this country would, of course, put the Great Northern in a position where it would be almost helpless, because we would be, as it were, fenced out of the territory south which produces the tonnage we want to take west and which consumes the tonnage we want to bring east, and the Great Northern would be in a position where it would have to make a hard fight—either survive or perish, or else sell out to the other interests. The latter would be the most business-like proceeding."
On the other hand, from the standpoint of public interests, the combination looked dangerous to the Northwestern States, as being a suppression of competition and a creation of monopoly in railway transportation, and it was quickly announced that the Governor of Minnesota had determined to invite the Governors of States affected by the transaction to a conference, for the purpose of considering "the best methods of fighting the Northern Securities Company’s propositions in the courts and by new legislation, if necessary." The result of the conference was a suit undertaken by the State of Minnesota, at first in the Supreme Court of the United States, where it was found to be impracticable, but finally begun in the United States Circuit Court. This State action was soon followed by proceedings taken by the Federal Government. Attorney-General Knox was asked by the President for an opinion as to the legality of the procedure involved in the formation of the Northern Securities Company, and replied that, in his judgment it violated the provisions of the Sherman Act of 1890. The President then "directed that suitable action should be taken to have the question judicially determined." Suit was begun accordingly on the 10th of March, 1902, by the United States, in the United States Circuit Court at St. Paul, against the three companies, —Northern Securities, Great Northern, and Northern Pacific. Testimony was taken in St. Paul and New York, and the case was argued in March, 1903, at St. Louis, before a special trial court, composed of four circuit judges. The decision rendered by this court, the four judges concurring, declared the transaction illegal, and enjoined the Northern Securities Company from performing the acts that it was intended to perform. This decision was contradicted, however, by one given at about the same time in the suit of the State of Minnesota, which had its trial in the United States Circuit Court for the District of Minnesota. There the legality of the formation of the Northern Securities Company was affirmed.
Appeals from both decisions were taken to the Supreme Court, and that of the special trial court, in the suit of the Federal Government, which declared the procedure involved in the formation of the Northern Securities Company to be in violation of the Sherman Act of 1890, was fully sustained by a majority of the Court, in March, 1904. In the opinion of the majority of the justices, "if Congress has not, by the words used in the Act, described this and like cases, it would, we apprehend, be impossible to find words that would describe them."
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1906.
The Court below was authorized accordingly to execute its decree against the Securities Company. A little later the Supreme Court decided in the Minnesota State suit that it had no jurisdiction, and sent the case back, to be remanded to the State court from which it had been originally removed. With this case nothing further was done.
In connection with the undoing of the Northern Securities Company’s operations, to reconvey the property for which it had issued its stock, fresh litigation arose, over questions that touched the construction to be put on the court’s decree. This, too, went up to the Supreme Court of the United States, and was decided there in March, 1905; but it has no important bearing on the questions involved in the original case.
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In the final chapter of his history of the case, Professor Meyer has this to say of it: "The chief interest of the Northern Securities case lies in the magnitude of the interests involved and in the variety of the economic and legal problems which were incidentally drawn into the controversy. From the point of view of railway organization the case presents little of consequence, except that railway corporate organization, in the process of metamorphosis or evolution, must, avoid the technicality of the particular type of holding company which the Northern Securities Company represented. From the point of view of railway regulation and the relations between the general public interests and private railway management, the case has no significance whatsoever, in spite of the fact that action against the Securities Company arose out of alleged injurious consequences to the public. It was assumed that competition had been stifled, without first asking the question whether competition had actually existed; and whether, if competition could be perpetuated, the public would profit by it."
_Balthazer Henry Meyer, A History of the Northern Securities Case (Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, Number 142)._
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1901-1909. The Harriman System. Its Creation. Its Magnitude. The Rapid Rise of the late E. H. Harriman to Financial Power.
On the death of the late Edward H. Harriman, which occurred on the 9th of September, 1909, it was said that he was the absolute dictator of 75,000 miles of railroad in the United States—about one-third of the country’s total mileage of railways—besides being a leading director in four ocean steamship lines, two trust companies, and three banks. Some time previously the Interstate Commerce Commission, in the report of its investigation of the Union Pacific Railroad management, said of him: "Mr. Harriman may journey by steamship from New York to New Orleans, thence by rail to San Francisco, across the Pacific Ocean to China, and, returning by another route to the United States, may go to Ogden by any one of three rail lines, and thence to Kansas City or Omaha, without leaving the deck or platform of a carrier which he controls, and without duplicating any part of his journey."
In the same report, referring to one of the most questionable of Harriman’s financial operations, the Commission remarked that it was "rich in illustrations of various methods of indefensible financing," but added that it was no part of the Harriman policy to permit the properties under the Union Pacific control to degenerate. "As railroads," it was said, "they are better properties to-day, with lower grades, straighter tracks, and more ample equipment than they were when they came under that control. Large sums have been generously expended in the carrying on of engineering works and betterments which make for the improvement of the service and the permanent value of the property."
On the occasion of Mr. Harriman’s death, the New York Evening Post, reviewing his career, said of him that "his worst enemies are forced to admit that as a railroad executive he had no peer. What he found on taking charge of the Union Pacific was two dirt ballasted streaks of rust. The stations along the mountain grades were tumbled-down shacks, and most of the equipment was fit only for the scrap pile. Moreover, there was no organization. From top to bottom of the staff the men had lost heart. In 1898 the Union Pacific was suffering from bankruptcy, brought on by years of political and financial intrigue. But when Harriman got his grip on the property he said to his associates: ‘We will rebuild it and do it right away.’
Harriman’s plans called for hundreds of millions of dollars for new rails, lower grades, and modern cars, locomotives, and terminals. After a struggle the Union Pacific directors came around to his way of thinking."
"It is necessary to remember," said the Post, in another article, "in summing up the Wall Street side of Mr. Harriman’s history, that fifteen years ago he was hardly known, even in railway circles; that ten years ago, his name would have conveyed no meaning or association to the general public; that even at the inception of the celebrated Northern Pacific fight of 1901 [see above, under date of 1901-1905], in which he was actually a chief protagonist, Wall Street mentioned his name only incidentally in connection with it. The fight, as the Stock Exchange and the newspapers then saw it, was waged between the ‘Standard Oil interest,’ and the ‘Morgan interest,’ and the Union Pacific’s chairman cut little individual figure in the public view."
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1903 (February). Act of Congress to Further Regulate Commerce with Foreign Nations and among the States, known commonly as "the Elkins Law."
The following are the essential provisions of the Act, approved February 19, 1903, which is commonly referred to as the Elkins Anti-Rebate Law:
"The willful failure upon the part of any carrier subject to said Acts to file and publish the tariffs or rates and charges as required by said Acts or strictly to observe such tariffs until changed according to law, shall be a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof the corporation offending shall be subject to a fine not less than one thousand dollars nor more than twenty thousand dollars for each offense; and it shall be unlawful for any person, persons, or corporation to offer, grant, or give or to solicit, accept, or receive any rebate, concession, or discrimination in respect of the transportation of any property in interstate or foreign commerce by any common carrier subject to said Act to regulate commerce and the Acts amendatory thereto whereby any such property shall by any device whatever be transported at a less rate than that named in the tariffs published and filed by such carrier, as is required by said Act to regulate commerce and the Acts amendatory thereto, or whereby any other advantage is given or discrimination is practiced. Every person or corporation who shall offer, grant, or give or solicit, accept or receive any such rebates, concession, or discrimination shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine of not less than one thousand dollars nor more than twenty thousand dollars. In all convictions occurring after the passage of this Act for offences under said Acts to regulate commerce, whether committed before or after the passage of this Act, or for offenses under this section, no penalty shall be imposed on the convicted party other than the fine prescribed by law, imprisonment wherever now prescribed as part of the penalty being hereby abolished. Every violation of this section shall be prosecuted in any court of the United States having jurisdiction of crimes within the district in which such violation was committed or through which the transportation may have been conducted; and whenever the offense is begun in one jurisdiction and completed in another it may be dealt with, inquired of, tried, determined, and punished in either jurisdiction in the same manner as if the offense had been actually and wholly committed therein.
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"In construing and enforcing the provisions of this section the act, omission, or failure of any officer, agent, or other person acting for or employed by any common carrier acting within the scope of his employment shall in every case be also deemed to be the act, omission, or failure of such carrier as well as that of the person. Whenever any carrier files with the Interstate Commerce Commission or publishes a particular rate under the provisions of the Act to regulate commerce or Acts amendatory thereto, or participates in any rates so filed or published, that rate as against such carrier, its officers or agents in any prosecution begun under this Act shall be conclusively deemed to be the legal rate, and any departure from such rate, or any offer to depart therefrom, shall be deemed to be an offense under this section of this Act."
_Statutes at Large of the United States, Fifty-seventh Congress, Session II, chapter 708._
In comment on the above Act, Professor Ripley wrote, sometime after its passage:
"Two years ago, at the instance of the railways, which were desirous of stopping large leakages of revenue due to rate cutting, Congress enacted the so-called Elkins law. This was distinctly a railway measure. Hence the ease and quiet of its passage. It roused none of the corporate watch dogs of the Senate, ostensibly guardians of the public welfare. Nor was it a compromise. There was no need of compromise. Both railways and shippers were agreed in the wish to eliminate rebates. Section 3 of this law of 1903 recites ‘that whenever the Interstate Commerce Commission shall have reasonable ground for belief that any common carrier is engaged in the carriage of passenger or freight traffic between given points at less than the published rates on file, or is committing any discriminations forbidden by law’ (our italics), it may petition any circuit judge for the issuance of an injunction summarily prohibiting the practice. Such a remedy would seem to be prompt, efficient, and adequate. It is the basis of the universal railway testimony that no further legislation on the subject is needed, but that the Interstate Commerce Commission should quit talking and get down to business. …
"That the Elkins law adds nothing to the original statute of 1887 is indisputable. It deals with means, not ends. It provides motive power, but not intelligent direction, for the wheels of justice. The law remains absolutely unchanged in its definition of rights and wrongs."
_W. Z. Ripley, President Roosevelt’s Railway Policy (Atlantic Monthly, September, 1905)._
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1905. International Railway Congress.
The International Railway Congress had its meeting of 1905 at Washington, on the invitation of the American Railroad Association. Between three and four hundred American railroad men were in attendance during the Congress, which lasted from May 4 to May 13. The delegates from oversea numbered three hundred and twenty, and included representatives from every country in the world. Germany, for the first time, was adequately represented in the Congress; while at no previous Congress were there so many delegates from Great Britain and from British colonies.
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1906. Reconstruction of the Interstate Commerce Commission.
See (in this Volume) INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION.
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1906-1909. Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States on the Constitutionality of the "Commodities Clause" of the Hepburn Act. The Railroad Monopoly of the Anthracite Coal Trade.
The Act of 1906 (known commonly as the Hepburn Act) which amended the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 (see above, under date of 1870-1908), contains an important provision which was specially intended to dissolve the monopolistic combination by which a group of railroads operating in Pennsylvania have established control of the mining and marketing, as well as the transportation of anthracite coal. This was inserted in the Act on motion of Senator Elkins and is sometimes referred to as the "Elkins Clause," sometimes as the "Commodities Clause" of the Railway Rebate Act. This clause declared it to be unlawful "for any railroad company to transport from any State to any other State or to any foreign country any article or commodity other than timber manufactured, mined, or produced by it, or under its authority, or which it may own in whole or in part, or in which it may have any interest, direct or indirect, except such articles or commodities as may be necessary and intended for its use in the conduct of its business as a common carrier."
Since 1874 the Constitution of Pennsylvania had declared that "no incorporated company doing the business of a common carrier shall, directly or indirectly, prosecute or engage in mining or manufacturing articles for transportation over its works; nor shall such company directly or indirectly engage in any other business than that of common carrier, or hold or acquire lands, freehold or leasehold, directly or indirectly, except such as shall be necessary to carry on its business." But this constitutional prohibition had not sufficed to restrain the owners of the railways which tap the anthracite coal district from acquiring practical ownership of so large a part of its mines as to be able, by combinations and understandings among their managers, to monopolize the market of that most important commodity. It was thought that the power vested in the General Government to regulate the commerce in coal between Pennsylvania and other States might be brought into exercise against this anthracite monopoly with more effect.
On the 1st of May, 1908, the "commodities clause" of the Hepburn Act became operative, and soon thereafter a suit was brought in the United Slates Circuit Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, to test its constitutionality. In this trial of the question the Government met defeat. Two of the three Judges of the Court, namely Gray and Dallas, filed opinions against the constitutionality of the enactment, their colleague, Judge Buffington, dissenting. The case went then on appeal to the Supreme Court, and there, by a judgment so nearly unanimous that Judge Harlan alone dissented on a single point, the decision of the Circuit Court was reversed and the constitutionality of the law upheld.
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The following summary of its opinion was given out by the Supreme Court at the time of the announcement, May 3, 1909:
"(1.) The claim of the government that the provision contained in the Hepburn act, approved June 29, 1906, commonly called the Commodities Clause, prohibits a railway company from moving commodities in interstate commerce because the company has manufactured, mined, or produced them, or owned them in whole or in part, or has had an interest direct or indirect in them, wholly irrespective of the relation or connection of the carrier with the commodities at the time of transportation, is decided to be untenable. It is also decided that the provision of the commodities clause relating to interest, direct or indirect, does not embrace an interest which a carrier may have in a producing corporation as the result of the ownership by the carrier of stock in such corporation irrespective of the amount of stock which the carrier may own in such corporation, provided the corporation has been organized in good faith.
"(2.) Rejecting the construction placed by the government upon the commodities clause, it is decided that that clause, when all its provisions are harmoniously construed, has solely for its object to prevent carriers engaged in interstate commerce from being associated in interest at the time of transportation with the commodities transported, and therefore the commodities clause only prohibits railroad companies engaged in interstate commerce from transporting in such commerce commodities under the following circumstances and conditions:
"(a) When the commodity has been manufactured, mined, or produced by a railway company, or under its authority, and at the time of transportation the railway company has not in good faith before the act of transportation parted with its interest in such commodity;
"(b) When the railway company owns the commodity to be transported in whole or in part;
"(c) When the railway company at the time of transportation has an interest direct or indirect in a legal sense in the commodity, which last prohibition does not apply to commodities manufactured, mined, produced, owned, etc., by a corporation because a railway company is a stockholder in such corporation.
"Such ownership of stock in a producing company by a railway company does not cause it as the owner of the stock to have a legal interest in the commodity manufactured, etc., by the producing corporation.
"(3.) As thus construed the commodities clause is a regulation of commerce within the power of Congress to enact. The contentions elaborately argued for the railroad companies that the clause, if applied to preexisting rights, will operate to take property of railroad companies and therefore violate the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment, were all based upon the assumption that the clause prohibited and restricted in accordance with the construction which the government gave that clause and for the purpose of enforcing which prohibitions these suits were brought.
"As the construction which the government placed upon the act and seeks to enforce is now held to be unsound, and as none of the contentions relied upon are applicable to the act as now construed, because under such construction the act merely enforces a regulation of commerce by which carriers are compelled to dissociate themselves from the products which they carry and does not prohibit where the carrier is not associated with the commodity carried, it follows that the contentions on the subject of the Fifth Amendment are without merit.
"(4.) The exemption as to timber, etc., contained in the clause is not repugnant to the Constitution.
"(5.) The provision as to penalties is separable from the other provisions of the act. As no recovery of penalties was prayed, no issue concerning them is here presented. It will be time enough to consider whether the right to recover penalties exists when an attempt to collect penalties is made.
"(6.) As the construction now given the act differs so widely from the construction which the government gave to the act, and which it was the purpose of these suits to enforce, it is held that it is not necessary, in reversing and remanding, to direct the character of decrees which shall be entered, but simply to reverse and remand the case with instructions to enforce and apply the statute as it is now construed.
"(7.) As the Delaware and Hudson Company is engaged as a common carrier by rail in the transportation of coal in the channels of interstate commerce, it is a railroad company within the purview of the commodities clause, and is subject to the provisions of that clause as they are now construed."
Six railway companies, namely, the Delaware and Hudson, the Erie, the Central of New Jersey, the Lackawanna, the Pennsylvania and the Lehigh Valley, were involved in the test suit on which this decision was given; but the ruling will affect all roads engaged in coal mining. Justice Harlan dissented from that part of the decision which relates to the ownership of stock in a producing company; otherwise the opinion, announced by Justice White, was the opinion of the entire Bench.
By ruling that "ownership of stock in a producing company by a railway company does not cause it as the owner of the stock to have a legal interest in the commodity manufactured, etc., by the producing company," the court appears to have made further legislation necessary, if the companies are to be barred from controlling the production and marketing of the coal through subsidiary corporations.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL, &C.: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1907-1909.
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1907. Regulative Legislation in the States.
"Never in the history of railroad legislation have our transportation systems run counter to a campaign so comprehensive, wide-spread, and disturbing as the general trend of ‘regulation’ in almost every State Legislature in session during 1907. It seems as if a legislative tempest against the railroads had been unloosed simultaneously in more than thirty States upon a given signal. The welcome accorded it by our lawmakers is inexplicable, unless we are prepared to admit that our Government, as has been charged frequently, is one of impulse. On this hypothesis it is readily understood.
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"Thirty-five States, in all, attempted to enact laws reducing freight or passenger rates, establishing railroad commissions, increasing the powers of existing commissions, regulating car service, demurrage, safety appliances, block signals, free passes, capitalization, liability for accidents to employees, hours of labor, blacklisting, strikes, etc. … Uniformity was sought without discrimination or foresight. Railroads in densely populated districts and those in sparsely settled rural localities were given alike a two-cent rate. Worse than this: roads of different earning power in the same State were assigned a level rate. The prosperous and well-established road and the struggling pioneer were bracketed,—to sink or swim.
"But all of their work was not wasted. Real constructive legislation was enacted in many States in regard to corporate control, safety appliances, block signals, working hours, rights of employees, railroad mergers, valuation, capitalization, publication of rate schedules, etc., while in the States of South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Wisconsin the rate question was given fair and temperate consideration. …
"An analysis of the general results shows that passenger fares were either actually reduced or affected in twenty-one States: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. Two-cent rates now prevail in Arkansas, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin; and in Ohio, since 1906; two-and-one-half-cent rates in Alabama and North Dakota. North Carolina has established a two-and one-quarter-cent rate; West Virginia, a two-cent rate for railroads over fifty miles in length; Iowa, a sliding scale of from two to three cents per mile; Michigan, a two, three, and four cent rate; Kansas, Maryland, and Mississippi, two-cent rates for mileage books; the railroad commissions of Georgia and South Dakota have been authorized to establish a two-cent and a two-and-one-half-cent rate, respectively; and Oklahoma specifies in its new constitution a maximum charge of two cents for passenger fare. Virginia’s Corporation Commission has adopted a two-cent rate for trunk lines, a three-cent rate for minor roads and a three-and-one-half-cent rate on one or two lines.
"Freight charges were lowered in many States. The Commodity Freight Rate law of Minnesota is probably the most scientific and equitable, and is being used by many Western roads as a basis. Commissions in other States have adopted it as a model.
"Laws prohibiting free passes were enacted in Alabama, Indiana, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, and Texas.
"Eleven States created railroad commissions: Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Vermont. Sixteen others gave increased power to existing commissions, apart from rate regulation: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin."
_Robert Emmett Ireton, The Legislatures and the Railways (Review of Reviews, August, 1907)._
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1907. Limitation of Working Hours for Trainmen.
An Act of Congress passed in January, 1907, prohibits railways engaged in interstate and foreign commerce from requiring or permitting those of their employés who have to do with the movement of trains to work more than sixteen hours consecutively, or more than an aggregate of sixteen in each twenty-four hours, and requires that when an employé shall have worked for sixteen hours there shall follow a period of rest of not less than ten hours before he shall resume his duties. Certain exceptions are made to provide for accidents, the failure of trains to make their regular schedules, connections, etc. Violation of the act is declared to be a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of from $100 to $1,000, and the Interstate Commerce Commission is charged with the duty of enforcing the law.
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1907. Strike on roads west of Chicago averted by Federal Intermediation.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1907 (APRIL).
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1907-1908. Limitation of State Authority in matters of Interstate Commerce.
Serious collisions between Federal and State authority which occurred in 1907, in the States of Alabama, North Carolina, and Minnesota, on questions relating to interstate railways and their commerce, were cleared by important decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, rendered in the spring of 1908. The States in question had enacted laws which had the effect of intimidating railway companies and their agents from appealing to Federal courts, by the severity of the penalties they imposed. Suits undertaken in consequence against the State officials acting under these laws raised the question which was carried to the Federal Supreme Court. The bearing of the judgment rendered by that Court in the Minnesota case, Justice Harlan alone dissenting, is indicated by two passages from it, as follows:
"The provisions of the acts relating to the enforcement of the rates, either for freight or passengers, by imposing such enormous fines and possible imprisonment as a result of an unsuccessful effort to test the validity of the laws themselves, are unconstitutional on their face, without regard to the question of the insufficiency of those rates."
"If the act which the State Attorney-General seeks to enforce be a violation of the Federal Constitution, the officer in proceeding under such enactment comes into conflict with the superior authority of that Constitution, and he is in that case stripped of his official or representative character and is subjected in his person to the consequences of his individual conduct. The State has no power to impart to him any immunity from responsibility to the supreme authority of the United States."
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RAILWAYS: A. D. 1908. Decision in Armour Packing Company Case.
A decision by the United States Supreme Court in the case of the United States vs. the Armour Packing Company covered cases in which identical proceedings were pending against three other packing companies and the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad Company. The packing company had contracted with the railway company for a rate from the Mississippi to New York, to continue for seven months, soon after which the railway company filed, published, and posted a much higher rate, continuing, however, to give transportation to the packing company, on through bills of lading to foreign ports for the lower rate of the contract. The Supreme Court sustained the Circuit Court in deciding this to be in violation of the law against discrimination in rates, since that law, being in force when the contract was made, was necessarily "read into the contract" and "became part of it."
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1908 (April). Passage of Act relating to the Liability of Common Carriers by Railroad to their Employés in Certain Cases.
See (in this Volume) LABOR PROTECTION: EMPLOYERS’ LIABILITY.
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1908 (November). Supreme Court Decision in Case of Virginia Railroads vs. the State Corporation Commission of Virginia.
"Justice Holmes today [November 30, 1908] announced the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of the Virginia railroads versus the state corporation commission of Virginia, calling into question the order of the commission fixing a uniform rate of two cents a mile for carrying passengers in the state. The decision reversed the decision of the United States circuit court for the eastern division of Virginia on the technical ground that the railroads should have appealed from the commission’s order to the supreme court of Virginia before seeking the intervention of the federal courts. In effect the court directs that the railroad companies take their case to the state court of last resort and that in order to prevent injustices through the possible application of the statute of limitations, the case be retained on the docket of the United States circuit court, by which it was originally decided favorably to the roads."
Washington Despatch to the Associated Press.
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1908-1909. The Missouri River Rate Case. Permanent Injunction against the Interstate Commerce Commission.
By an order made on the 24th of June, 1908, the Interstate Commerce Commission forbade the charging of a through rate on first class matter, by the railroads, from the Atlantic seaboard to the Missouri River ($1.47 per hundred pounds), which equalled the rate charged from the Atlantic to the Mississippi (87 cents) plus the rate from the Mississippi to the Missouri (60 cents). In other words, the Commission sought to impose a through rate to the Missouri which would be nine cents per hundred pounds less than the sum of the rates charged on two parts of the same distance. The western railway companies affected by the order applied to the United States Circuit Court, at Chicago, for a permanent injunction to restrain its enforcement. The injunction was granted on the 24th of August, 1909, Judges Grosscup and Kohlsaat concurring in the decision, Judge Baker dissenting.
"The question raised," said Judge Grosscup, in rendering the opinion, "in its larger aspects is not so much a question between the shippers and the railroads as between the commercial and manufacturing interests of Denver and of the territory east of the Mississippi River on the one side, and the commercial and manufacturing interests of the Missouri River cities on the other. …
"We are not prepared to say the commission has not the power to enter upon a plan looking toward a system of rates wherein the rates for longer and shorter hauls will taper downward according to distance, providing such tapering is both comprehensively and symmetrically applied—applied with a design of carrying out what may be the economic fact, that, on the whole, it is worth something less per mile to carry freight long distances than shorter distances.
"But it does not follow that power of that character includes power, by the use of differentials, to artificially divide the country into trade zones tributary to given trade and manufacturing centres, the commission in such cases having as a result to predetermine what the trade and manufacturing centres shall be; for such power, vaster than any one body of men has heretofore exercised, though wisely exerted in specific instances, would be putting into the hands of the commission the general power of life and death over every trade and manufacturing centre in the United States."
In the dissenting opinion of Judge Baker he said: "The question is not whether a lawful power or authority has been shown to have been wrongly exercised, but whether there is any law at all for the power or authority claimed and exercised." He found the necessary law, and added: "If Congress cannot constitutionally make a general declaration that the rates shall be reasonable and not unjustly discriminatory and then trust an executive body to hear evidence and decide questions of fact respecting reasonableness and just discrimination, the power of Congress over rates would be worthless."
In September it was announced that the Commission would appeal from the injunction to the Supreme Court.
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1909. The Seventh Transcontinental Line.
The seventh transcontinental line of railway in America, the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul system, was announced as completed on the 1st of April, 1909. As its name indicates, it is an extension of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul system by a line fourteen hundred miles long from Mobridge, South Dakota, to Seattle and Tacoma, in the State of Washington.
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1909. Fines imposed on the New York Central Railroad Company.
Fines aggregating $134,000, imposed on the New York Central Railway Company by the United States Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York for rebates granted to the American Sugar Refining Company in violation of law, were affirmed in February, 1909, by the Supreme Court of the United States, and were paid on the 12th of May.
RAILWAYS: A. D. 1909 (May-June). The Georgia Railroad Strike.
See (in this Volume) RACE PROBLEMS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909.
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RAILWAYS: A. D. 1910. Special Message of President Taft touching Interstate Commerce.
The important Special Message addressed to Congress by President Taft on the 7th of January, 1910, recommending amendatory legislation on the two subjects of interstate commerce and the combinations called "trusts," opened with the following statement:
"In the annual report of the Interstate Commerce Commission for the year 1908 attention is called to the fact that between July 1, 1908, and the close of that year sixteen suits had been begun to set aside orders of the commission (besides one commenced before that date), and that few orders of much consequence had been permitted to go without protest; that the questions presented by these various suits were fundamental, as the constitutionality of the act itself was in issue, and the right of Congress to delegate to any tribunal authority to establish an interstate rate was denied; but that perhaps the most serious practical question raised concerned the extent of the right of the courts to review the orders of the commission; and it was pointed out that if the contention of the carriers in this latter respect alone were sustained, but little progress had been made in the Hepburn act toward the effective regulation of interstate transportation charges. In twelve of the cases referred to, it was stated, preliminary injunctions were prayed for, being granted in six and refused in six.
"‘It has from the first been well understood,’ says the commission, ‘that the success of the present act as a regulating measure depended largely upon the facility with which temporary injunctions could be obtained. If a railroad company, by mere allegation in its bill of complaint, supported by ex-parte affidavits, can overturn the results of days of patient investigation, no very satisfactory result can be expected. The railroad loses nothing by these proceedings, since if they fail it can only be required to establish the rate and to pay to shippers the difference between the higher rate collected and the rate which is finally held to be reasonable. In point of fact it usually profits, because it can seldom be required to return more than a fraction of the excess charges collected.’
"In its report for the year 1909 the commission shows that of the seventeen cases referred to in its 1908 report, only one had been decided in the Supreme Court of the United States, although five other cases had been argued and submitted to that tribunal in October, 1909.
"Of course, every carrier affected by an order of the commission has a constitutional right to appeal to a Federal Court to protect it from the enforcement of an order which it may show to be prima facie confiscatory or unjustly discriminatory in its effect; and as this application may be made to a court in any district of the United States, not only does delay result in the enforcement of the order, but great uncertainty is caused by contrariety of decision. The questions presented by these applications are too often technical in their character and require a knowledge of the business and the mastery of a great Volume of conflicting evidence which is tedious to examine and troublesome to comprehend. It would not be proper to attempt to deprive any corporation of the right to review by a court of any order or decree which, if undisturbed, would rob it of a reasonable return upon its investment or would subject it to burdens which would unjustly discriminate against it and in favor of other carriers similarly situated. What is, however, of supreme importance is that the decision of such questions shall be as speedy as the nature of the circumstances will admit, and that a uniformity of decision be secured so as to bring about an effective, systematic, and scientific enforcement of the commerce law, rather than conflicting decisions and uncertainty of final result.
"For this purpose I recommend the establishment of a court of the United States composed of five judges designated for such purpose from among the circuit judges of the United States, to be known as the ‘United States Court of Commerce,’ which court shall be clothed with exclusive original jurisdiction over the following classes of cases:
"(1.) All cases for the enforcement, otherwise than by adjudication and collection of a forfeiture or penalty, or by infliction of criminal punishment, of any order of the Interstate Commerce Commission other than for the payment of money.
"(2.) All cases brought to enjoin, set aside, annul, or suspend any order or requirement of the Interstate Commerce Commission.
"(3.) All such cases as under section 3 of the act of February 19, 1903, known as the ‘Elkins Act,’ are authorized to be maintained in a circuit court of the United States.
"(4.) All such mandamus proceedings as under the provisions of section 20 or section 23 of the Interstate Commerce law are authorized to be maintained in a circuit court of the United States.
"Reasons precisely analogous to those which induced the Congress to create the Court of Customs Appeals by the provisions in the tariff act of August 5, 1909, may be urged in support of the creation of the Commerce Court."
Further recommendations of the Message are summarized in the following:
Pooling arrangements as to rates to be allowed under direct supervision of the commission.
The commission to be empowered to pass upon freight classifications.
The commission to be empowered to hold up new rates or classifications by railroads until an inquiry can be made as to their reasonableness. If found to be unreasonable, the commission may forbid the increase.
Shippers to be given the choice of established routes on through freight.
From and after the passage of the amendments, it is provided that no railroad shall acquire any stock or interest in a competing line, except that where a road already owns 50 per cent, or more of the stock of another road, it may complete the purchase of all the stock. Also in cases where one road is operating another under a lease of more than twenty-five years’ duration, it shall have a right to acquire the demised road. Allowing these acquisitions of stock does not exempt any road from prosecution under the Anti-Trust law.
Stocks must be issued at par value for money paid in or for property or services, rates at full value, under an inquiry by the Federal authority, who shall supervise all stock and bond issues.
----------RAILWAYS: End--------
RAISULI, The Moorish Brigand.
See (in this Volume) MOROCCO: A. D. 1904-1909.
RALLIÉS.
A political party in France said to be made from fragments from the former Bonapartists, Orleanists, and Boulangerists.
RAMSAY, Sir William.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE, RECENT: RADIUM; also, NOBEL PRIZES.
RATE REGULATION, Railway.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1870-1908.
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RAYLEIGH, Lord.
See (in this Volume) NOBEL PRIZES.
REBATE RESTRICTION, Railway.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1870-1908, and 1903 (February).
RECIPROCITY TREATY: United States and Newfoundland: The Hay-Bond Treaty. Its Amendment to Death by the United States Senate.
See (in this Volume) NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1902-1905.
RECLAMATION OF ARID LANDS.
See (in this Volume) CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: UNITED STATES.
RED CROSS SOCIETY, The American National.
By an Act of Congress passed in 1904, the American National Red Cross was incorporated under the laws of the District of Columbia and brought directly under Government supervision. Its charter provided that five members of its Board of Incorporators were to be chosen from the Departments of State, War, Navy, Treasury, and Justice. Its accounts were to be audited by the disbursing officer of the War Department. The entire support, however, aside from the income from a small endowment, comes from the dues of individual members and voluntary contributions. The election of Mr. Taft, then Secretary of War, as the first president of the reorganized Red Cross, emphasized its new relationship to the Federal Government and its new position as a body of really National scope. At the annual meeting of the Society in December, 1908, Mr. Taft, then President-elect of the United States, consented to be reelected to the presidency of the Red Cross organization in the United States.
Throughout all the many calamities of the past decade, from earthquake, volcanic eruption, fire, flood, war, famine, and pestilence, the Red Cross Society has always been instant in readiness for effective humane service, from almost every civilized country of the world, and for any call to any quarter of the globe. In the United States it has lately undertaken a continuous and permanent service in connection with the anti-tuberculosis crusade.
RED CROSS SOCIETY: In Japan, before and during the Russo-Japanese War.
"The Red Cross Society of Japan is by no means merely a copy of the Red Cross societies of Europe, as its name would seem to indicate; for the idea of assisting the wounded soldiers and allaying the suffering caused by war arose spontaneously in Japan. …
"In 1867, two years before the Restoration, when Japan was considered a savage country by the West, and when she possessed neither railways nor telegraphs, machinery, etc., Count Sano, an enthusiastic humanitarian, was sent by the Shogun to the Exhibition in Paris, where he had the opportunity of studying the Red Cross societies of various countries. Again, in 1873, when this gentleman was ambassador in Vienna, he carefully observed the Red Cross Society, and especially its activity during the Franco-German War of 1870. When the Civil War of 1877 broke out in Japan, Count Sano was back in his native country, and he conceived the idea of forming a society after the model of the European Red Cross societies. The nobility of Japan received his ideas most favourably, and a society was founded which was called Hakuaisha (Benevolent Society). …
"The Mikado countenanced the objects of the Society and assisted it in every way. From 1887 onward he gave it a yearly contribution of 5,000 yen, to which in 1888 a gift of 100,000 yen was added. After the Chino-Japanese War, the Mikado’s yearly contribution was increased to 10,000 yen, in recognition of the progress which the Society had made and of the great assistance which it had given during that campaign. Besides this sum he contributes yearly 5,000 yen to the Red Cross Society for the patients, and from time to time makes generous gifts to the Society. The motto of the Japanese Red Cross Society is ‘Pay your debt to your country by helping its soldiers’; and this motto has quickly made the Society immensely popular throughout the country. …
"The war with China of 1894-1895 demonstrated the excellence of the Japanese Red Cross Society, and proved at the same time its best advertisement, for at the end of 1895 there were more than 160,000 members. Since the Society had proved its immense practical utility, the number of its members rose by leaps and bounds, and at the end of 1898 there were 570,000 members, and the yearly receipts had reached 1,582,622 yen; at present it must count about 1,000,000 members, and must have an income of at least 3,000,000 yen, or about £300,000 per annum, a truly enormous sum for a country like Japan, where a yen goes about as far as ten shillings go in Great Britain. The latest available figures give the following record: Number of members, 920,000; funds in hand, £794,000; annual income, £231,000."
_O. Eltzbacher, The Red Gross Society of Japan (Contemporary Review, September, 1904)._
REDEMPTORISTS: Forbidden to teach in France.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1903.
REFERENDUM, Initiative and Recall: In Switzerland.
According to a report on the subject made to the State Department at Washington, in June, 1902, by the United States Minister to Switzerland, the Honorable Arthur S. Hardy, down to that time, "since the referendum has been in force, 226 Federal laws and resolutions have been enacted, of which 40 were submitted to the people, 14 by the compulsory and 26 by the optional referendum. The people have exercised the initiative five times since its adoption in 1891, rejecting the measures proposed four out of five times."
REFERENDUM, Initiative and Recall: In the United States.
"The first State to adopt a constitutional amendment providing for the initiative and referendum was South Dakota in 1898. Next came Utah (1900) with an amendment which is not self-executing, and the Legislature has not so far passed the necessary enabling act. Oregon followed in 1902, Montana in 1906, and Oklahoma in 1907. South Dakota, Oregon, and Oklahoma have also extended the constitutional amendments so as to provide for the initiative and referendum in municipal corporations. Maine, Missouri, and North Dakota are soon to vote upon constitutional amendments embodying the initiative and referendum for State matters; and Maine proposes to extend this right to municipal corporations concerning their local affairs.
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In 1907 Iowa and South Dakota each enacted a general law under which cities may, if they so choose, have charters embodying the general features of the ‘commission plan of government,’ and acquire with them the right to have the initiative, the referendum, and the recall. In South Dakota the Constitution specifically gives to the people the right of the initiative and referendum, but in Iowa no mention thereof is made in the Constitution. The Supreme Court of Iowa, however, has held that the statute conferring the right upon cities of a certain class to adopt a commission plan of government which included the initiative, referendum, and recall was constitutional, as the State Constitution did not specifically forbid the granting of these rights. In Texas cities of a designated size can be incorporated by special act, and since Galveston obtained its new form of government several cities of Texas have been given charters by special acts, some embodying the initiative, referendum, and recall, others one or two of these rights, and some none of them or only in a modified form. The recall is the most recent of the three new measures of relief. Los Angeles in 1903 seems to have been the first city to have made the recall a part of its city charter. In 1905 San Diego, San Bernardino, Pasadena, and Fresno, California, followed. In 1906 Seattle joined the list, and in 1907 there were added Everett, in Washington, and six other California cities—Santa Monica, Alameda, Long Beach, Vallejo, Riverside and San Francisco. No State has a constitutional provision for the recall."
_The Outlook, August 15, 1908._
On the 25th of May, 1908, the Initiative and Referendum League of America addressed a memorial to Congress, asking for the passage of a Bill which had been introduced in the Senate (Senate Bill No. 7208), "For a modern system whereby the voters of the United States may instruct their National Representatives," and, further, for the passage of Senate Joint Resolution No. 94, "asking the States to establish the machinery for taking a referendum vote on national issues whenever Congress shall so direct."
REGENERADORES.
See (in this Volume) PORTUGAL: A. D. 1906-1909.
REGGIO: Its Destruction by Earthquake.
See (in this Volume) EARTHQUAKES: ITALY.
REGIE, The San Domingo.
See (in this Volume) SAN DOMINGO: A. D. 1901-1905.
REGINA: Capital of the Province of Saskatchewan.
See (in this Volume) CANADA: A. D. 1905.
REID, George Houston: Premier of Australia.
See (in this Volume) AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1903-1904.
REID, Sir Robert T.: Lord Chancellor of England.
See (in this Volume) England: A. D. 1905-1906.
REINSCH, Paul S.: Delegate to Third International Conference of American Republics.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM: Its Limitations in Russia.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA. A. D. 1905 (APRIL-AUGUST), and 1909 (JUNE).
RELIGIOUS TEACHING, in State Supported Schools: The Controversy.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1903; CANADA: A. D. 1905; EDUCATION: ENGLAND: A. D. 1902 and 1906.
RENAULT, Louis.
See (in this Volume) NOBEL PRIZES.
RENNENKAMPF, General.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905 (SEPTEMBER-MARCH).
REPATRIATION OF THE BOERS.
See (in this Volume) SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1902-1903.
REPUBLIC, The Rescue of the Steamship.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE AND INVENTION: ELECTRICAL.
RESCHAD, Mohammed: Raised to the Turkish Throne.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1909 (JANUARY-MAY).
RESEARCH, Original.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE AND INVENTION: CARNEGIE INSTITUTION.
RESOURCES, Conservation of Natural.
See (in this Volume) CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES.
REVAL, Disorders in.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1905 (FEBRUARY-NOVEMBER).
REVOLUTION, Persia.
See (in this Volume) PERSIA.
REVOLUTION, Turkish.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1908 (JULY-DECEMBER), and after.
REYES, Rafael: President of Colombia.
See (in this Volume) COLOMBIA: A. D. 1905-1906, and 1906-1909.
RHODES, CECIL J.: His death. His continued Influence in South Africa. His Policy carried on by Dr. Jameson.
See(in this Volume) SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1902-1904.
RHODES, CECIL J.: His Will, endowing Scholarships at Oxford for Students in the British Colonies and the United States.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: RHODES SCHOLARSHIPS.
RHODESIA: A. D. 1908. Report of the British South Africa Company.
The annual report of the directors of the British South Africa Company, presented at a meeting of shareholders in London in February, 1909, contained the following statements:
"During 1908 there has been a remarkable improvement in the circumstances of Rhodesia. This improvement has been evident in every department of trade and industry, and is reflected in the returns of administrative receipts, railways, mines and land. It was pointed out last year what an important effect even a slight increase in general prosperity would exercise upon the whole financial position, and the figures now available show that this view was correct. The administrative revenue of Southern Rhodesia during the year 1908-1909 will suffice to cover administrative expenditure without any call whatever upon the commercial income of the company; the shortages of the railway companies in respect of the same period will be less by £100,000 than in 1907-1908; during the year ending 31st March, 1910, large additional revenue will be derived from the carriage from the port of Beira of the materials and stores for the extension of the railway into the Congo territory. … The negotiations for the extension northwards of the Rhodesian Railway system have been brought to a successful conclusion. With the coöperation of the Tanganyika Concessions (Limited) a company has been formed called the Rhodesia-Kantanga Junction Railway and Mineral Company (Limited), which will construct a standard gauge line from the present terminus at Broken Hill to a point on the frontier of the Congo Free State; from the frontier to the Star of the Congo Mine the line will be constructed by the Couipaguie du Chemin de Fer du Kantanga. … On the completion of the first section to the frontier, Rhodesia will be traversed by a trunk line from south to north.
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"The European population shows a net increase of over 1,100 since the intermediate census, in September, 1907, when it numbered 14,018. An area of 1,169,305 acres of land has been settled and occupied during the past year. The output of gold has increased from £2,178,886 in 1907 to £2,526,037 in 1908. Imports have increased by about £100,000 during the past year."
See (in this Volume) SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1904.
RIBEIRO, HINTZE.
See (in this Volume) PORTUGAL: A. D. 1906-1909.
RICHMOND, Virginia: A. D. 1907. Great Reunion of Confederate War Veterans. Unveiling of Monument to Jefferson Davis.
A great gathering of the surviving veterans of the Confederacy, to the number of about 15,000, at Richmond, late in May and early in June, was brought about in connection with the unveiling of an impressive monument to Jefferson Davis. An equestrian statue of General J. E. B. Stuart was also unveiled on one of the days of the reunion.
RIFF, The.
See (in this Volume) MOROCCO: A. D. 1904-1909.
RIGA, Disorders in.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1905 (FEBRUARY-NOVEMBER).
RIKKEN SEIYU-KAI.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1903 (JUNE).
RIO DE JANEIRO: A. D. 1903-1905. Eradication of Yellow Fever.
See (in this Volume) PUBLIC HEALTH: YELLOW FEVER.
RIO DE JANEIRO: A. D. 1906. Third International Conference of American Republics.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
RITCHIE, C. T.: Chancellor of the Exchequer in the British Government.
See (in this Volume) ENGLAND: A. D. 1902 (JULY).
ROBERT, CHRISTOPHER R.: Benefactor of Robert College.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: TURKEY, &C.
ROBERT COLLEGE: Its Influence in Turkey and the Balkan States.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: TURKEY, &C.
ROBERTS, SIR FREDERICK SLEIGH ROBERTS, FIRST EARL: On the British Territorial Force and the need of Compulsory Military Training.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR: MILITARY.
ROCHAMBEAU MONUMENT: The unveiling at Washington. Representatives of the families of Rochambeau and Lafayette invited Guests of the Nation.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1902 (MAY).
ROCKEFELLER, John D.: Stupendous Endowment of the General Education Board.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1902-1909.
ROCKEFELLER, John D.: Gift for the eradication of the Hookworm Disease.
See (in this Volume) PUBLIC HEALTH: THE HOOKWORM DISEASE.
ROCKEFELLER, John D., Jr.: Investing in a Concession in the Congo State.
See (in this Volume) CONGO STATE: A. D. 1906-1909.
ROCKHILL, W. W.: Minister to China.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1901-1908.
ROENTGEN.
See (in this Volume) RONTGEN.
ROGHI, EL.
See (in this Volume) MOROCCO: A. D. 1909.
ROJESVENSKY, ROZHDESTVENSKY, ADMIRAL.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905 (OCTOBER-MAY).
ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.
See (in this Volume and Volume IV.) PAPACY.
ROMAÑA, PRESIDENT EDUARDO DE.
See (in this Volume) PERU.
ROME: A. D. 1903. General Strike of Workmen.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: ITALY.
ROME: A. D. 1908. Election of Ernesto Nathan to be Mayor.
See (in this Volume) ITALY: A. D. 1909.
RONTGEN, Wilhelm Conrad: Recipient of Nobel Prize.
See (in this Volume) NOBEL PRIZES.
----------ROOSEVELT, Theodore: Start--------
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: Becomes President of the United States on the Assassination of President McKinley.
See (in this Volume) BUFFALO: A. D. 1901.
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: On the Federal Control of Corporations engaged in Interstate Trade.
See (in this Volume) Combinations, Industrial, &c.: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1903.
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: On Railway Rate Regulation.
SEE RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1870-1908.
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: His intermediation in the Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1902-1903.
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: Message recounting the Circumstances of the Secession from Colombia and recognized Independence of Panama, and the Treaty with Panama for the Building of the Isthmian Canal.
See (in this volume) PANAMA CANAL.
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: On the Wrong done to the Chinese.
See (in this Volume) RACE PROBLEMS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1905-1908.
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: On the Strike of the Teamsters’ Union at Chicago.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1905 (APRIL-JULY).
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: Elected President of the United States.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1904 (MARCH-NOVEMBER ).
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: Mediation between Russia and Japan.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1905 (JUNE-OCTOBER).
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: Initial Invitation to the holding of the Second Peace Conference.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1907.
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: Account of Visit to Porto Rico.
See (in this Volume) PORTO RICO: A. D. 1906.
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: On the Rendering of Aid to San Domingo.
See (in this Volume) SAN DOMINGO: A. D. 1904-1907.
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: On the Progressive Taxation of Fortunes.
See (in this Volume) WEALTH, THE PROBLEMS OF.
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: Defense of Japanese Treaty Rights.
See (in this Volume) RACE PROBLEMS: UNITED STATES.
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: Recommends remission of part of Boxer Indemnity to China.
See CHINA: A. D. 1901-1908.
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: On the Conservation of Natural Resources.
See (in this Volume) CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: UNITED STATES.
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: Appointment of Country Life Commission, and Message on its Report.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1908-1909 (AUGUST-FEBRUARY).
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: On the Japanese Question in California.
See (in this Volume) RACE PROBLEMS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1904-1909.
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: Recipient of Nobel Prize for Promotion of Peace. Its devotion to the Creation of a Foundation for the Promotion of Industrial Peace.
See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1907.
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: Veto of the Census Bill.
See (in this Volume) CIVIL SERVICE REFORM: UNITED STATES.
{562}
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: Renunciation of Third Term Candidacy.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1904 (NOVEMBER).
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: Progress of Civil Service Reform under his Administration.
See (in this Volume) CIVIL SERVICE REFORM: UNITED STATES.
ROOSEVELT, Theodore: After leaving the White House.
Shortly before the ending, March 4, 1909, of his second term in the Presidency of the United States, Mr. Roosevelt became connected, as "Contributing Editor," with The Outlook, and began the discussion of current topics in signed articles, published in that weekly magazine. For some time it had been known that Mr. Roosevelt intended, when released from office, to enjoy a long vacation in Central Africa, hunting wild game. His preparations were made before he left the White House, and on the 20th of March, to correct misunderstandings as to the recreation he contemplated, he published the following announcement in The Outlook:
"I am about to go to Africa as the head of the Smithsonian expedition. It is a scientific expedition. We shall collect birds and mammals for the National Museum at Washington, and nothing will be shot unless for food, or for preservation as a specimen, or unless, of course, the animal is of a noxious kind. There will be no wanton destruction whatever.
"I very earnestly hope that no representative of any newspaper or magazine will try to accompany me or to interview me during any portion of my trip. Until I actually get to the wilderness my trip will be precisely like any other conventional trip on a steamboat or railway. It will afford nothing to write about, and will afford no excuse or warrant for any one sending to any newspaper a line in reference thereto. After I reach the wilderness of course no one outside of my own party will be with me, and if any one pretends to be with me or pretends to write as to what I do, his statements should be accepted as on their face not merely false but ludicrous. Any statement purporting to have been made by me, or attributed to me, which may be sent to newspapers should be accepted as certainly false and as calling for no denial from me. So far as possible I shall avoid seeing any representative of the press, and shall not knowingly have any conversation on any subject whatever with any representative of the press beyond exchanging the ordinary civilities or courtesies. I am a private citizen, and I am entitled to enjoy the privacy that should be the private citizen’s right. My trip will have no public bearing of any kind or description. It is undertaken for the National Museum at Washington, and is simply a collecting trip for the Museum. It will be extremely distasteful to me and of no possible benefit to any human being to try to report or exploit the trip, or to send any one with me, or to have any one try to meet me or see me with a view to such reporting or exploitation. Let me repeat that while I am on steamer or railway there will be nothing whatever to report; that when I leave the railway for the wilderness no persons will have any knowledge which will enable them to report anything, and that any report is to be accepted as presumably false." THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
The ex-President took steamer from New York on the 30th of March, and one of the journals which had been among the sharpest of his critics and opponents for years, the New York Times, had this to say of him that day:
"There is no need to tell him that he will carry with him wherever he goes the abiding affection of nearly 80,000,000 of people. They who dislike Colonel Roosevelt, or think they do, scarcely count in the Census. Wherever he goes he will make friends among human beings, and impress everybody with a reasonably high yet easily appreciable ideal of the American citizen. Courage, energy, quick co-ordination of muscle and brain, persistent alertness, boundless sympathy, and good fellowship are characteristics of Colonel Roosevelt. Everybody likes such a man."
Returning from his African expedition in the spring of 1910, the ex-President accepted invitations in Europe which took him to Naples, Rome, Vienna, Paris, Brussels, The Hague, Christiania, Berlin, London, and was received with extraordinary honors at every capital.
----------ROOSEVELT, Theodore: End--------
----------ROOT, ELIHU: Start--------
ROOT, ELIHU: Secretary of War and Secretary of State.
See (in this Volume) UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1905, and 1905-1909.
ROOT, ELIHU: Correspondence relating to the establishment of the Republic of Cuba.
See (in this Volume) CUBA: A. D. 1901-1902.
ROOT, Elihu: On the Alaska Boundary Commission.
See (in this Volume) ALASKA: A. D. 1903.
ROOT, Elihu: Correspondence on American Fishing Rights on the Newfoundland Coast.
See (in this Volume) NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1905-1909.
ROOT, Elihu: Visit to South American Republics, 1906. Address at the Third International Conference of American Republics in Rio de Janeiro.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
ROOT, Elihu: Speech in 1906 summarizing recent Governmental Action against Corporate Wrong-doers.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1906.
ROOT, Elihu: Address to Central American Peace Conference at Washington.
See (in this Volume) CENTRAL AMERICA: A. D. 1907.
ROOT, Elihu: At Peace Congress in New York.
See (in this Volume) WAR: THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1907.
ROOT, Elihu: On the Japanese Question in California.
See (in this Volume) RACE PROBLEMS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1904-1909.
ROOT, Elihu: Exchange of Notes with Japan, embodying a Declaration of Common Policy in the East.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1908 (NOVEMBER).
ROOT, Elihu: On National Duty in State Legislation.
See (in this Volume) LAW AND ITS COURTS: UNITED STATES.
----------ROOT, ELIHU: End--------
ROSE, URIAH M.: Commissioner Plenipotentiary to the Second Peace Conference.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1907.
ROSEBERY, ARCHIBALD F. PRIMROSE, EARL: Opposition to Home Rule for Ireland.
See (in this Volume) England: A. D. 1905-1906.
ROSEBERY, ARCHIBALD F. PRIMROSE, EARL: On the State of Peace in Europe and the Preparations for War.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR.
ROSEBERY, ARCHIBALD F. PRIMROSE, EARL: To the House of Lords on the Budget of 1909.
See (in this Volume) ENGLAND: A. D. 1909 (APRIL-DECEMBER).
ROSEN, BARON ROMAN: Russian Ambassador at Washington and Plenipotentiary for negotiating Treaty of Peace with Japan.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1905 (JUNE-JULY).
ROSS, Dr. Ronald.
See (in this Volume) NOBEL PRIZES.
{563}
ROTA, The.
See (in this Volume) PAPACY: A. D. 1908.
ROTATIVOS.
See (in this Volume) PORTUGAL: A. D. 1906-1909.
ROUMANIA: A. D. 1902. Oppression of the Jews. Remonstrance of the United States.
See (in this Volume) BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: ROUMANIA.
ROUVIER, Maurice: Prime Minister of France.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1905-1906.
ROUVIER, Maurice: Agreement with Germany for the Conference at Algeciras.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1905-1906.
ROUVIER, Maurice: Fall of his Ministry.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1906.
ROWE, Dr. L. S.: Delegate to Third International Conference of American Republics.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
ROZHDESTVENSKY, ROJESVENSKY, ADMIRAL.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905 (OCTOBER-MAY).
RUEF, ABRAHAM.
See (in this Volume) MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: SAN FRANCISCO.
RUNCIMAN, Mr.: President of the English Board of Education. Statements.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: ENGLAND: A. D. 1909.
----------RUSSIA: Start--------
RUSSIA: A. D. 1870-1905. Increase of Population compared with other European Countries.
See (in this Volume) [Other countries or regions]: A. D. 1870-1905.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1901 (July). Russianizing of the Finnish Army. Autocratic Violation of the Constitution of Finland.
See (in this Volume) FINLAND: A. D. 1901.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1901-1904. Persistent Occupation of Manchuria, despite Treaty with China. Japanese Complaints and Demands.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1901-1904, CHINA: A. D. 1901-1902.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1901-1904. The Disaffection among the Students of the Universities. Famine in Eastern Districts, and Industrial Depression in the Cities. Assassination of Sipiagin. Advent of Plehve to Power. Atrocities of his Administration. Witte, Minister of Finance. Assassination of Plehve.
In Volume VI. of this work, which went to press in the spring of 1901, the record of events in Russia was brought down to March and April of that year. The revolutionary temper, then rapidly rising in heat throughout the Empire, found its most active manifestation among the students of the universities, whose outbreaks of disaffection were punished mercilessly, by Siberian exile, by draft into the army, or more summarily by the Cossacks’ knout. The Tsar, however, had seemed at last to recognize the special grievances of the students and to wish to have remedies found for them. To succeed M. Bogoliepoff, the late Minister of Instruction, whom a student had shot on the 27th of February, the Tsar appointed to that office a General Vannovsky, who was credited with having a clear and sympathetic understanding of the wrongs to the student body which provoked their disorderly conduct. It was believed, too, that full powers had been given to him for reforming the government of the universities. But, whatever may have been the excellence of disposition in General Vannovsky and in the Tsar, the projected reforms were so obstructed, in some manner, that the students became more and more openly revolutionary in their action, and the new minister resigned in the second year of his endeavors.
A number of immediate causes of misery in the Empire were now added to the many causes which a despotic and corrupt government kept always in operation. Harvests in large parts of Eastern Russia had failed, bringing the horrors of famine on some 24,000,000 people. Simultaneously with this, an industrial crisis came, to close great numbers of factories and shops and to create a vast army of the unemployed. M. Witte, as Minister of Finance, had been extraordinarily skilful and successful in developing new industries in Russia; but had done so by measures of unnatural stimulation which had this unfortunate result. High tariffs for the protection of home manufactures from foreign competition, and the offer of attractive inducements to foreign capital, had brought about many investments which proved to be unprofitable, and the time had come, as happens always and everywhere in such cases, when the unsound structure of productive enterprise must collapse. Thus the country, having all of its industrial centers filled with suffering unemployed workmen and many of its rural districts filled with starving peasants, was a field most perfectly prepared for the seed of insurgent passion which countless agents were now busied in sowing.
Students and workmen became associated in flagrant revolutionary demonstrations, flaunting the red flag of rebellion and singing seditious songs, at St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kieff, Kharkoff, Odessa, and other cities, fighting vain battles with savage Cossacks and police. To excite the peasantry to action, a forged ukase was circulated among them, in the districts of Poltava and Kharkoff, announcing that the land, held wrongly by the nobles, had been restored to them by the Tsar; that they could take possession of it, and, with it, the present contents of granaries and barns. They proceeded accordingly to strip many estates (see below, Russia: A. D. 1902), and suffered piteously from the soldiery that came in haste to stop their deluded work. It was at this time that M. Witte set on foot an extensive inquiry into agricultural conditions, the important political outcome of which will be spoken of later on.
On the 15th of April, 1902, the Minister of the Interior, M. Sipiagin, was killed by a student named Belmatcheff. This murderous exploit of the revolutionary terrorists brought a man into power who gave Russia an experience in the next two years, of heartlessness and foulness in despotism which surpassed all that it had known before.
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"Sipiagin, when Minister of the Interior, had already brought matters so far by his reactionary policy of violence that the news of his assassination at the hands of Belmatcheff was received with unmixed joy in all classes of Russian society. But the fullest proof of the irreconcilableness of autocracy with things like improvement and progress was furnished by the successor of Sipiagin, Von Plehve, who soon proved himself to be the complete personification of all evil, heartlessness, and corruption. … The attention of the highest circles was drawn to his person when, after the assassination of Alexander II., he conducted the prosecution at the arraignment of the participators in the deed. Later, on being appointed State Secretary, he was able, by his persistent zeal in the service of the reaction, to place himself on a good footing with those in power, particularly with the Procurator of the Holy Synod, Pobiedonostseff, who, when the policy of destroying the Finnish constitution was determined upon, found a good tool in Von Plehve. In the anti-Finn coup d’état he played a considerable part, particularly as member of the secret committee which drafted the plan for the Russification of the Finnish Grand Duchy, and drew up the manifesto; while, still later, as Secretary for Finland, together with the then Governor-General Bobrikoff, he conducted and carried out the well-known policy of suppression.
"As Minister of the Interior, Von Plehve lost no time in showing what policy he intended to follow, as he declared the general dissatisfaction in Russia to be solely the result of the conspiracy and machinations of a handful of evil disposed persons, who could easily be rendered incapable of harm if only the police were sufficiently strengthened and received extensive powers. … The Minister came into conflict, shortly after his appointment, with a number of his colleagues, especially with the Finance Minister, De Witte, who had previously been practically omnipotent, and with the Minister of Justice, Muravieff. The difference with the latter hinged on the question of the treatment of 'political criminals,' the trials of whom Von Plehve wished to allocate to a special court-martial, the proceedings being conducted with closed doors, whilst the Minister of Justice required a public trial before the ordinary courts. The Tsar, as usual, followed the most reactionary counsel. … Of deeper significance and more far-reaching effects was the conflict with the Finance Minister, who, indeed was far more menacing to Von Plehve’s exalted position. Without being imbued with really liberal views, but being possessed of intelligence and a clear view as regards all social phenomena, De Witte, doubtless one of the most able statesmen Russia has possessed in recent times, recognized that, if matters in the Empire continued much longer in the same way, a catastrophe was unavoidable. …
"De Witte obtained the consent of the Tsar to the formation of committees, in the different parts of the country, consisting of representatives of agriculture, and including both large estate owners and men of the people, to whom was allotted the task of declaring their views as to the cause of the decline of Russian agriculture, and of indicating steps for the improvement of agricultural conditions. De Witte himself urged the committees to express themselves freely and openly as to the causes of the prevailing misery, and as to the means of remedying it. But in all probability he hardly expected that these utterances would go so far in their openness as they really did. Quite a number of committees were perspicacious enough to deal not merely with the economical, but likewise with the general political position, though recognising that the former was very closely connected with the latter. In this way the ice was broken. One committee after the other criticised the existing system of government with astonishing boldness, and required an unconditional and radical change therein. … it was the representatives of the zemtsvo assemblies who played the chief part in the agricultural committees, and consequently hopes began to be cherished more or less everywhere that these assemblies would now receive amplified rights, and that in this way the basis would be laid for the future and for the constitution dreamt of by all. Such hopes were, however, not to the taste of Von Plehve, the new Minister of the Interior. … Finally they [the committees] were dissolved, without having achieved any other result than a number of reports which had been drawn up by them, and which ended by being pigeon-holed in one record office or the other. Von Plehve had conquered the Finance Minister. But his success was a Pyrrhic victory. At one stroke he converted a large number of liberal friends of reform into radical adherents of the emancipation movement, while to all others who had followed the proceedings of the agricultural committees with interest and expectancy he brought home a clear apprehension of the fact that a régime, under which the will or the whim of an irresponsible official could bring to naught plans having for their object the amendment of the conditions of life of many millions of people, could never contribute to the promotion of national development. Similar fruits were borne by Von Plehve’s policy in many other directions. …
"Never have the police been so numerous or so powerful as under Von Plehve’s regime; never were such trifling causes sufficient to deprive both sexes of citizens of their liberty, to expose them to ill-treatment, and to send them into exile. But never, on the other hand, have such means proved to be more powerless. … The so-called ‘Organisation of the Struggle,’ the same that had slain the previous Minister of the Interior, Sipiagin, also sentenced to death the Governor of Ulfa, Bogdanovitch. … At last Von Plehve, too, was overtaken by his fate. On the 28th of July, 1904, a member of the ‘Organisation of the Struggle’ threw a bomb into the carriage of the Minister as he was driving towards the Warsaw railway station in St. Petersburg, on his way to an audience with the Tsar. He was killed instantaneously; while the assassin, Sasonov, and a second terrorist, Sickocki, who had lent him assistance, were arrested and condemned to twenty and eleven years respectively of penal servitude."
K. Zilliacus, The Russian Revolutionary Movement, chapter 16 (New York, Dutton and Company).
{565}
RUSSIA: A. D. 1902. The Political Awakening of the Common People. Ideas of the Stundists. Peasants taking Possession of the Granaries. Floggings and Butcheries in Progress.
"The discontented crowds are unarmed, their only weapons are, so far, shouts, banners and martyrdom for Liberty, while the auto-bureaucratic regime meets these with the infliction of wounds and death. Still there are features in this uneven struggle which are of very ill-omen for auto-bureaucracy. Such is, in the first place, the hearty compact between the factory workers and the masses of the towns on the one hand, and the forward elements of the classes, mainly represented by students of the different higher educational institutions, on the other. Secondly, there is the persistency with which the cries ‘Down with Autocracy!’ ‘Long live Liberty,’ are now resounding throughout the Empire of the Tzars. The shooters are invariably beaten down, even shot down, as we shall see later on; but the cry is raised again and again. Revolutions are, unfortunately, not accomplished by shouts alone; but does not the Tzar’s Government take all possible pains to teach the population this simple truth? …
"Merciless wholesale flogging goes on in the Poltava province. Rifles have also been used; and a number of women and children have been wounded and several peasants shot dead. One of the bodies had fourteen bullets in it. In the Kharkov province ‘peace and order’ has been enforced with a still greater ‘respect to uniform and arms.’ The soldiers themselves state that the number of blows doled out with the bundles of birch to the peasants amounted at times to 250 per person. When fleeing from the torture eight peasants hit on a patrol. The commanding officer being drunk ordered ‘fire!’ and all the eight unarmed and helpless victims fell dead!
"But do these ‘energetic measures’ produce the desired effect? In the village of Kourlak, Province of Voronezh, the same merciless flogging was to be administered to all its inhabitants. When the thirty-seventh peasant received his portion of the torture, the villagers, after consultation, declared that they submitted. But they collected carefully all the birch-bundles which served for the execution. ‘ They will be of use to us,’ said the peasants, ‘when we shall flog you!’ All the official explanations given them by the authorities on this occasion led them to the conclusion that the administration acknowledged the righteousness of their claims on the land, and flogged them only for using wrong means for its recovery;—that therefore they would soon have the upper hand over the officials and landlords, and would then flog them in their turn.
"Nor does the movement in the Poltava Province (see above, Russia. A. D. 1901-1904) show any sign of abatement. According to the latest private information, which dates from the last day of April, the peasant movement there does not at all bear the character of devastation; although the landlords are undoubtedly ruined by the quiet doings of the villagers. There is no pillaging. The peasants, headed by their elective elders, open the granaries of the landlords and distribute the grain among themselves according to the needs of each family (the well-to-do receiving nothing), while the remaining grain, if any, is transferred to the communal stores. Part of this appropriated grain has already been used by the peasants for sowing their own fields, as well as those they have appropriated from the gentry. As soon as the troops are marched into the rebellious locality, they take possession of the appropriated grain still remaining in the communal granaries, and return it to its former owners. But as soon as the soldiery, after wholesale flogging of the peasantry, leave the locality, the peasants again take possession of the landlords’ grain. The prison at Poltava is crammed with peasants and students, and yet clandestine manifestoes are published with the regularity of the local official paper, and are distributed even among the soldiery. …
"The present peasant movement is not confined to the three provinces already mentioned. In these it originated simply on the ground of starvation, and similar events are reported from the provinces of Koursk, Ekaterinoslav and Podolia; also in those of Tomsk, Tobolsk, etc., in distant Siberia, where governmental grain stores suffered the fate of the landlords’ granaries in Europe. But the tension of the peasants’ spirit, their utter distrust of the present Government, and their readiness to take justice into their own hands may be said to be universal throughout the Empire.
"At the beginning of the Social Democratic movement in Russia no hopes of the Russian peasant were cherished by its leaders. But powerful agrarian organisations have since sprung up."
_Felix Volkhovsky, The Russian Awakening (Contemporary Review, June, 1902)._
RUSSIA: A. D. 1902. Russo-Chinese Treaty concerning Tibet.
See (in this Volume) TIBET: A. D. 1902.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1903 (April). The Massacre of Jews at Kishineff.
The British Vice-Consul at Odessa, Mr. Bosanquet, visited Kishineff in July, to learn the facts of the barbarous attack on the Jewish population of that town, which had been made by a mob in the previous April. The following particulars are taken from his official report, published soon afterward as a Parliamentary Paper:
"The riots began on Easter Sunday (O. S.), (the 19th April, N. S.), in the afternoon, in the eastern extremity of the town … and on that day were confined to the ordinary acts of a turbulent crowd—e. g., the smashing of windows and door-panels in Jewish houses. The area of Sunday’s disturbance was comparatively small." Early the next morning they began afresh in the same quarter, and spread to other parts of the town. "They were directed entirely against the Jews." "Monday was the day when the worst crimes were committed, and these were perpetrated by bands of rioters in different parts of the town. Many people believe the riots to be the work of organized companies."
"Besides the murders committed, the interiors of houses were utterly dismantled, pillows ripped up, Jewish Scriptures torn, floors destroyed, and furniture thrown into the street; while at an early stage wine was broached, that which was not drunk pouring into the street. The local authorities took no effective step to stop the riots, which continued unabated till 4 P. M., or later, the soldiers meanwhile being passive, if not sympathetic, spectators, and the police contenting themselves with the arrest of minor criminals; then the Governor, who had remained at home giving orders by telephone, which were disregarded, at length ventured to sign the necessary order for the troops to be employed. {566} The only case I heard of in which the latter used their weapons occurred shortly after the issue of the Governor’s order, when a Christian boy, pursuing a Jew with a stone, and refusing to desist, was knocked down and bayoneted by soldiers. An eye-witness of the scene related the facts to me. This boy (with one doubtful exception) was the only Christian killed in the disturbances. If resolute action had been taken by the authorities, it is believed that the riots could have been checked at an early stage. The more usual opinion seems to be that all the murders occurred on Monday. It is certain that none were perpetrated on Sunday, and very doubtful whether any took place after the order to employ the troops had come into effect. The disorders did not entirely cease, as next day (21st April) houses in the outskirts were pillaged; but, roughly speaking, the riots may be said to have ended on Monday. Some students are said to have taken part in the riots."
"Apparently a feeling existed among the lower classes that the Jews ought not to be in a majority at Kishineff. The fact is that they form about 50 per cent. of the population, which amounts to some 115,000 inhabitants, the other half consisting two-thirds of Moldavians, and after them of Russians, Greeks, Armenians, Poles, Germans, &c."
The victims of these melancholy occurrences are officially estimated at 41 Jews killed, or who died subsequently of wounds, 3 severely, and 300 slightly, wounded. Among the killed was one child accidentality suffocated by its mother. The deaths are placed by another (Jewish) authority at 43, including 2 young children, and by some even as high as 47, but this figure seems to include persons who died from shock, and not directly from violence. The official estimate of deaths is identical with the figure communicated to me at the Jewish hospital.
"Three hundred and eight persons have already been convicted of thefts and other minor offenses [in connection with the riots], and have been sentenced to terms of imprisonment ranging from one week to three months. … The accused still awaiting trial number 360. … Of the above prisoners 260 are accused of participation in the riots without actual violence and are out on bail in sums ranging from 200 to 300 roubles. Those in this category who are found guilty will be sentenced to imprisonment without hard labour in the Maison Correctionnelle, where the discipline is more severe than in prison. The remaining 100 are charged with murder in addition to other crimes, and those found guilty will be transported to undergo penal servitude in the Island of Sakhalin."
RUSSIA: A. D. 1903 (May-October). Intrigues against Opening Ports in Manchuria to Foreign Trade.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1903 (May-October).
RUSSIA: A. D. 1903-1904. Concert with Austria-Hungary in submitting the Mürzsteg Programme of Reform in Macedonia to Turkey.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1903-1904.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1904 (February-July). Opening of the War with Japan. Battles at the Yalu. First operations in Manchuria. First movements against Port Arthur.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (FEBRUARY-JULY).
RUSSIA: A. D. 1904 (July-September). War with Japan: Japanese Success in Manchuria. The great battle of Liao-Yang.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).
RUSSIA: A. D. 1904-1905. Reforming attempts of Prince Mirsky. Meeting of Zemstvo presidents. The Revolutionary Workman. Father Gapon. The Appeal to the Tsar. The answering Massacre of "Bloody Sunday." Assassination of Grand Duke Sergius. Witte’s practical premiership. The Call of the First Duma. The General Strike on the Railways. The Great General Strike. The Ukase of October 30, called the Constitution of Russia. Beginning of Reaction. The Postal Strike. Fatal Rising at Moscow.
The hated Plehve was succeeded by Prince Svyatopolk Mirsky, a broad-minded statesman, who began earnest efforts to set the government on a different course. One of the first measures of the prince was to win authority from the Tsar for a meeting of the presidents of the zemstvos, or provincial councils, which are bodies of a considerably representative character, exercising a limited power in their rural districts over matters of sanitation, public roads, and common schools. Ostensibly, the meeting was to concert measures of relief for the wounded in the war with Japan; but everybody knew that political questions could not escape discussion if such a meeting was held.
All the interests that uphold autocracy, aristocracy, and bureaucracy in Russia were quick to scent danger, and had no difficulty in persuading the weak-willed sovereign to recall his consent to the meeting. In his feeble, half-way manner of doing things, he forbade it as a public assembly, but allowed its members to meet unofficially and privately, in November, with no publication of their discussions or acts. They adopted resolutions setting forth a bold demand for a representation of the people in their government, and these were laid before the Tsar. He gave a public reply to them on the 26th of December, ignoring the demand for representative institutions, declaring that the government must remain autocratic, but making vague promises of reform in the laws, with especial assurances of liberty to the press and in religion; but everything granted must flow by gracious favor from the autocracy, through the channels of the bureaucracy, where it could not by any possibility run true and clear. The words of the Tsar, vague as they were, produced some encouragement, and a feeling of trust in his good intentions; but the effect was soon destroyed.
It was at about this time that Prince Trubetskoi, in authority at Moscow, addressed a letter to Prince Mirsky, from which the following was published in translation soon after:
"Through this letter I wish to explain myself to you, and ask you not to refuse me the privilege of representing to the Emperor, most humbly, the motives which prompted me to give the zemstvo permission to assert itself. According to public opinion, in which I concur unreservedly, Russia is, at present, facing an epoch of anarchy and revolutionary movement. What is going on is, by far, no mere agitation by the youth. The youth stands forth only as a reflection of the general state prevailing in society. This state is most dangerous and terrible for our entire country, as well as for all of us, and particularly so for the holy person of the Emperor. It is, therefore, the duty of every truly loyal subject to ward off the disastrous calamity with any and all means at his disposal. {567} A short time ago, I had the good fortune to be received by the Emperor, and to tell him, straightforwardly and truly, to the best of my effort and knowledge, about the present state of society. I endeavored to explain to him that what is going on is not a riot, but a revolution; that the Russian people is thus being drawn into a revolution, which it does not desire, and which can be forestalled by the Emperor. Yet there is but one way out of it, just one, and that is by the Emperor placing confidence in the strength of society and of the masses. In the depths of my soul I am firmly convinced that if the Emperor only wanted to confidently group these powers around himself, Russia would free itself from all the terrors of the impending disturbance, and would support its Czar, his will, and his absolute sovereignty. In view of the state of mind of all the people, who are filled with fear and horror over the things referred to above, it is really beyond human power to refuse them to speak about that which is vexing and tormenting everybody so fearfully."
"The opening of the next year (1905) was marked by the appearance of a new element in revolution. Certainly, there had been strikes and riots in the great cities before; there had been peasant risings and other forms of economic agitation in various parts. But as a whole the revolutionary movement as such had been inspired, directed, and even carried out by the educated classes—the students, the journalists, the doctors, barristers, and other professional men. It had been almost limited to that great division of society which in Russia is called ‘The Intelligence.’ … It was ‘the Intelligence’ who hitherto had fought for the revolution. … At length the first-fruits of their toilsome propaganda, continued through forty years, were seen, and the revolutionary workman appeared.
"He was ushered in by Father George Gapon, at that time a rather simple-hearted priest, with a rather childlike faith in God and the Tsar, and a certain genius for organization. His personal hold upon the working classes was probably due to their astonishment that a priest should take any interest in their affairs, outside their fees. … Father Gapon, with his thin line of genius for organization, had gathered the workmen’s groups or trade unions of St. Petersburg into a fairly compact body, called ‘The Russian Workmen’s Union,’ of which he was President as well as founder. In the third week in January the men at the Putiloff iron works struck because two of their number had been dismissed for belonging to their union. At once the Neva iron and ship-building works, the Petroffsky cotton works, the Alexander engine works, the Thornton cloth works, and other great factories on the banks of the river or upon the industrial islands joined in the strike, and in two days some 100,000 work-people were ‘out.’
"With his rather childlike faith in God and the Tsar, Father Gapon organized a dutiful appeal of the Russian workmen to the tender-hearted autocrat whose benevolence was only thwarted by evil counsellors and his ignorance of the truth. The petition ran, in part, as follows:—
"‘We workmen come to you for truth and protection. We have reached the extreme limits of endurance. We have been exploited, and shall continue to be exploited under your bureaucracy. The bureaucracy has brought the country to the verge of ruin and by a shameful war is bringing it to its downfall. We have no voice in the heavy burdens imposed on us. We do not even know for whom or why this money is wrung from the impoverished people, and we do not know how it is expended. This is contrary to the Divine laws, and renders life impossible. It is better that we should all perish, we workmen and all Russia. Then good luck to the capitalists and exploiters of the poor, the corrupt officials and robbers of the Russian people!
"‘Throw down the wall that separates you from your people. Russia is too great and her needs are too various for officials to rule. National representation is essential, for the people alone know their own needs. Direct that elections for a constituent assembly be held by general secret ballot. That is our chief petition. Everything is contained in that. If you do not reply to our prayer, we will die in this square before your palace. We have nowhere else to go. Only two paths are open to us—to liberty and happiness or to the grave. Should our lives serve as the offering of suffering Russia, we shall not regret the sacrifice, but endure it willingly.’
"On the morning of Sunday, January 22, 1905, about 15,000 working men and women formed into a procession to carry this petition to the Tsar in his Winter Palace upon the great square of government buildings. They were all in their Sunday clothes; many peasants had come up from the country in their best embroideries; they took their children with them. In front marched Father Gapon and two other priests wearing vestments. With them went the ikons, or holy pictures of shining brass and silver, and a portrait of the Tsar. As the procession moved along, they sang, ‘God save our people. God give our orthodox Tsar the victory.’
"So the Russian workmen made their last appeal to the autocrat whom they called their father. They would lay their griefs before him, they would see him face to face, they would hear his comforting words. But the father of his people had disappeared into space. As the procession entered the square, the soldiers fired volley after volley upon them from three sides. The estimate of the killed and wounded was about 1500. That Sunday—January 9th in Russian style—is known as Bloody Sunday or Vladimir’s Day, after the Grand Duke Vladimir who was supposed to have given the orders. Next morning Father Gapon wrote to his Union: ‘There is no Tsar now. Innocent blood has flowed between him and the people.’"
_Henry W. Nevinson, The Dawn in Russia, Introduction. (Harper’s, New York)._
If the atrocity of the 9th of January was intended to terrorize and paralyze the opposition to absolutism it failed. It maddened the more violent revolutionists, and increasingly desperate enterprises of assassination were provoked. The provocation was made greater by the appointment of Trepoff, notorious for brutality of temper, to a newly created office, of Governor-General of St. Petersburg. On the 17th of February the Grand Duke Sergius, uncle to the Tsar, Governor-General of Moscow, and conspicuously heartless and foul in his exercise of power, was assassinated as he drove through the streets. Strikes and riotous outbreaks were of constant occurrence in the industrial cities, especially violent in Warsaw, Lodz, and other Polish towns.
{568}
The Tsar issued a piteous manifesto on the 3d of March, appealing for a "rally round the throne" by all "who, true to Russia’s past, honestly and conscientiously have a care for all the affairs of the state such as we have ourselves." On the same day he published a rescript in which he said: "I am resolved henceforth, with the help of God, to convene the worthiest men, possessing the confidence of the people and elected by them, to participate in the elaboration and consideration of legislative measures." But, even if this expressed the personal disposition of the weak-willed sovereign, it promised nothing to correspond to it in the action of government; as was shown by the promotion of Trepoff to be Assistant-Minister of the Interior and Chief of Police. Prince Mirsky, baffled in his undertakings and hopeless of good from his service, had resigned the Ministry of the Interior, and his successor, M. Buliguine, held the office but a short time. M. Serguei Yulievitch Witte, former Minister of Finance, and latterly President of the Imperial Ministers, now acquired a substantial premiership in the administration, which does not seem to have belonged to his office before. Nothing of satisfaction came from the December promises of reformed law. Bureaucratic commissions were understood to be working on measures to make good the Tsar’s word, but months passed with no result. There were fitful relaxations of the censorship of the press, so capricious that no editor could know what he might and might not say.
In April, religious liberty was proclaimed, with special rights and privileges reserved to the Russian orthodox church. M. Witte had advocated a separation of the church from the state; but that was beyond hope. There must, however, have been an important weakening of church influence in the government, since the long despotic procurator-general of the Holy Synod, M. Pobiedonostzeff, resigned before the close of the year.
Early in the summer the heads of provincial zemstvos held another meeting, and discussed the popular demand for a constitutional and representative government without restraint. Then the Czar gave them a friendly audience, and declared to them that "the admission of elected representatives to works of state will be regularly accomplished"; but this was followed speedily by an official explanation that his majesty’s remarks must not be understood as containing "any indication of the possibility of modifying the fundamental law of the empire." This was to check an eager leaping of the public mind to high hopes.
On the 19th of August the long wavering imperial mind seemed brought to a definite intention at last, in a proclamation which summoned a national assembly, or duma, to meet "not later than the middle of January, 1906."
"The Empire of Russia," said the Tsar in his preamble, "is formed and strengthened by the indestructible solidarity of the Tsar with the people and the people with the Tsar. The concord and union of the people and the Tsar are a great moral force, which has created Russia in the course of centuries by protecting her from all misfortunes and all attacks, and has constituted up to the present time a pledge of unity, independence, integrity, material well-being, and intellectual development. Autocratic Tsars, our ancestors, constantly had that object in view, and the time has come to follow out their good intentions, and to summon elected representatives from the whole of Russia to take a constant and active part in the elaboration of laws, attaching for this purpose to the higher state institutions a special consultative body, entrusted with the preliminary elaboration and discussion of measures, and with the examination of the state budget. It is for this reason that, while preserving the fundamental law regarding autocratic power, we have deemed it well to form a State Duma, and to approve regulations for the elections to this Duma."
By the terms of the call it will be seen, "the fundamental law regarding autocratic power" was preserved with care. And, said the proclamation, "we reserve to ourselves entirely the care of perfecting the organization of the duma." It was to have no power to initiate legislation, but only to discuss and pass judgment upon measures brought before it by the ministers of the Tsar, who thus held fast to the substance of his autocratic power.
The Duma was to consist of 412 members, representing 50 governments and the military province of the Don, and only 28 members representing towns. It was to be elected for five years, unless dissolved sooner by the Tsar. Its meetings were to be secret, except as the president, in his discretion, might admit the reporters of the Press.
The limited functions proposed for the Duma, and the indefinite prescription of procedure in its election, left not much in the Tsar’s project of a national assembly to satisfy the nation. In September a large meeting of representatives of the zemstvos, from all parts of the Empire, was held privately at Moscow, and it was there agreed that they should exert themselves to secure as many seats in the coming Duma as possible, with a view to making it instrumental in the movement for something better. The ultimate aim of present endeavor was defined in a programme which included: a representative national legislature; a systematic budget system; freedom of conscience, speech, press, meeting and association; inviolability of person and home; equal rights of all citizens; equal responsibility of all officials and citizens under the law; the abolition of passports.
In October, on the 21st, the workingmen organized their first great general strike, on the railways, which paralyzed travel and traffic, except as the government could operate some military trains. The strikers made bold demands, presented to Witte on the 24th: "The claims of the working classes," they said, "must be settled by laws constituted by the will of the people and sanctioned by all Russia. The only solution is to announce political guarantees for freedom and the convocation of a Constituent Assembly, elected by direct, universal and secret suffrage. Otherwise the country will be forced into rebellion." Witte replied: "A Constituent Assembly is for the present impossible. {569} Universal suffrage would, in fact, only give preëminence to the richest classes, because they could influence all the voting by their money. Liberty of the press and of public meeting will be granted very shortly. I am myself strongly opposed to all persecution and bloodshed, and I am willing to support the greatest amount of liberty possible. … But there is not in the entire world a single cultivated man who is in favor of universal suffrage." Two days after receiving this reply the Council of Labor Delegates, or "Strike Committee," declared a general strike of workmen throughout Russia, and about a million workingmen are said to have taken the risk of starvation by dropping work.
No doubt it was that evidence of determination in the revolutionary spirit of the country which drew from the Tsar, on the 30th of October, the famous ukase which was characterized hastily at the time as "the Magna Charta of Russia," "the surrender of autocracy," the founding of constitutional government. In reality, the document was no more than an injunction to the ministers of the autocrat to carry out his "absolute will" in certain matters, most of which were set forth with characteristic vagueness of terms. The following is a translation of the entire manifesto, as communicated to the Government of the United States from its embassy at St. Petersburg:
By the grace of God we, Nicholas Second, Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias, Tsar of Poland, Grand Duke of Finland, etc.
The rioting and agitation in the capitals and in many localities of our Empire has filled our heart with great and deep affliction. The welfare of the Russian Emperor is united with the welfare of the people, and its troubles are his troubles. The agitation which has broken out may bring confusion among the people and threaten the entirety and unity of our Empire.
The solemn vow of the imperial service commands us, with all the strength of intelligence and of our power, to endeavor to stop as quickly as possible agitations so dangerous to the Empire. In ordering the competent authorities to take measures to avert the disorders, the troubles, and violence, and to guard peaceful people who are eager to fulfill quietly the duties placed upon them, we have found it necessary, in order to insure the proper execution of the general measures marked out by us, to unify the action of the supreme government.
We lay upon the government the fulfillment of our absolute will:
1. To grant to the population the inviolable basis of free citizenship, on the ground of actual inviolable personality, freedom of conscience, speech, meeting, and unions;
2. Without stopping the intended elections for the State Duma, to include now in the participation of the Duma as far as possible, in view of the corresponding short term which remains before the convocation of the Duma, those classes of the population which up to now were entirely deprived of the right to vote and to allow in future the further development of the element of a general right of election which is to be established by new legislation; and
3. To establish as an inviolable rule that no law shall take effect without its confirmation by the State Duma and that the persons elected by the population should be guaranteed the possibility of actual control over the legal activity of the persons appointed by us.
We call on all the true sons of Russia to remember their duties toward their fatherland, to assist in combating these unheard-of agitations, and together with us to unite all their strength in establishing quietness and peace in their country.
Given in Peterhof on the 17th day of October in the year of our Lord 1905 and the eleventh year of our reign.
(Signed in his own hand.) NICHOLAS.
At the same time, the ministers of the autocrat were enjoined to "abstain from any interference in the elections of the duma;" they were to "maintain the prestige of the duma and confidence in its labors, and not resist its decisions so long as they are not inconsistent with the historic greatness of Russia." In the exercise of executive power they should embody "(1) straightforwardness and sincerity in the confirmation of civil liberty;" "(2), a tendency toward the abolition of exclusive laws;" "(3), the coordination of the activity of all the organs of government;" "(4), the avoidance of repressive measures in respect to proceedings which do not openly menace society or the state."
These orders and injunctions from the autocracy to the bureaucracy were to be the constitution of government for which Russia had made demands. They did not satisfy the demand—or satisfied only the small party who were afterwards called "Octobrists," because they asked for no more than was granted in this ukase of October 30, 1905. The general strike was not called off, but demands for a Constituent Assembly were reiterated persistently. Agitation was kept alive, and with it the murderous warfare waged by revolutionists against high officials and the police. At the same time, reactionary officials and army officers, enraged by what the Tsar had done, stirred up mobs in various parts of the country to attack the Jews, and add to the state of public disorder, thus furnishing arguments for a fresh resort to repressive measures by the military arm. Presently there were serious outbreaks of mutiny in army and navy, at Odessa, Kronstadt, and Sevastopol, and all the foundations of public order seemed really, for a time, to be breaking up.
It is evident there was serious alarm in the circles of the autocracy. Pobiedonostzeff, the bigoted Procurator of the Holy Synod, and Trepoff, the savage head of the police, resigned. On the 4th of November an amnesty to political offenders was proclaimed, and the ancient liberties of Finland were restored, by a decree which abolished that of February, 1899 (see, in Volume VI., FINLAND), and that also annulled a later military law, of 1901, by which the Finnish army had been put on the Russian footing.
These signs of yielding to the claims "of the nation soon gave place, however, to symptoms on the reactionary side of revived courage and obstinacy among the keepers and masters of the Tsar’s mind and will. A manifesto on the 12th of November declared that reforms would not be possible till the country was quieted. Another on the 13th proclaimed martial law in Poland; whereat the "strike committee" called another strike in sympathy with Poland. {570} On the 14th Witte published an appeal to the workmen, saying: "Brothers! Workmen! Go back to your work and cease from disorder. Have pity on your wives and children, and turn a deaf ear to mischievous counsels. The Tsar commands us to devote special attention to the labor question, and to that end has appointed a Ministry of Commerce and Industry, which will establish just relations between masters and men. Only give us time, and I will do all that is possible for you. Pay attention to the advice of a man who loves you and wishes you well." The renewed strike was not successful. Not many of the workingmen would face the suffering from non-employment which they had gone through already. The attempt was ended on the 20th; but the Committee which called it, in annulling the order, enjoined the workers of the Empire to organize "for the final encounter between all Russia and the bloody monarchy now dragging out its last days."
Meantime, on the 17th, the Tsar sought to conciliate the peasants by reducing for one year the payments on land that were due under the land distribution which went with emancipation in 1861, and remitting them entirely after January, 1907.
See (in Volume IV.) SLAVERY, MEDIEVAL AND MODERN: RUSSIA.
On the 20th of November a Peasants’ Congress of 300 delegates met in Moscow and formulated demands for the nationalization of land and for a constituent assembly. The delegates were arrested. An alarming mutiny in the fleet and army at Sevastopol broke out on the 26th, but it was soon suppressed. Two days later the whole body of employees in the postal and telegraphic service at Moscow began a most troublesome strike, which spread from there and was continued for some weeks. Mr. Nevinson, who was in Moscow at the time, describes it in one of his chapters:
"In those happy weeks when freedom still was young and living, two things ruled the country—speech and the strike, the word and the blow. The strike was everywhere felt. No letter or telegram went or came. Each town in Russia was isolated, and the whole Empire stood severed from the world. … In Moscow the cooks struck, and paraded the streets with songs never heard in the drawing-room. The waiters struck, and heavy proprietors lumbered about with their own plates and dishes. The nursemaids struck for Sundays out. The housemaids struck for rooms with windows, instead of cupboards under the stairs, or sections from the water closets. Schoolboys struck for more democratic masters and pleasanter lessons. Teachers struck for higher pay. … But at the back of the strikes and all the revolutionary movement lay the motive force of speech. … After these centuries of suppression, all Russia was revelling in a spiritual debauch of words."
On the 6th of December General Sakharoff, formerly Minister of War and now Governor-General of a district on the Volga, was shot by a woman, to avenge the sufferings he had caused to the peasants. On the 7th the Strike Committee called on the workpeople to withdraw their money from the savings-banks; and, a little later, a joint manifesto, issued by that committee and committees of Peasants, Social Democrats, and Social Revolutionists, appealed generally to the people, not only to withdraw money from the savings banks, but "to refuse to pay taxes, or to take bank-notes, or to subscribe to loans," as a means of crippling the government financially. All papers which published this manifesto were suppressed and their editors arrested.
Then, in the last twelve days of December, came the fatal rising at Moscow, which the government, forewarned by its spies, precipitated, while the revolutionists’ preparations were but half made, and which it crushed mercilessly, with ease. From a diary of the occurrences of these tragical days at Moscow, given in the report of the resident American Consul to Ambassador Meyer, at St. Petersburg, the following entries are taken:
"December 24. Barricades were continually built during days and nights. The revolutionists were in hope that about 20,000 or 30,000 workmen from the factories in the suburbs would enter the city and join them, but this was not accomplished, as the military forces were sufficient to prevent this. The revolutionists spread a rumor amongst the workmen that the soldiers were in sympathy with the strikers and that they would not fire on the mob and would join their ranks, but this rumor turned out to be untrue, as the troops were loyal to the Government. …
"December 27. At 6 o’clock P. M. the house where the chief of the secret police, Mr. Voilochenkoff, resides, was surrounded by a revolutionary party and by their insistent demands the front door was opened. Six men rushed into his apartments and arrested the chief, and read the death sentence of the revolutionary party to him. His wife and three children pleaded to the revolutionists for mercy, but the revolutionists would not listen to their pleading, and they gave Mr. Voilochenkoff a short time to prepare for death and then took him out into a side street where he was shot to death, and his body left in the street. Disturbances and shooting were carried on in the different parts of the city, and new barricades erected.
"December 31. The troops bombarded the large Prochoroff spinning mills, where a large number of revolutionists made their last stand. Many houses in the vicinity of the mill were either burnt down or wrecked by cannon balls. Many of the revolutionists and strikers were killed, wounded, or captured and the weapons confiscated. The general strike has been called off."
This was practically the end of the abortive rising. On the 5th of January, 1906, Ambassador Meyer wrote to the State Department at Washington:
"In my cable of December 25 I stated that although fighting had been stubborn and gatling guns had been used, I believed that the estimates so far given out as to loss of life were much exaggerated. It appears now that I was correct in my surmise, for in a semi-official statement given by one of the papers, from statistics taken at all the hospitals and accident bureaus, the deaths were given as about 750 and the wounded as a little over a thousand.
"I am glad to state that as yet I have heard of no injuries occurring to American citizens in Moscow; in fact in all these disturbances that have taken place in the various cities the revolutionists and strikers have refrained in all instances from attacking foreign consulates, and I believe this also applies to the property of foreign individuals."
{571}
On the 29th of January Ambassador Meyer wrote to Washington: "The revolutionary party seems to have spent its force for the time being. Instead of aiding reforms, they have greatly hampered them. By the attempted capture of Moscow, by their riots and rebellions in other parts of the country, followed by destruction of life and property, they have forced the Government into repression and reactionary methods in order to restore law and order. All this has necessarily caused a delay in the classification of the newly enfranchised voters and has given an excuse for a continued waste of precious time due to bureaucratic formality.
"Some of the factions are finally waking up to the necessity of giving attention to registration and a better comprehension of the coming elections. The Constitutional-Democratic party have decided by a large majority to take part in the elections and the Douma. The Social Democrats have also decided to participate. On the other hand, the Russian Social-Revolutionaries, at their first meeting in Finland, lately, voted in favor of a boycott of the elections.
"At its last meeting, the Constitutional-Democratic party, in view of obstacles to free election campaigning which the local authorities are using against all opposing parties, voted to protest against the government policy, which in any way impeded free elections to the Imperial Douma, and further urged the most energetic participation of its members in the approaching elections.
"At a meeting of the marshals of the nobility, held at Moscow last week, the following resolutions were adopted: 1.That the final settlement of the agrarian question should be made the first task of the Douma. 2. That in deciding the agrarian question, it should be based on the principle of inviolability of private property."
RUSSIA: A. D. 1904-1905. War with Japan: Siege and Surrender of Port Arthur.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (FEBRUARY-AUGUST) and 1904-1905 (MAY-JANUARY)
RUSSIA: A. D. 1904-1905 (October-May).--War with Japan: Voyage of the Baltic Fleet. Its Destruction in the Battle of Tsushima.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905 (OCTOBER-MAY).
RUSSIA: A. D. 1904-1905 (September-March). War with Japan: Campaign in Manchuria. From the Battle of Liao-Yang to the end of the Battle of Mukden.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905 (SEPTEMBER-MARCH).
RUSSIA: A. D. 1904-1909. General Consequences in Europe of the Weakening of Russian Prestige and Power by the Russo-Japanese War.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1904-1909.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1905. Action with other Powers in forcing Financial Reforms in Macedonia on Turkey.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1905-1908.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1905 (February-November). Naval Mutiny. Army Revolt. Peasant Risings. Conflict in the Caucasus.
The most serious of the revolutionary outbreaks of the year was that of mutiny in the navy. "Already in February the sailors of the Black Sea fleet, instigated by the revolutionary propaganda, had burned down the barracks at Sebastopol and assaulted their officers, and on June 27 the crew of the ‘Kniaz Potemkin,’ the principal battle-ship of the Black Sea fleet, mutinied at sea while the squadron of which it formed part was manoeuvring, and killed nearly all its officers. The mutineers were in league with the working men at Odessa, who at the same time invaded the harbor, and, accompanied by a riotous mob, plundered and burnt in all directions. Property of immense value was consumed, and some of the troops refused to fire on the rioters. Ultimately fresh troops were brought up, the ‘Kniaz Potemkin’ sailed away to the Roumanian port of Constanza, where it was surrendered to the Roumanian authorities, who gave up the ship to the Russians, and the crew was landed and disarmed. The crew of another battle-ship, the ‘Georgei Pobiedonosets,’ took part in the mutiny, but surrendered to the Russian authorities at Odessa. Riots also took place at the same time at the seaports of Reval, Riga, Libau, and Kronstadt, where the dockers were joined by the navy men and struck for an increase of wages. … On July 10 Count Schouvaloff, Prefect of Police at Moscow, was assassinated, and a general strike was proclaimed at Minsk. … In the Baltic provinces the peasants, who are Letts, constantly attacked the landed proprietors, who are German in race and speech; many of the latter were killed, the municipal buildings at Reval, Riga and Mittau were sacked. … In September the conflict which had been going on between the Tartars and the Armenians in the Caucasus culminated in a series of horrible massacres, accompanied by much destruction of property. At Baku most of the naphtha wells were destroyed by incendiary fires, and very much of the oil industry was ruined. The Tartars, carrying green banners, proclaimed a holy war against the Armenians, many thousands of whom were killed. … On November 25 an organized revolt took place of the soldiers, sailors and workmen of Sebastopol. There was no rioting, but several officers were killed, and for some days the town was in the hands of the rebels. The revolt was only suppressed on November 30, when a regular battle took place between the rebels and 20,000 troops that had been brought up against them. Forts and loyal ships fired on mutinous ships, and the barracks held by the rebels had to be bombarded before they were forced to surrender. … Other mutinies of troops took place at the same time at Warsaw and in other places."
The Annual Register 1905, pages 313-323.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1905 (April-August). The Tsar’s Decree of Religious Liberty. Minister Witte’s enlightened Memorial. The Emptiness of Results.
Early in May, 1905, there was announcement that the Tsar, on the morning of the Russian Easter Day, had published a decree proclaiming absolute religious liberty to all his subjects. Previous tolerance of all religions in Russia had been subject to important limitations. No member of the state church could leave it to enter another without losing all his civil rights, and no church other than the Orthodox could proselyte. Furthermore, when members of the Russian Church and those of any other church married, it was necessary to have the ceremony performed by an Orthodox priest, and the law insisted that the children of such marriages be brought up in the Orthodox faith. These restrictions were particularly hard on the Old Believers, as they are called,—a body which separated from the Orthodox Church two and a half centuries ago and has suffered all kinds of persecution. The new ukase recognized the various orders of priesthood among the Old Believers, and gave them the right to celebrate marriage. To all the dissenting sects—Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Jews, and others—is accorded the right to erect houses of worship without restriction.
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The Tsar’s decree of entire religious freedom was known soon to have been the fruit of a remarkably broad minded memorial addressed to him by M. Witte, the President of his Council of Ministers, and a translation of that memorial was published in the May issue of The Contemporary Review. It pictured a state of paralysis in the Russian Church, consequent on its bondage to the State. "Both the ecclesiastical and the secular press," said the writer, "remark with equal emphasis upon the prevailing lukewarmness of the inner life of the Church,—upon the alienation of the flock, particularly of the educated classes of society, from its spiritual guides; the absence in sermons of a living word; the lack of pastoral activity on the part of the clergy, who in the majority of instances confine themselves to the conduct of divine service and the fulfillment of ritual observances; the entire collapse of the ecclesiastical parish community, with its educational and benevolent institutions; the red-tapism in the conduct of diocesan or consistorial business, and the narrowly bureaucratic character of the institutions grouped about the Synod. It was from Dostoyevski that we first heard that word of evil omen, ‘The Russian Church is suffering from paralysis.’"
This condition M. Witte attributes to the position in which the Church was placed by Peter the Great. "The chief aim of the ecclesiastical reforms of Peter I. was to reduce the Church to the level of a mere government institution pursuing purely political ends. And, as a matter of fact, the government of the Church speedily became merely one of the numerous wheels of the complicated government machine. On the soil of an ecclesiastical government robbed by bureaucratism of all personal elements the dry scholastic life-shunning school arose spontaneously. This policy of coercing the mind of the Church, though it may have been attended for the moment by a certain measure of political gain, subsequently inflicted a terrible loss. Hence that decline in ecclesiastical life with which we now have to deal."
The wise President of the Tsar’s Council made so much impression on the mind of his master as to draw from him the ukase of general religious freedom; but three months later, in the August number of The American Review of Reviews, Dr. E. J. Dillon, whose intimate knowledge of Russian affairs is well known, described how effectually the decree had been smothered by the bureaucracy, which is stronger than the Tsar. He wrote: "The most welcome of all the concessions emanating from the throne was that which Nicholas II. bestowed upon his subjects last Easter Sunday. Inspired and drafted by M. Witte, it was at first spoken of as liberty of conscience, but was soon afterward seen to amount to nothing more than religious toleration. And since then the bureaucracy has touched and killed it."
RUSSIA: A. D. 1905 (June-October). Ending of the War with Japan. Mediation by the President cf the United States. The Peace Treaty of Portsmouth.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1905 (JUNE-OCTOBER).
RUSSIA: A. D. 1905-1907. The Recent Russian Political Parties.
As explained by Mr. Maurice Baring in his interesting book entitled A Year in Russia, the crystallization of political parties in Russia began after the issue of the Manifesto of October, 1905. The most important was that of the Constitutional Democrats, nicknamed the "Cadets," a name formed from the letters "K. D." Similarly the party called Social Revolutionaries are nicknamed "S. R’s." and the Social Democrats "S. D’s." The party of the Constitutional Democrats was the product of a combination of Zemstvo members who had previously been united in a "League of Liberation" with the professional classes, whom Professor Milioukov had brought together in a "Union of Unions," which represented the great mass of educated Russia—the "Intelligenzia." This combination of the professional class with the Zemstvoists, who had more political experience than others could enjoy in Russia, was mainly the important work of Professor Milioukov.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1906. The First Duma. Election of Representatives. Its Conflict with the Government and its Dissolution. Rise of M. Stolypin. The Instigated Massacres (Pogroms).
In January, 1906, when the Duma promised by the Tsar on the 19th of the previous August should have met, the conditions in the country were such that the Government dared not permit the meeting to be held, and it was postponed without date. After some weeks a more submissive state of order was restored, and the meeting was appointed for the 10th of the following May. The elections were held in March, and Ambassador Meyer described the system on which they were conducted in an extended despatch to the State Department at Washington, from which the following is borrowed:
"The total number of members of the Duma, when the elections shall have finally been completed, will be 501. The elections are, however, not carried on the same day throughout the country. Governors and vice-governors, prefects of cities and their lieutenants cannot vote in their departments, nor can members of the army or navy who are on active service, or persons doing police duty in governments or cities when elections are taking place.
"The voters are divided into classes, and that it may be more clearly shown I have made the following table;
------------------------------------------------------------ Peasants.
Clergy Cities not in special list Volosts Workmen -------------------------> Delegates -> Electors -> Duma Members
Landed proprietors and special cities. -------------------------------------> Electors -> Duma Members
------------------------------------------------------------
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"From this it will be seen that the peasants are in a class by themselves and, as a matter of fact, in the present elections are not given an opportunity of expression, as it is the volosts (elected at the mir, in most instances, before the Duma was even granted) that choose the delegates. The volosts, workmen, clergy (not lauded proprietors), voters of cities (not in special list), and class C of lauded proprietors, all choose delegates. These delegates, in turn, select electors, as do also landed proprietors, and qualified voters of cities on the special list. The electors vote for Duma members in their appropriate electoral college, and their choice is confined to a member of their own body. Therefore in every instance, in order to become a member of the Duma, a candidate must be an elector and previous to that a delegate, except in the case of landed proprietors and voters of special cities. …
"It is noticeable that the large cities in European Russia are limited to one member of the Duma, with the exception of Moscow and St. Petersburg, the former having an allotment of four and the latter of six.
"There is an exceptional provision with regard to the procedure of the peasant electors. … Elections to the Duma, with the exception cited as to the privilege of peasant electors, are finally effected in the governments and territories by the government electoral college, and in the cities by the municipal electoral college."
Mr. Meyer reported further that an imperial manifesto had announced that the Council of the Empire would in future "consist of an equal number of elective members and members nominated by the Emperor. It will be convoked annually by an imperial ukase at the same time with the Duma. The two assemblies will have equal legislative powers, and each can exercise the same initiative in introducing bills or interrogations. Every bill must be passed by both houses before being sent to the Tsar for his signature and approval. The elected members of the Council will be eligible for nine years, a third being reelected every three years." Of the 98 elective members of the Council (one half of the body), 18 were to be chosen from the nobles, 50 from the zemstvo of each government, 6 from the Orthodox Church, 6 from the universities, 12 from the representatives of the Council of Commerce and Industry, and 6 from representatives of the Polish landed proprietors.
On the 7th of April Ambassador Meyer wrote to Washington concerning the result of the elections: "The success of the Constitutional Democrats has made a great impression on the Government and created considerable nervousness. Witte is really anxious to resign and go out of the country for a much-needed rest. But he assured a mutual friend that he would stay and serve the Emperor as long as His Majesty desired. The elections so far have impressed upon his mind the want of confidence which exists among the people as to his administration. As he is without any supporters among the elected members of the Duma, it is difficult to believe that the Emperor will be able or even desirous of having him continue to serve as premier after the Duma is organized."
This anticipation proved correct. M. Witte had withdrawn from the ministerial premiership when the Duma assembled on the 10th of May, and M. Goremykin had taken his place.
There was conflict between the Duma and the Government from the moment that the former adopted its reply to the opening speech of the Tsar. With unanimity it demanded general amnesty for past political offenses, abolition of the death penalty, suspension of martial law, full civil liberty, universal suffrage, abolition of the council of the empire, a review of the fundamental law, responsibility of ministers and right of interpellation, a forced expropriation of land, and a guarantee of rights to trade unions.
M. Stolypin, Minister of the Interior, now coming to the front of ministerial leadership, made his first speech in the Duma on the 21st of June, and was assailed with cries of "Murderer" and "Assassin" when he defended illegal acts of police officials and provincial governors, in the suppression of disorder, and declared his determination to maintain order. Among the replies to him was one by Prince Urussoff, former Assistant Minister of the Interior, who made a powerful attack on the sinister methods of the Government—the "policy of massacre," as he named it—declaring that massacres were always organized by secret forces. "Any investigation," he said, "of the so-called ‘pogroms’ (massacres) will bring the investigator face to face with the following certain symptoms; they are identical in all cases; Firstly, a massacre is always preceded by reports of its preparation, accompanied by the circulation of appeals exciting the population and of one constant kind in form and substance. They are accompanied by a certain kind of stormy petrels in the person of little known representatives of the dregs of the population. Then, too, the cause of the massacre as officially announced is afterwards always without exception found to be false. Furthermore, in these massacres there is always to be found a certain similarity of plan which gives these actions the character of chance. The murderers act on the assumption of some kind of right, as though conscious that they will not be punished, and only continue to act as long as this confidence remains unshaken—after which the massacre stops extraordinarily quickly and easily."
What Prince Urussoff had intimated, as to the instigation of the massacres from high circles was declared most distinctly and positively, three years later, by Prince Kropotkin, in a letter to the London Times of July 29, 1909. He wrote: "Something which never has happened anywhere in Western Europe happened then in Russia, as M. Obninsky, a member of the first Duma, says in a terrible book of statistics he has published in 1906 at Moscow, under the title, ‘A Half-Year of the Russian Revolution.’ In a hundred different cities men of the so-called ‘Black Hundreds’ came together on some public square, received there the benediction of the clergy, sent telegrams to the Palace circles in St. Petersburg, received answers from them, and then went on killing the Jews, the Armenians, the Poles, the Russian members of the Zemstvos, and Russian ‘Intellectuals’ altogether, under the protection of the military, the local police, and the local governors.
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"For some time I could not believe that such pogroms could have been organized from St. Petersburg by the authorities. Now the evidence is overwhelming. We know that proclamations inciting to pogroms were printed by the gendarmes in the Secret Police offices, we know from the revelations of these gendarmes themselves that men and officers were sent to the provinces with proclamations and arms to organize the pogroms; and we know how the leaders of the Union of Russian Men were petted and given money by the Tsar and how they organized murders, wholesale and retail, with the aid of members of the Secret Police; and here is the net result which I have before me in a long, very long, list compiled by the Law Review Pravo.
"This list is simply horrifying. The Constitution manifesto was signed on October 30. The same day took place the pogrom at Tver; the Zemstvo house was burnt, and 24 persons were wounded. At Moscow, November 2, 30 wounded; Odessa, October 31-November 3, more than 1,000 killed and 5,000 wounded; Kieff, October 31, 150 killed, 100 wounded; Tomsk, November 3, 150 killed and burned, 76 heavily wounded (all these, by the way, and many others are Russian towns); Minsk, 100 killed, 400 wounded; Tiflis, November 2, more than 100 killed; and so on, and so on. … The result of similar campaigns in different parts of Russia for twelve months only in 1905-1906 was—killed, more than 14,000; executed, about 1,000; wounded and partly died from wounds, about 20,000; arrested and imprisoned, mostly without judgment, 75,000. This last figure was given in the Duma by Professor Kovalevsky on May 2, 1906, in the presence of M. Stolypin, who did not contest it."
On the 22d of July the Duma was dissolved by imperial command, and the following manifesto to the people was published by the Autocrat on the following day:
"Persons selected by the people were called to the legislature. Trusting in the goodness of God, believing in the happy and grand future of our people, we were expecting from their labors the happiness and interest of the country. Great reforms had been indicated by us in all that concerns the life of the people, and our greatest care, which is to substitute education for the ignorance of the people and to lessen the difficulties of its life by improving the conditions under which it cultivates the ground, was foremost. A painful ordeal was reserved to our hopes. The elected of the nation, instead of turning their attention to legislative labors, have entered a field that was closed to them, and have begun to investigate the doings of authorities established by us, to indicate to us the imperfections of fundamental laws that can only be altered by our imperial will, and to commit illegal acts, such as the appeal addressed to the people of the Duma.
"The peasants, dazed by these disorders, without waiting for the legal improvement to their position, gave themselves up, in a great number of governments, to pillage and theft, refusing to submit to the law or to legal authorities. …
"By dissolving the actual Duma of the Empire we testify to our unalterable intention of maintaining, in all their force, the laws concerning the establishment of that institution, and, consequently, we have fixed, by our ukase given to the ruling Senate on the 8th July instant, the convocation of the new Duma on the 20th of February, 1907."
About two hundred members of the dissolved Duma went immediately from St. Petersburg to Viborg, in Finland, and held a meeting there, from which they published an address to the "Citizens of all the Russias," signed by one hundred and sixty of their number, protesting against the opposition which the Duma had encountered from the Government in all its undertakings, and practically refusing submission to its dissolution. "In the place of the present Duma," they said, "the Government promises to convoke a new one in seven months. … For seven months the Government will act as it likes, will wrestle with the movement of the people in order to obtain a submissive and desirable Duma, and if it succeeds in entirely crushing the movement of the people it will not convoke any Duma at all. Citizens, stand firmly by the trampled rights of the representatives of the people. Stand for the Duma of the Empire. Russia must not remain one day without representatives from the people. We have the means of obtaining this. The Government has not the right without our consent to collect taxes from the people, nor to call the people to military service, and therefore, now, when the Government has dissolved the Duma of the Empire, it is your right to refuse to supply it with soldiers or money. If the Government, in order to secure resources, makes loans, such loans, made without consent of the representatives of the people, will henceforth be invalid, and the Russian people will not recognize them and will not pay for them. Consequently, until the representatives of the people are convoked, do not pay a kopeck into the treasury nor send a man to the army. Be firm in your refusal; stand for your rights, all as one man. Against the united and absolute will of the people no power whatever can resist. Citizens, in this compulsory but inevitable struggle your representatives will be with you."
This proved to be futile action. The Government was prompt in arresting and imprisoning most of the signers of the appeal to the people, and none of them was allowed to be returned to the Second Duma when the new elections were held. Pending that election, some very substantial gifts of imperial favor were made to the peasants, to win their good will, but nothing appears to have been remembered of the October injunctions of the Tsar concerning the "confirmation of civil liberty." In August, 4,500,000 acres of crown lauds were transferred by an imperial ukase to the Peasants’ Bank, for sale to the peasants on easy terms; and on the 18th of October another ukase released them to a large extent from the restraints of the communal system, and decreed the equality of all citizens before the law. The following is part of the text of this important decree, as communicated in translation to the American government by Ambassador Meyer, and published in the report of 1906 on Foreign Relations.
"The Czar orders, on the basis of the fundamental law of 1906, that the following reforms be made:
"1. To accord all Russian subjects, without distinction of origin, with exception of the aborigines, equal rights with regard to the state service with persons of noble blood, and at the same time to abolish all special privileges of dress due either to official position or to the origin of the wearer.
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"2. Peasants and members of other classes formerly taxable are freed (a) from the presentation of discharge papers on entering an educational institution or the civil service; further, from personal payment in kind and the performance of communal duties during the whole time the persons in question may be either in the educational institution or civil service; (b) from the necessity of demanding for entry into holy orders or a monastery the permission of the commune.
"3. The compulsory exclusion of peasant and other classes formally taxable from the following ranks and careers is abolished; (a) From entering the civil service; (b) from receiving rank; (c) from receiving orders and other distinctions; (d) from attaining learned grades and honors; (e) from completing educational courses and particularly from winning higher class rights.
"In all these cases the persons in question are allowed to retain all the rights arising from their connections with their commune, as well as the responsibilities thereof, until they have freely withdrawn from the commune or entered into other corporations of standing. With regard to the legal standing of the persons in question, there shall serve as a basis the regulations of the rank or profession which these persons have won."
See, also, below, RUSSIA: A. D. 1909 (APRIL).
Meantime, extensive plans of insurrection, with naval and military mutiny, in five cities, had been formed and had miscarried. The outbreak was premature at Sveaborg, late in July, and the sailors who started it were quickly overcome. The same failure occurred at Kronstadt, where the revolutionists and mutinous troops took Fort Constantine and the arsenal, but found no ammunition in the latter, and were defenseless when surrounded by loyal forces. At Libau, Odessa, and Sevastopol the intended rising was given up.
On the 25th of August a desperate plot of wholesale murder, intended to include M. Stolypin among its victims, was carried out by the explosion of a horribly destructive bomb at the country house of that Minister, on Aptekarsky Island. M. Stolypin was holding a reception, and the rooms were crowded with officials and others, when four conspirators, three of them dressed as gendarmes, drove up boldly, and were able, either to enter the house with a bomb or to throw it through a window. The effect of the explosion was so horribly destructive that the house was torn to pieces and thirty people were killed outright or injured mortally, besides an equal number that received curable wounds. Two of the Minister’s children were among the latter, and he himself received slight injuries. The Governor of Penza, M. Koshoff, who stood near him, was instantly killed. Two of the assassins were among the killed and the other two were wounded and captured. On the following day a young woman of the terrorist organization slew General Min, at Peterhof railway station, by shots from a revolver. He had been active in suppressing the insurrection at Moscow.
In October Ambassador Meyer, after a trip into Poland and to Odessa, reported as the result of his observations:
"On the whole, the revolutionary movement, for the time being, has lost its momentum. A year ago it was on the crest of the wave. Then a strike could be ordered and put in force without any difficulty, but now the workmen refuse to be used for political purposes or respond to the whims of the agitator. The present conditions are liable to continue until the next Duma, March 5. Yesterday, which was the first anniversary of October 17 (Russian Style), it had to be given out by some of the revolutionists that there would be strikes, uprisings, and agitations throughout the country. But the day passed off quietly. Mr. Stolypin is facing with much courage and resolution the stupendous task which confronts him. He is endeavoring to deal fairly, while at the same time it is necessary to reestablish law and order."
On the 21st of December Count Alexei Ignatieff was assassinated at Tver, while attending a meeting of the provincial zemstvo, the assassin stating that he had acted under orders of the Socialist revolutionary committee.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1906 (April). Invitation of the Nations to a Second Peace Conference by the Tsar.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST; A. D. 1907.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1906 (April). At the Algeciras Conference on the Morocco Question.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE A. D. 1905-1906.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1907 (August). Convention with Great Britain containing Arrangements on the subject of Persia, Afghanistan, and Tibet.
See EUROPE: A. D. 1907 (AUGUST).
RUSSIA: A. D. 1907. The Second Duma and its Early Dissolution. Increase of Radicalism among its Members. The New Electoral Law, under which a "Workable" Third Duma was elected. M. Stolypin’s Policy.
The promise that a second Duma would be summoned to meet in March, 1907, was fulfilled. Between the 21st of January and the end of February elections were held, with results that were exceedingly disappointing and irritating to the imperial government. It strove hard, by arbitrary measures and vigorous working of its police, to suppress the Constitutional Democrats,—the party which it fears the most. It pursued their leaders into exile or imprisonment, broke up their meetings, harassed them so in the canvass and the election that the return of deputies by the party was reduced from 185 in the First Duma to 108; but, on the other hand, the Socialist representation in the Second Duma was raised above that in the First from 17 to 77, and the Octobrists elected 31 deputies, gaining 18 more seats than they had filled before. On the whole, as a consequence, the Second Duma held more radicalism in its make-up, with less intelligence, than the First.
Its meetings were opened on the 6th of March, and soon gave evidence that the antagonisms in the body were too extreme for any influential political work. In June M. Stolypin accused most of the Socialist members of being parties to the revolutionary propaganda in the army and navy, and demanded their suspension by the Duma. It refused to suspend them without an investigation of the truth of the charge, and appointed a committee to receive such evidence as the government could bring. Thereupon the Tsar, by a manifesto published on the 16th of June, dissolved the Second Duma as summarily as he had dissolved the First, ordered new elections, to begin on the 14th of September, and summoned the Third Duma, then elected, to meet on November 14th.
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At the same time a new electoral law was proclaimed, in flagrant violation of the so-called Constitution of October 30, 1905, which had declared, as an "immutable rule," established by the "inflexible will" of the Tsar, that "no law can ever come into force without the approval of the State Duma." The new law was planned carefully and skilfully to disfranchise great numbers in the classes of people which autocracy fears; to add weight to the votes of the classes on which it leans; to diminish the representation of industrial cities, as well as of non-Russian districts,—Poland, Siberia, etc.,—and, generally, to make a farce of the pretended concession of representative and constitutional government which the autocratic court had been playing for the amusement of the country during the past two years.
The new electoral law accomplished its purpose of securing a Duma that would keep workable relations with M. Stolypin. A very intelligent English publicist, Dr. Dillon, who discusses Foreign Politics every month in the Contemporary Review, whose views are broadly liberal as a rule, and whose acquaintance with Russian affairs seems to be specially intimate, inclines to justify the measure on this practical ground, or, rather, to accept it as approved by this result. When the make-up of the Third Duma had become known he wrote, in the Contemporary Review of December, 1907, as follows:
"M. Stolypin’s electoral law has been criticised severely. And, to be frank, one must admit that from the point of view of men who advocate universal manhood suffrage it is a mere mockery. For it suspended the right of election in some places, arbitrarily lessened the number of representatives in certain provinces, created groups of electors, and authorised Government officials to decide how they should be formed; in a word, it is a means of manipulating the elections for the avowed purpose of having a certain stamp of men returned and another type of men eliminated. To say that the Chamber which has resulted from these expedients is not the elect of the nation is, of course, a truism. It is not, and was not, meant to be this. … The data respecting the intellectual and social status of the newly elected are still very defective and untrustworthy. But so far as they go, they show that among the men who are about to rescue Russia from ruin there are:—
Members of the nobility 157 Priests 51 Merchants 22 Peasants 77 Petty tradesmen 6 Working-men 15 Honorary burghers 8 Ex-officers 20 Officials 56 Zemstvo workers 27 Employees of municipalities 23 Marshals of nobility 36 Cantonal elders and secretaries 21 Men who have been educated in high schools 167 Men who have been educated in intermediate schools 82 Men who have been educated in primary schools 61 Members educated at home 23 Between the ages of 25-30 19 Between the ages of 30-40 81 Between the ages of 40-50 87 Between the ages of 50-00 47 Between the ages of 60-70 13 Between the ages of 70-80 l Members of the Second Duma 59 Members of the First Duma 7 Members of the Council of the Empire 3
A month later the same writer said:
"The Third Duma is already a month old, and has as yet done no work, has not even organised itself. Festina lente is evidently its maxim, with the accent on the second word. Debates there have been not a few, but they were as the noise of sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. The first discussion took place on the motion to thank the Tsar for the October Manifesto, which created the Legislative Chamber. A great majority of the deputies—including the Constitutional Democrats, who are adjusting themselves to their environment—were in favour of expressing their gratitude, but they could not agree how to call the institution for which they felt grateful. Some wanted to name it a Constitution, others ‘a renovated order of things.’ If it is a Constitution, then there is no Autocrat, the Octobrists argued, and consequently that title of the Emperor must be dropped. ‘If we are bent on thanking the Tsar,’ replied the Conservatives, ‘let us do it with a good grace. Whatever name we may give to the present régime, the title of the ruler has undergone no change. He was an Autocrat when he ascended the throne, and he is an Autocrat to day. Proofs? They are as plentiful as blackberries.’ …
"But the Constitutionalists—and among them the Octobrists favoured by M. Stolypin—insisted. ‘By the Manifesto,’ they argued, ‘the Tsar limited his authority and curtailed his prerogatives. Thus it is no longer in his power to issue laws without the approval of the Duma; neither can he abrogate any of the Organic Statutes.’ ‘You are mistaken,’ answered the Monarchists. ‘Have the Organic Statutes not been already altered? Has the "immutable" electoral franchise not been changed?’ … But the Octobrists stood their ground, and the address was voted with a flaw in the Tsar’s title. That was the work of one whole day and part of a night—an unlucky day—the 13th November Russian style. In this way the Duma offered the Sovereign a pot of honey mingled with wormwood. The Premier was upset, the Tsar offended, and the Monarchists indignant. ‘This, then,’ the Monarchists exclaimed, ‘is M. Stolypin’s Duma, the areopagus which is to prescribe remedies for the Russian nation now at death’s door?’
"Three days later came the Premier in a quos ego mood. And he was at his best. Ever since his first appearance as a public orator, M. Stolypin has kept the high place he then won. His eloquence, like his character, is manly, and his utterance impressive. His look, his accents, his gestures, betoken sincerity, and his manner is warm with the heat of subdued enthusiasm. On this historic day he simply electrified the House, captivated his adversaries, and extorted applause from his bitter enemies. And yet he was battling with the Duma, swimming against the current. He spoke of the Autocratic power and of the Autocratic Sovereign, and had the satisfaction of being interrupted by enthusiastic cheers. …
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"Happily M. Stolypin is a man of steadfast purpose rather than brilliant intellect, for his moral qualities may stand him in better stead, during the revolutionary crisis than would rare mental gifts. At bottom his temper is Liberal rather than Conservative, and mainly for that reason he would seem to have been chosen to be sexton of the old epoch and harbinger of the new. …
"No fair-minded man can doubt the sincerity of M. Stolypin’s Liberalism. It has withstood the test of time and the pressure of unfavourable circumstance. His faith in Liberal specifics is so firm that he declines to diagnose any diseases that call for more drastic remedies. … M. Stolypin is at present the only influential politician in Russia who is working efficaciously for the Liberal cause. He is systematically removing hindrances to Constitutionalism which are most formidable at the outset. …
"But the greatest service which any Minister could render a cause was performed by M. Stolypin for Liberalism at a time when it depended on him either to lay the groundwork for a Constitutional fabric or to establish firm Monarchical government. And for that service he deserves, and may yet receive, a public monument from Democratic Russia. He advised the Tsar to summon the Third Duma soon after the Second, and to issue no laws in the meanwhile. That was really the turning point in the history of Russia’s Constitution, the magnum opus of M. Stolypin’s political life. And he followed it up with a step more extraordinary and decisive still. He himself had recourse to the Autocratic power which it is the tendency of his policy to annihilate, and he used it for the purpose of destroying Autocracy. That surely was a coup de maître which entitled the Minister to the undying gratitude of all Liberal Russia. But not a Liberal uttered a word of thanks. This deadly blow was struck at the Autocracy in the following way:
"The Electoral Law opened the portals of the Duma chiefly to Democrats and other irreconcilable enemies of the Monarchy, and so long as it remained in force, no Duma acceptable to the Government was possible. Yet it could not be abrogated. For, together with the Organic Statutes, it had been declared part of the unchangeable Constitution. The Tsar’s hands, therefore, were tied, his word was pledged, and the result was a deadlock. Autocratic power could not be wielded anew without effecting a perilous coup d'état. Well, the Premier advised the Crown to seize once more the sword of the Autocracy, and with it to hew off the branch on which the Autocrat was sitting. That was the true significance of the measure against which the enemies of the Autocracy still cry out. For the object directly aimed at and immediately attained by this coup d'état was the creation of the Octobrist Party, whose first work in the Duma was to declare that the Autocracy had gone forever."
_E. J. Dillon, Foreign Affairs (Contemporary Renew, January, 1908)._
RUSSIA: A. D. 1907 (November). Treaty with Great Britain, France, Germany, and Norway, guaranteeing the Integrity of Norway.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1907-1908.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1907-1909. Action in Persia during the Constitutional Revolution.
See (in this Volume) PERSIA.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1908. Evasion of the Conscription.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1908.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1908. North Sea and Baltic Agreements.
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1908.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1908. Proxy Parliamentary Vote given to Women of Property.
See (in this Volume) ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1908. Policy of Prussia in her Polish Provinces dictated by her relations to Russia.
See (in this Volume) GERMANY: A. D. 1908 (JANUARY).
RUSSIA: A. D. 1908 (September). Withdrawal from Intervention in Macedonia.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1908 (JULY-DECEMBER).
RUSSIA: A. D. 1908-1909. Attitude toward the Austrian Annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Was the Government coerced by German Threats?
See (in this Volume) EUROPE: A. D. 1908-1909 (OCTOBER-MARCH).
RUSSIA: A. D. 1908-1909. Exercise of Disputed Authority in Northern Manchuria. The Kharbin question.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1909 (MAY).
RUSSIA: A. D. 1908-1909. Measures for the Destruction of the Constitutional Autonomy of Finland.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1908-1909.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1909. Oppressions continued. Executions, Imprisonment, Exile, Torture, Persecution.
On the 1st of August, 1909, a letter was addressed to the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs by one hundred and eighty men of distinction in Great Britain,—Members of Parliament, Peers, Bishops and other clergymen, University professors, authors, editors,—asking the Government to exert such influence as might be possible with that of Russia, to induce a relaxation of the system of repression still maintained in that unhappy country, and to ameliorate the dreadful barbarities which go with imprisonment there. "We know," said these memorialists, "how slow has been our own progress in the past, and how many points in our present condition are open to independent criticism. We are conscious of the difficulties that attend all reforms, and we desire that no feeling of impatience should cause us to withhold our sympathy from every sincere attempt to promote good government among a friendly people.
"It is in no spirit of ungenerous remonstrance that we are constrained to observe that for four years a system of repression has been maintained in Russia, which has not relaxed its severity though the evidences of any organized revolutionary movement have dwindled and disappeared. There has recently been an announcement of some relaxation in particular districts, but the greater portion of the Empire remains, in time of peace, under some form of martial law. The number of capital sentences on civilians for the period between October, 1905, and December, 1908, has reached 4,002, and the number of executions was officially stated to be 2,118. These sentences were passed, moreover, not by ordinary civil process, but by exceptional military Courts. The number of persons in exile in Siberia and Northern Russia, mostly punished without trial by administrative process, under a system of exile, which involves much physical suffering and privation, was officially reckoned in October last at 74,000.
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"The number of persons exiled without trial under administrative decree cannot be realized without a serious protest, but the evidence which has reached us through the Press, from trustworthy witnesses, and above all from the reports of the debates in the Duma, has persuaded us that the sufferings of those who remain in prison justify, nay, require, a stronger remonstrance. Over 180,000 persons—a total which has more than doubled since 1905—criminals and political offenders, are crowded together in prisons built to hold 107,000. In most of these prisons epidemic diseases, and especially typhus, are prevalent; the sick and the whole lie together—their fetters even in cases of fever are not removed. In some prisons the warders systematically beat and maltreat the sick and the whole alike. There is also evidence of more deliberate tortures, employed to punish the defiant or to extract confession from the suspect.
"Such excesses would move our indignation were all the victims ordinary criminals. We desire to base our protest on the ground of simple humanity; but it is none the less important to remember that many of these prisoners, if guilty at all, are suffering for acts or words which in any constitutional country would be lawful, or even praiseworthy.
"Our object in addressing you is to draw your attention to these facts and to place on record the impression which we have formed of them. That no direct intervention is possible we fully realize, nor do we wish to enlarge the area of international controversy. But there are probably means by which a friendly Government may exert an influence to ameliorate the lot of those who are suffering under the evils which we have described. The infliction of such wrongs upon Russians and the indignation which they excite among ourselves, are relevant and important factors in our mutual relations, of which the two Governments should be fully informed."
Later and more specific facts, illustrative of the arbitrary and barbarous oppression under which the Russian people are still suffering, were given in The Outlook of October 9, 1909, from which the following is taken:
"In the first seven months of 1909 military courts sentenced 841 persons to death in Russia and up to the 1st of August 381 of the persons so sentenced had been hanged or shot. Nearly all were civil or political offenders, who, in a constitutional country, would have been tried with proper legal forms and guarantees in the regular civil tribunals. In these same seven months the publishers of 109 periodicals in Russia were fined in the aggregate sum of 54,425 rubles for publishing news or expressing opinions obnoxious to the Government, and in addition to these pecuniary punishments whole editions of papers and magazines were seized and destroyed, printing offices were closed, editors were arrested and employees were exiled—all by administrative process. In the month of June, 1909, three newspapers were suppressed altogether, and in August, 1909, the St. Petersburg journal Reitch (Speech), the organ of the Constitutional Democrats, was fined 500 rubles for printing a signed article entitled ‘Suicide in the Army,’ which was based wholly on reports of the Ministry of War.
"On the 28th of May, 1909, Mr. Selden, a St. Petersburg publisher, was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment in a fortress for publishing one of Count Tolstoy’s books, and on the 17th of August, 1909, the Count’s private secretary, Mr. N. N. Gusef, was exiled by administrative process to the province of Perm for distributing the venerable author’s brochure entitled ‘Thou Shalt Do No Murder.’ In July, 1909, Mr. W. Bogoras, author of Volume eleven of the Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History (one of the Volumes containing the scientific results of the Jessup North Pacific Expedition), was sentenced to two months' imprisonment for describing the beating of citizens of Tver by dragoons in 1905, a thing that he had personally witnessed. …
"In August, 1909, the ‘Authors’ and Scientists’ Mutual Benefit Society,’ a benevolent organization which had been in existence for eighteen years, which had eight hundred members, and which included most of the writers and scholars of Russia, was suppressed by order of Premier Stolypin, for the ostensible reason that it had given pecuniary aid to an indigent author named Vitashefski—a man of advanced age who had once, twenty years earlier, been sent to Siberia for political crime. It is believed, however, that the real reason for the suppression of the Society is the fact that most of its members are liberals. The existing Government is extremely intolerant toward social organizations that take an independent or critical attitude toward the reactionary policy now in force. On the 21st of July, 1909, the severest form of martial law, the so-called ‘law of extraordinary defense,’ was proclaimed in St. Petersburg for the seventh consecutive time. The city has been under some form of martial law ever since the assassination of Alexander II. in 1881. Almost the only encouraging feature of the present situation in Russia is the fact that the members of the Duma are still allowed to talk, and the newspapers are still permitted to publish verbatim reports of the debates. The lower house of the so-called Parliament has no independent power, and no real control even over the finances of the Empire; but it can criticise, interpellate the Czar’s Ministers, and promote to some extent the political education of the people.
"Three years ago Premier Stolypin defined his policy as ‘progressive reform, with the restoration of order.’ He has partly restored order, by hanging, imprisoning, or exiling to Siberia a large part of the disorderly population; but his reforms have ‘progressed’ as the land-crab is popularly supposed to walk—backward. Whether he is wholly to blame for the reactionary policy that he is enforcing, or whether he acts more or less under compulsion, we shall not know, perhaps, until he retires from office and follows the example of General Kuropatkin and General Linevitch by writing his memoirs."
On the trial, in May, of M. Selden, for publishing and distributing Count Tolstoi’s pamphlets, "Thou shalt not Kill," "A Letter to Liberals," "Christianity and Patriotism," the venerable writer addressed a note to the court, challenging the prosecution of himself, instead of the publisher. "As these pamphlets," he wrote, "were written by me and published by one of my friends, not only with my consent but at my desire, M. Selden taking a purely passive part in the affair, all the measures which are being taken against M. Selden should logically and in equity be directed against me, especially because I have repeatedly declared, and now declare again, that I consider it my duty to my conscience to disseminate, so far as lies in my power, the pamphlets in question as well as my other works, and shall continue doing so as long as I am able. I feel constrained to inform you of this, and ask you to take whatever measures may devolve from my present statement."
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But the magistrate did not venture to institute proceedings against the principal in the offense, and the Government took no notice of the challenge.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1909. Revived Censorship of the Press. Its Stupidity. Gains for Free Speech notwithstanding.
"At the present time, the liberties granted less than four years ago are mutilated. The censor is busy once more. The Russian journalist is again compelled to practice the arts of half-meaning, insinuation, and innuendo, which made his predecessors of a generation ago marvels of subtle expression. But that is only when a writer would say everything he wants to say. Undoubtedly, the range of the permissible has grown immensely since the early days of even Nicholas II. To write of labor wars, of conspiracies, of constitutional liberties, Russian newspapers need no longer confine themselves to telegraphic reports of foreign strikes, conspiracies, and constitutions. They need only print what the radicals in the Duma utter. Not even the full Duma’s reports may be privileged at present, but, after all, the Russian censor is a stupid fellow. The censorship, like the autocracy in general, is inefficient, spasmodic, allowing to-day what it prohibited yesterday, or even allowing in one column what it strikes out from another. St. Petersburg and Moscow in 1890 had eleven daily papers, and twenty weeklies. In 1900 the number had risen to twenty-four dailies and thirty-three weeklies. In all Russia there were then 287 periodical publications. In August, 1905, the number had risen to 1,630, of which St. Petersburg alone had 534. There were fifty daily papers at St. Petersburg and twenty-five at Moscow in those short days of freedom, when the pent-up speech of ages burst out in Russia. This, of course, was inflation. Periodicals were born and died with the rising and setting of the sun. The numerical strength of the press must be far smaller now. But much that was gained for freedom of speech in those stormy days has not been lost."
_New York Evening Post, March 23, 1909._
RUSSIA: A. D. 1909 (January-July). Dark Secrets of the Russian Police and Spy System brought to Light.
The first in a series of startling disclosures of the dark secrets of the Russian espionage and police system was made in January, 1909, when it came to public knowledge that the head and front of the Revolutionary Socialists of the Empire, one Azeff by name, had been discovered by his associates to be a secret agent of the police; had been tried and condemned by a tribunal of their party, at Paris, and had escaped into some hiding place, with avenging emissaries in pursuit, to take his life. A little later it appeared that a former Director of the Police in the Department of the Russian Ministry of the Interior, M. Lopukhin, had been arrested for treason, on the charge of having betrayed Azeff to the Revolutionists, by making known to them the double part that the latter played, as a so-called agent provocateur, drawing them into criminal plots of which he kept the police informed.
The preliminary trial of Lopukhin occurred in April, and it was stated in the indictment then published that Azeff had penetrated into the very centre of the Social Revolutionary machinations, and that part of his great services to the Secret Police were rendered during the period that M. Lopukhin occupied the post of Director of the Police Department in the Ministry of the Interior—i.e., from May, 1902, to March, 1905. It was affirmed that M. Lopukhin not only knew of the existence and activity of Azeff, but met the latter more than once both at his (M. Lopukhin's) house and at one of the conspiratorial headquarters in St. Petersburg. The indictment paid a warm tribute to Azeff’s ability in so long maintaining his connexion with the police without awakening the suspicions of the Social Revolutionaries as to his true character. It was eventually remarked, however, that the plots in which Azeff was concerned invariably failed, whereas many of the others succeeded, and accusations of treachery began to be levelled against him. In October, 1908, a commission of inquiry was appointed by the Social Revolutionaries in Paris to inquire into the charges brought against Azeff. Burtzeff, editor of a revolutionary organ, stated before this tribunal that he had seen M. Lopukhin, who had informed him of Azeff’s relations with the Russian police.
M. Lopukhin, on his trial, admitted having given this information to Burtzeff, but explained that it was in consequence of what the latter had told him of the revolutionist designs, including a pending plot against the life of the Tsar. He then felt it his duty to unmask Azeff, lest the murders which might otherwise have followed should lie on his conscience, and when the revolutionaries came to him for confirmation of what he had told Burtzeff he found it impossible to retract his words. He was convicted, however, on the 13th of May, and sentenced to five years of imprisonment at hard labor, with the loss of civil rights. The sentence was mitigated subsequently, and he was sent to exile at Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, his family being allowed to accompany him.
Prince Urussoff, whose bold speech in the First Duma on the instigation of massacres is quoted from above (A. D. 1906), is a brother-in-law of M. Lopukhin, and derived from him, no doubt, the information on which he spoke.
In July, a new disclosure of the character of the Russian secret service police was made, as revolting as that in the Azeff case. A personage known as M. Harting, chief of that Russian service in Paris, and so favorably regarded in the French capital that he was about to be made an officer of the Legion of Honor, was discovered to have been the leader of a plot to assassinate the Tsar Alexander III. in 1890, during that monarch’s visit to Paris; that he then bore the name of Landesen; that he had escaped arrest and was condemned by default to imprisonment for five years; that he subsequently, under the new name, secured secret service employment in the Russian police. All this was quickly proved to be fact by the French Government, and officially announced.
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RUSSIA: A. D. 1909 (April). The Agrarian Law.
On the basis of the decree relative to the communes which is partly described above (see A. D. 1906), a law was brought into force by the Government in 1906, known as the law of November 9, which supposedly was provisional and subject to ultimate ratification by the Duma. Writing of it in the New York Evening Post of May 28, 1909, S. N. Harper says:
"This law of November 9 aims directly at the destruction of the commune. Before this law a two-thirds vote of the commune was necessary for the granting of the petition of a member to divide out. Now a local police official, whom by the way another project of reform abolishes as irresponsible and a source of abuse, can override the vote of a commune and grant the petition. A peasant who divides out receives that portion which he is using if there has been no redistribution for twenty-four years. If there has been a redistribution within twenty-four years, he receives what he would receive on the basis of a new redistribution—what this would be is again decided by the official. As we saw, no equitable reckoning is possible here.
"The peasant can sell this land which he receives from the commune, for it is now his private property. In one province which I visited this summer, in over one-half of the cases of dividing out the peasant had sold his land immediately—usually to the village ‘fist’—the prosperous village usurer and boss who holds his neighbors in his fist."
The law was operative for more than two years before it received the sanction of the Duma, in April, 1909. Of the parliamentary enactment then given to it the above writer says:
"The outcome of the debates was certain. It had been secured by the change of the electoral law for the third Duma, whereby the landed gentry had been given the predominant vote. … No more important than the vote of this assembly is the attitude of the country at large toward this law. The landed gentry are naturally for this measure. The village system is a source of danger to them. The law will establish ‘peasant’ landlords, whose interests will be much the same as theirs. But the peasants have shown quite plainly their hostile attitude toward this law. Only those peasants who are economically provided for and those who, for one reason or another, have become mere hangers-on of the local police officials are in favor of the law. It is these that have taken advantage of the law, with the support of the local official. But they have done so in spite of the protest of the other peasants, only their economic position making it possible, and their friend the official has not been able to prevent, therefore, the other peasants from giving a violent character to their protest. Those who have insisted on dividing out have in many instances been burned out the next week."
RUSSIA: A. D. 1909 (April-July). Advance of Russian Troops into Persia.
See (in this Volume) PERSIA: A. D. 1908-1909.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1909 (May). New Russo-Chinese Agreement, establishing Municipalities on the Line of the Chinese Eastern Railway.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1909 (MAY).
RUSSIA: A. D. 1909 (June). "Dreadnought" building.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR: NAVAL: RUSSIAN.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1909 (June). Stringent Orthodoxy of the Tsar.
A Press despatch from St. Petersburg, June 4, 1909, reported:
"Premier Stolypin spoke in the Duma to-day in defence of the government’s draft of a law dealing with the matter of changing from one faith to another and against the modifications removing all restrictions introduced in committee. He said that the Emperor, as head of the Orthodox Church, could not suffer backsliding from the orthodox to non-Christian beliefs, and that if such amendments were incorporated the bill would be vetoed. Continuing he defined the relations between church and state. He conceded that the church enjoyed full independence in matters of creed and dogma, but insisted on state control. The speech was a brilliant effort, but it fell upon cold ears, and brought out no applause. The premier, for the first time in the history of the third Duma, found himself fighting for a lost cause before an adverse house."
RUSSIA: A. D. 1909 (October-November). Differing Accounts of Political Conditions, of the work of the Duma, and of the Disposition of the Government.
The last weeks of 1909 brought from observers in Russia quite differing impressions and representations of the existing political conditions. Late in October a St. Petersburg correspondent of The Evening Post, New York, wrote:
"Stolypin has given Russia a packed Duma, the predominant party in which is elected by 130,000 rural gentry, who were unable to get many more than a dozen members into the first two Dumas. As might have been expected, this Duma has done nothing for Russia. Its Land law has not been accepted by the peasantry, its Religions law remains a dead letter, because, according to the premier, the Tsar refuses to sign it. There will be a deficit of about one hundred million in the new budget, and the country is faced by bankruptcy.
"But, to return to the Duma, it has been proved during the last session that the people have no control over the purse, thanks to a ‘rule’ made by Count Witte before the meeting of the first Legislature. This ‘rule’ says that if the Duma and the Council of Empire fail to agree on the budget, then the figures of the former year’s budget remain in force. As the Council of Empire (or Russian upper house) must always have a reactionary and bureaucratic majority, the Duma has no control of the national expenditure and never can have. This was brought home very forcibly to the lower house during the last session, when a humble suggestion which it made about including a sum of 350 million rubles in the extraordinary expenditure account was rejected by the Council of Empire, which thus taught the Duma that it has no control over even the most important loan operations. When the Duma (with the strong approval of even such conservative papers as the Novoe Vremya) refused to sanction the naval budget until the notoriously corrupt Ministry of Marine—the ministry accountable for Tsushima—had been reformed, the government laughed at it, and got the necessary money over the deputies’ heads."
Two weeks later than the above another St. Petersburg correspondent was writing to London:
"To judge from to-day’s proceedings the present session of the Duma bids fair to surpass the most sanguine hopes. Having disposed of the last of the Agrarian Bills and of the First Offenders Act, the Duma began the debate on the Bill reforming the local Courts. This measure represents the foundation of all political reform in Russia.
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"The Duma Committee, after 35 sittings, adopted a proposal considerably extending the scope of the Government Bill besides providing for the re-establishment of elective justices of the peace, introduced in 1804, but repealed in 1889 in favour of the arbitrary jurisdiction of the Communal Court and the Zemsky Natchalnik--both long ago discredited institutions. Just as the Agrarian reforms are calculated to promote the private ownership of land and respect for the rights of property, so the reform of the local Courts will inculcate respect for the law.
"The details of the Bill may possibly give rise to differences with the Government and the Upper House, but its substantial features will be doubtless retained in the ultimate form which will receive the Imperial sanction."
The writer of this had communicated to his journal, a few days previously, the following report of an interview with "a leading member of the Government," and apparently gave credit to the sentiment it expressed. Said the Minister interviewed:
"You ask me what are the Government’s intentions regarding Poland. I can only repeat what I said before the Joint Commission on the Polish Municipal Reform Bill, which is to be laid before the Duma. We have decided to give Poland the full benefits of local government consistent with the interests of the Empire, but not autonomy. We cannot trust the Poles to that extent. We shall introduce a Bill creating a separate province of Holm, where the great majority of the population is of Russian stock, and extend to it the system of mixed Russian and Polish Zemstvos to be introduced in the south-western provinces.
"I am satisfied with the progress of agrarian reform. You have seen from the speech of M. Krivoshein in the Duma that one million peasant households (about 5,000,000 souls) have already abandoned the communal system.
"The continuance of executions is, I know, a source of criticism. You know that the Emperor has given orders that death sentences should be confirmed only in the worst cases. Unhappily, I know of no constitutional method for putting down revolution. Russia is so vast. It has taken a long time to bring all the guilty to trial. I am also criticized for the arbitrary acts of our local authorities, but, I ask you, does the Government derive any interest from these arbitrary acts?
"Political reforms? Yes, they have been delayed. But what, for instance, is the good of hurrying through a Bill on the liberty of the person until we have first reformed the local Courts?
"You have heard and read the statements that the Octobrists have quarrelled with the Government; you have also been told that Russia is on the eve of a reaction. Believe neither. The Octobrists are taking a more advanced position. That is as it should be. It is better for the Duma and by no means disagreeable to the Government."
RUSSIA: A. D. 1909 (December). Assassination of the Chief of the Secret Police.
On the 22d of December Colonel Karpoff, Chief of the Secret Police, was killed by an infernal machine at a suburban lodging occupied by a certain Voskresensky, who is supposed to be a revolutionary and a police spy like Azeff.
----------RUSSIA: End--------
RUSSO-CHINESE BANK.
See (in this Volume) CHINA: A. D. 1901-1902.
RUTHERFORD, Professor Ernest.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE, RECENT: RADIUM; also NOBEL PRIZES.
RYAN, Thomas F.: Investing in a Concession in the Congo State.
See (in this Volume) CONGO STATE: A. D. 1906-1909.
RYAN, Thomas F.: Purchase of Controlling Stock of Equitable Life Assurance Society.
See (in this Volume) INSURANCE, LIFE.
RYAN, Thomas F.: Sale of interests to Morgan & Co.
See (in this Volume) FINANCE AND TRADE: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909-1910.
S.
SADR AZAM, The.
See (in this Volume) PERSIA: A. D. 1905-1907.
SAGASTA, Praxedes Mateo: Prime Minister of Spain. His Death.
See (in this Volume) SPAIN: A. D. 1901-1904.
SAGE FOUNDATION, The: For the Improvement of Social and Living Conditions in the United States.
See (in this Volume) SOCIAL BETTERMENT: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1907.
SAGE, Mrs. Russell: Gift to Yale University.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1910.
ST. GOTHARD RAILWAY: Acquisition by the Swiss Government.
See (in this Volume) RAILWAYS: SWITZERLAND.
ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI: A. D. 1900-1904. The Unearthing of Thievery and Corruption by Attorney Folk. Prosecutions, Confessions and Convictions.
See (in this Volume) MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT.
ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI: A. D. 1904. The Louisiana Purchase Exposition.
Except the World’s Columbian Exposition at Chicago, in 1893, the most important of the industrial exhibitions that have been organized in America was that of 1904, at St. Louis, which commemorated the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase from France. The Exposition was opened on the 30th of April and closed December 1st. An estimated total of $44,500,000 was expended upon it in structures and management, of which sum about $22,000,000 was raised by the Exposition Company. The remainder was the expenditure of governments, Federal, State and Foreign, and of concessionaires. The total attendance, from first to last, was 18,741,073. The receipts fell far short of the expenditure, and subscribers to the undertaking can have had no returns; but the public gain from it was very great. About sixty foreign countries and colonies and nearly every State and Territory of the Union were represented in the exhibits.
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A distinguished feature of the Exposition was the remarkable number and character of the gatherings, international and national, that were brought about in connection with it. The most notable of these was the International Congress of Arts and Sciences, which opened September 19th. "This Congress," said President Nicholas Murray Butler, of Columbia University, in an article describing its plan, "is not such a series of gatherings as took place at Chicago and at Paris, but is rather a carefully elaborated plan to educate public opinion, and the world of scholarship itself, to an appreciation of the underlying unity of knowledge and the necessary inter-dependence of the host of specialties that have sprung up during the past century. … For participation in this congress there will assemble a large body of the world’s greatest scholars. They will come from all parts of the world to contribute surveys of their several departments of knowledge, planning those surveys so as to emphasize the mutual relations of all the separate arts and sciences."
ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI: A. D. 1904. Meeting of the Interparliamentary Union.
See (in this Volume) WAR: THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1904-1909.
ST. MARK’S CATHEDRAL, at Venice: Fall of the Campanile.
See (in this Volume) VENICE: A. D. 1902.
ST. PETERSBURG: DISTURBANCES IN.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA.
ST. PIERRE: Volcanic Destruction of the City.
See (in this Volume) VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS: WEST INDIES.
ST. VINCENT ISLAND: Volcanic Eruption of La Souffrière.
See (in this Volume) VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS: WEST INDIES.
SAKHAROFF, General: Assassination of.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1904-1905.
SAKURAI, Lieutenant Tadayoshi, The story of.
See (in this Volume) JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905 (MAY-JANUARY).
SALISBURY, Lord Robert Cecil, Marquis of: Resignation of the Premiership in the British Government.
See (in this Volume) ENGLAND: A. D. 1902 (JULY).
SALONIKA: A. D. 1903. Dynamite Explosion by Insurgents.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1902-1903.
SALONIKA: A. D. 1903. Center of the "Young Turk" organization.
See (in this Volume) TURKEY: A. D. 1908 (JULY-DECEMBER), and after.
SALOON QUESTION.
See (in this Volume) ALCOHOL PROBLEM.
SALT TRUST, Dissolution of the.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1906.
SALTON SEA, The.
At a point not far from where it runs into Mexican territory the Colorado River, for a long recent period, has been deflected by bordering sand deposits from a great depression in the neighboring desert, known as the Salton Sink. In 1901 an irrigation company began works for supplying water from the Colorado to lands in that vicinity, and seems to have taken no proper precautions for controlling the flow through its canals. The result was a break through the sand hills, into the Salton Sink, which converted it for the time being into the "Salton Sea,"—so described in all accounts of the catastrophe. For nearly two years the flood of the Colorado was poured into the Sink, forming a sea or lake which covered an area of about 400 square miles. It was not until February, 1907, that the combined exertions of the Southern Pacific Railway Company, the California Development Co. (whose works produced the trouble) and the engineers of the United States Reclamation Service, succeeded in returning the Colorado to the channel it had escaped from. Since that was done evaporation has been steadily emptying the Sink, at the rate of five or six feet annually, according to the Chief of the Weather Bureau, which has maintained a station there. At the end of a year of observations he was reported as saying: "We will get the data we want within another year probably and then we can cut off the Salton Sea station. The evaporation data we expect to obtain will be valuable for calculations on irrigation works and reservoirs."
SALVADOR.
See (in this Volume) CENTRAL AMERICA.
SAM, Theresias Simon: President.
See (in this Volume) HAITI: A. D. 1902.
SANBORN, Judge Walter H.: Opinion in Suit for the Dissolution of the Standard Oil Company.
See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL, &C.: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1906-1909.
SANTIAGO, Chile: First Pan-American Scientific Congress.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE AND INVENTION: INTERNATIONAL CONGRESSES.
SAN DOMINGO: A. D. 1901-1905. Financial Conditions. Dissipation of Revenues.
"Many years ago the government, being unable to raise money on ordinary security, adopted the practice of vesting the power of collection in its creditors. Duties are settled in pagarés, or promissory notes, duly indorsed, and payable usually in a month or two months. In order to secure loans, these pagarés were handed over to the creditor, who collected the money directly from the importer or exporter. This expedient, which was designed to protect the creditor against the government itself as well as against its enemies, was in vogue when the government in 1888 sought financial relief in Europe. Such relief was obtained from Westendorp & Company, bankers, of Amsterdam, who in that year underwrote and issued, at 83½ per cent., 6 per cent. gold bonds of the Dominican government to the amount of £770,000 sterling, the government creating a first lien on all its customs revenues, and authorizing the Westendorps to collect and receive at the custom-houses all the customs revenues of the republic. Under this contract, which was ratified by the Dominican Congress, the Westendorps created in Santo Domingo an establishment, commonly called the ‘Regie,’ which collected the duties directly from the importer and exporter and disbursed them, the Westendorps sending out from Europe the necessary agents and employees. It was further stipulated that the Westendorps should, in case of necessity, have the right to constitute a European commission, which it was understood was to be international in character. The power of collection and disbursement was exercised by the Westendorps down to 1893, when it was transferred to the San Domingo Improvement Company, of New York, which continued to exercise it till January, 1901, when the company was, by an arbitrary executive decree issued by President Jimenez, excluded from its function of collecting the revenues, though its employees were permitted to remain in the custom-houses till the end of the year.
{583}
"As an assurance to the foreign creditor, whose legal security was thus destroyed, Jimenez constituted in the same decree a ‘Commission of Honorables,’ with whom the sums due to foreign creditors, including the American companies, were to be deposited; but their capacity as depositaries was not destined to be tested. Late in 1901, it became known that out of the reported revenues of the year, amounting to $2,126,453, the percentages for the domestic debt had not been set aside, and that no payment had been made on the floating interior debt, but that the Jimenez ‘revolutionary’ claims had been paid without previous warrant of law, and that there existed a deficit. Since that time, with the exception of comparatively small amounts, nothing whatever has been paid to the foreign creditor. The omission, however, has not been due to lack of revenues. It has been due to conditions which, if all the debts of the republic were with one stroke wiped out, would continue to prevent the government from meeting its ordinary expenses. The revenues have been seized and dissipated by the government and its enemies in ‘war expenses,’ and in the payment of 'asignaciones' and ‘revolutionary claims.’ … That foreign governments will stand by and permit such conditions to continue cannot be expected. They have already manifested their desire to intervene."
_John Bassett Moore, Santo Domingo and the United States (American Review of Reviews, March, 1905)._
SAN DOMINGO: A. D. 1901-1906. Participation in Second and Third International Conferences of American Republics.
See (in this Volume) AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
SAN DOMINGO: A. D. 1904-1907. Years of almost Incessant Disorder and repeated Revolutions. Jimenez, Vasques, Wos y Gil, Morales and Caceres in succession at the Head of Government. Menace from the Creditors of the Republic. Appeal to the United States. American Treaty. President Roosevelt on the Situation.
The assassination of President Heureaux and the election of President Jimenez are related in Volume VI. of this work (see DOMINICAN REPUBLIC). Jimenez’s rule was not long, and he gave way to a provisional government, under General Vasques, which was upset by a revolt that broke out in March, 1903, and which planted General Wos y Gil so obviously in power that his Government was recognized by the United States in October. But the rapidly revolving wheel of political events seems to have soon whirled Wos y Gil out and brought Jimenez back, to be tossed into private life again in 1904 by General Carlos F. Morales, of whom Mr. Sigimund Krausz gave a most favorable account in The Outlook, of September 17, 1904. "The common idea," said Mr. Krausz, "that the population of Santo Domingo consists exclusively of a horde of savages, and that the generals and politicians causing the kaleidoscopic sequence of revolutions are of the same class, and, without exception, uneducated brutes and degenerates, is quite erroneous, and has been created for the sake of sensationalism, largely by journalists and magazine writers without personal knowledge of Dominican conditions, or by native exiles who, naturally, are always enemies of the party in power. … While it is true that the vast majority of the Dominican people in the interior of the island live in a fearful state of ignorance, superstition, and even barbarism, caused by many decades of internal warfare, there is, however, also a class of natives who certainly ought not to be thrown in the same pot with them. These are the better citizens of the capital and the larger coast towns, among whom are many intelligent and educated men who had the advantage of fairly good schools and intercourse with foreigners. Among this class are a number who have received all or part of their education abroad, who speak two or three languages, and who, in their social intercourse and manners, may safely be pronounced gentlemen. They follow the occupations of merchants, planters, lawyers, physicians, etc., and while, as a rule, they keep aloof from politics, it is from their strata of society that spring most of the military and political leaders of Santo Domingo. There are few of these men who, by their appearance, betray the strain of negro blood in them, and the type is hardly distinguishable from that of Latin-Americans in general.
"Carlos M. Morales belongs to the better class of Dominicans mentioned before, masters French, English, and Spanish fluently, and has the advantage of an ecclesiastical education in a seminary of Santo Domingo City. He was, in fact, for eight years a priest, before disagreement with various dogmas of the Church and the desire to take an active part in the political affairs of his country induced him to throw aside the cassock. He is a close student of West Indian conditions, and well acquainted with the affairs of the world in general. While being an ardent admirer of the United States and its institutions, and sincerely desiring its political friendship, he is at the same time the strongest opponent of any policy that would tend to make Santo Domingo a political dependency of Uncle Sam, either in the form of annexation or a protectorate."
Morales was soon beset with claims from insistent foreign creditors, on account of debts which his predecessors had incurred, and which they had left nothing to satisfy. Several European governments were threatening forcible measures to secure payment for their subjects, and Morales asked for help from the United States. The situation and its outcome were reported subsequently to Congress by President Roosevelt, as follows:
"The conditions in Santo Domingo have for a number of years grown from bad to worse until a year ago all society was on the verge of dissolution. Fortunately, just at this time a ruler sprang up in Santo Domingo, who, with his colleagues, saw the dangers threatening their country and appealed to the friendship of the only great and powerful neighbor who possessed the power, and as they hoped also the will, to help them. There was imminent danger of foreign intervention. The previous rulers of Santo Domingo had recklessly incurred debts, and owing to her internal disorders she had ceased to be able to provide means of paying the debts. The patience of her foreign creditors had become exhausted, and at least two foreign nations were on the point of intervention, and were only prevented from intervening by the unofficial assurance of this Government that it would itself strive to help Santo Domingo in her hour of need. {584} In the case of one of these nations, only the actual opening of negotiations to this end by our Government prevented the seizure of territory in Santo Domingo by a European power. Of the debts incurred some were just, while some were not of a character which really renders it obligatory on, or proper for, Santo Domingo to pay them in full. But she could not pay any of them unless some stability was assured her Government and people.
"Accordingly the Executive Department of our Government negotiated a treaty under which we are to try to help the Dominican people to straighten out their finances. This treaty is pending before the Senate. In the meantime a temporary arrangement has been made which will last until the Senate has had time to take action upon the treaty. Under this arrangement the Dominican Government has appointed Americans to all the important positions in the customs service, and they are seeing to the honest collection of the revenues, turning over 45 per cent to the Government for running expenses and putting the other 55 per cent into a safe depositary for equitable division in case the treaty shall be ratified, among the various creditors, whether European or American. …
"Under the course taken, stability and order and all the benefits of peace are at last coming to Santo Domingo, danger of foreign intervention has been suspended, and there is at last a prospect that all creditors will get justice, no more and no less. If the arrangement is terminated by the failure of the treaty chaos will follow; and if chaos follows, sooner or later this Government may be involved in serious difficulties with foreign governments over the island, or else may be forced itself to intervene in the island in some unpleasant fashion. Under the proposed treaty the independence of the island is scrupulously respected, the danger of violation of the Monroe Doctrine by the intervention of foreign powers vanishes, and the interference of our Government is minimized, so that we shall only act in conjunction with the Santo Domingo authorities to secure the proper administration of the customs, and therefore to secure the payment of just debts and to secure the Dominican Government against demands for unjust debts. The proposed method will give the people of Santo Domingo the same chance to move onward and upward which we have already given to the people of Cuba. It will be doubly to our discredit as a nation if we fail to take advantage of this chance; for it will be of damage to ourselves, and it will be of incalculable damage to Santo Domingo."
_President’s Message to Congress, December 5, 1905._
Twenty days after the above was sent to Congress President Morales was a fugitive from his capital, expelled by a sudden revolutionary movement in which Vice-President Caceres and most of the Morales Cabinet appear to have taken a leading part. Some fighting occurred; but the Morales forces were beaten decisively in the first week of January, 1906, and their General, Rodrigues, was killed. Morales, wounded, sought protection at the American Legation and resigned the Presidency, January 12. Caceres succeeded to the office, and a treaty of peace between the contending parties was signed on the 17th, on board an United States vessel of war. The new Government of San Domingo adhered to the arrangement made by Morales with the United States.
As ratified ultimately, in the spring of 1907, by the United States Senate and the Dominican Congress, the treaty provided for the conversion of the embarrassed republic’s debt and the floating of a new issue of bonds, through the agency of a firm of New York bankers which had undertaken the management of the affair; while the Government of the United States, by its agents, was to continue its supervision of the collection of revenue.
SAN DOMINGO: A. D. 1905-1907. The American Receivership of Dominican Revenues. The Modus Vivendi of 1905 and the Treaty of 1907. The working of the Arrangement.
"By the modus vivendi of March 31, 1905, it was provided that until the Dominican Congress and the Senate of the United States should act upon the convention of February 7, 1905, the President of the Dominican Republic, on the nomination of the President of the United States, should appoint a person to receive the revenues of all the custom-houses of the Republic. Of the net revenues collected, 45 per cent was to be turned over to the Dominican Government, and used in administrative expenses. The remainder, less the expenses of collection, was to be deposited in a bank in New York to be designated by the President of the United States, and to remain there for the benefit of all creditors of the Republic, Dominican as well as foreign, and not to be withdrawn before the Dominican Congress and the Senate of the United States should have acted upon the convention then pending. During the operation of the modus vivendi all payments were to be suspended, without, however, in any way interfering with or changing the substantial rights of creditors. This modus vivendi went into effect on April 1, 1905. Under the receivership created by this modus vivendi there has been collected, to August 31, 1907, $7,183,397.56. Of this amount 45 per cent was turned over to the Dominican Government, and $3,318,946.97, to bear interest while on deposit, has been remitted to New York. This is in striking contrast with the results of the customs operations of former years, when, having control of the entire revenues of the Republic, the Dominican Government had not only been unable to pay its current expenses, but found its apparent public debt increased at an average rate of almost $1,000,000 a year for some thirty odd years. The convention between the United States and the Dominican Republic, signed at Santo Domingo City on February 8, 1907, was transmitted to the United States Senate on February 19, 1907, by the President, for ratification, and was ratified on the 25th of the same month. After formal ratification by the President of the United States and the Dominican Republic, ratifications were exchanged July 8, 1907, and formal proclamation made by the President on the 25th of the same month. Regulations have been drawn up for the application of its provisions. The treaty sets forth that the debts of the Dominican Republic amount to more than $30,000,000, nominal or face value, which have been scaled down by a conditional adjustment and agreement to some $17,000,000, including interest, in the payment of which the Government has requested the assistance of the United States. {585} The latter agrees to give this assistance subject to certain conditions set out in the treaty, the principal among which are
(a) the President of the United States shall appoint the general receiver of the Dominican customs and his assistants; and
(b) that the Dominican Government shall provide by law for the payment to such general receiver of all the customs duties of the Republic.
The money collected is to be applied as follows:
(1) To paying the expenses of the receivership;
(2) to the payment of interest on bonds issued by the Dominican Government in connection with the settlement of its debts;
(3) to the payment of the annual sums provided for amortization of said bonds, including interest upon all bonds held in the sinking fund;
(4) to the purchase and cancellation or the retirement and cancellation, pursuant to the terms thereof, of any of said bonds as may be directed by the Dominican Government, and
(5) the remainder to be paid to the Dominican Government.
On the 1st day of each calendar month the sum of $100,000 is to be paid over by the receiver to the fiscal agent of the loan, and the remaining collection of the last preceding month paid over to the Dominican Government, or applied to the sinking fund for the purchase or redemption of bonds, as the Dominican Government shall direct. Should the revenues thus collected exceed $3,000,000 for any one year, one-half of the surplus is to be applied to the sinking fund for the redemption of bonds."
_Report of the Chief of the Bureau of Insular Affairs, October 31, 1907 (Abridgment, Message and Documents, 1907, page 797)._
----------SAN DOMINGO: End--------
SAN FRANCISCO: A. D. 1901-1909. Water Supply. The Hetch Hetchy Project.
"Under this name is designated a plan for obtaining a water supply for the city of San Francisco from the head waters of the Tuolumne River in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The Hetch Hetchy Valley is one of the most widely known regions of the high Sierras, second only to Yosemite in scenic interest. It is formed by a widening of the gorge of the Tuolumne River, about 30 miles westerly from the crest of the Sierras. It is thus described in the United States Geological Survey, 21st Annual Report.
"‘The valley proper is about three and one-half miles long and of a width varying from one-quarter to three-quarters of a mile. The rugged granite walls, crowned with spires and upon battlements, seem to rise almost perpendicular upon all sides to a height of 2500 feet above this beautiful emerald meadow.
"‘The Tuolumne River leaves this valley in a very narrow granite gorge, the sides of which rise precipitously for 800 or more feet, thus providing naturally a most favorable site for a masonry dam.’ As the result of exhaustive investigations, in 1901, having reference to the procuring of an adequate water supply for the City of San Francisco, that city, through its proper officers, selected, surveyed, filed upon and made application for the reservoir rights of way in the Hetch Hetchy Valley and Lake Eleanor, which lie within the reservation known as Yosemite National Park. These reservoir sites were recognized and surveyed as such by the United States Geological Survey, in 1891, and the survey filings and application were made in conformity with the act of Congress of February 15, 1901, relating to rights of way through certain parks, reservations and other public lands.
"Lake Eleanor is situated 136 miles east of San Francisco on the west slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It is about 300 acres in extent and lies in a broad, flat valley enclosed by precipitous walls of granite, narrowing at the lower end of the valley. It is 4,700 feet above sea level and receives the direct drainage from 83 square miles, and by a diverting canal 6 miles long from 103 square miles additional of uninhabitable mountain slopes which reach an altitude of 11,000 feet, and receive a mean annual precipitation of from 40 to 50 inches, most of which is snow. About a mile and a quarter below the lake, the valley closes into a granite walled gorge and offers an excellent site and material for a dam. …
"Hetch Hetchy reservoir (site) is about 140 miles from San Francisco on the main fork of the Tuolumne River and is about 3,700 feet above sea level. It receives the drainage from 452 square miles of the uninhabitable slopes of the Sierra Nevada, reaching to elevations of over 13,000 feet. …
"The Hetch Hetchy project proposes to conduct the water liberated from these reservoirs by way of the gorge of the Tuolumne River 16 miles and thence by canals, tunnels and pipes."
_Frederick H. Clark, Head of History Department, Lowell High School._
The application of the City to the United States Government for the Lake Eleanor and Hetch Hetchy reservoir sites was denied, in the first instance (1903), by the Secretary of the Interior, the Honorable A. E. Hitchcock, but subsequently granted, on a reopening of the case and a rehearing, by Secretary James R. Garfield, in whose decision, rendered May 11, 1908, the considerations for and against the proposed use of these famous seats of natural beauty and sublimity were discussed at length and concluded to have the greater weight in favor of the application.
One stipulation made by Secretary Garfield was that within two years the City should submit the question of water supply to the vote of its citizens, as contemplated in its Charter. This was done on November 11, 1908, and the voters of San Francisco, notwithstanding the strenuous efforts of the private water company, recorded their approval of the Hetch Hetchy Project by the overwhelming vote of 34,950 for, to 5708 against the proposition. At the same election a sale of municipal bonds to the amount of $600,000 was authorized in order to enable the City to proceed to perfect its titles. These bonds have been sold and at this date (June, 1909) the acquisition of the required land is under way.
Almost passionate protests and pleadings against this use of the beautiful Hetch Hetchy Valley have been uttered by John Muir, the word-painter of "The Mountains of California," and many earnest voices from all parts of the country have been joined to his in the expostulation. Mr. Muir writes: "It is impossible to overestimate the value of wild mountains and mountain temples. They are the greatest of our natural resources, God's best gifts; but none, however high and holy, is beyond reach of the spoiler. These temple destroyers, devotees of ravaging commercialism, seem to have a perfect contempt for Nature, and instead of lifting their eyes to the mountains, lift them to dams and town skyscrapers. Dam Hetch Hetchy! As well dam for water-tanks the people’s cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man.
{586}
"Excepting only Yosemite, Hetch Hetchy is the most attractive and wonderful valley within the bounds of the great Yosemite National Park and the best of all the campgrounds. People are now flocking to it in ever-increasing numbers for health and recreation of body and mind. Though the walls are less sublime in height than those of Yosemite, its groves, gardens, and broad spacious meadows are more beautiful and picturesque. It is many years since sheep and cattle were pastured in it, and the vegetation now shows scarce a trace of their ravages. Last year in October I visited the valley with Mr. William Keith, the artist. He wandered about from view to view, enchanted, made thirty-eight sketches, and enthusiastically declared that in varied picturesque beauty Hetch Hetchy greatly surpassed Yosemite. It is one of God’s best gifts, and ought to be faithfully guarded."
When this work went to press, in May, 1910, Secretary Ballinger was giving hearings on the question of revoking the permit to San Francisco.
SAN FRANCISCO: A. D. 1901 1909. The Struggle with Political Corruption.
See (in this Volume) MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: SAN FRANCISCO.
SAN FRANCISCO: A. D. 1902. The Chinese Highbinder Associations. Report of the Industrial Commission on their Criminal and Dangerous Character.
"Investigations made under the directions of the Industrial Commission reveal the dangerous importance to be attached to the existence of the so-called associations of ‘highbinders’ among the Chinese population of San Francisco. It is variously estimated that of the total number of Chinese in that city, amounting to 25,000 or 30,000, there are about 1,000 members of the highbinder associations who represent the worst class of criminals. Many of them have been compelled to flee from their native country on account of crimes committed there. They are organized under the semblance of benefit societies, but for the purpose of blackmail and violation of the immigration laws. They impose fines arbitrarily upon the hard-working and prosperous Chinese, and enforce their decrees through criminal violence and even assassination. They nullify the judgment of American courts through their own secret tribunals and their paid assassins; they make a business of bringing to the United States slave girls and coolie laborers, and through their system of intimidation it is difficult, and often impossible, to secure witnesses who will testify to the truth. It is generally believed by those who have given attention to this matter, that if the country could be rid of this criminal class of Chinese, and the highbinders societies be permanently suppressed, one of the greatest factors in the commission of fraud in the administration of the Chinese exclusion laws would be eliminated. An eminent authority asserts that fully 75 per cent of all the frauds committed at the present time against the exclusion law can be traced directly to the highbinder associations. So perfect is the organization of these societies, and so thorough their reign of terrorism, that the efforts of the authorities to suppress them have never been successful. The only thing which they fear above all others, holding it in greater dread than our laws, our courts, and jails, is deportation to China. The only decisive remedy in that case is legislation through Congress, which should render aliens who are members of such societies, or any society having for its purpose the commission of crime or the violation of our laws, liable to deportation. What is true of the highbinders of San Francisco is probably true also of certain anarchistic societies which are recruited from Europe."
Final Report (1902) of the Industrial Commission, page 1009.
SAN FRANCISCO: A. D. 1906. The Earthquake Shock of April 18, 1906. The Geological Explanation. Stupendous Destruction by Fire following the Earth Tremor. Conditions produced by the Fire. Relief Measures.
"On the morning of April 18, 1906, the coastal region of Middle California was shaken by an earthquake of unusual severity. The time of the shock and its duration varied slightly in different localities, depending upon their position with reference to the seat of the disturbance in the earth’s crust; but in general the time of the occurrence may be stated to be 5h 12m A. M., Pacific standard time, or the time of the meridian of longitude 120° west of Greenwich; and the sensible duration of the shock was about one minute.
"The shock was violent in the region about the Bay of San Francisco, and with few exceptions inspired all who felt it with alarm and consternation. In the cities many people were injured or killed, and in some cases persons became mentally deranged, as a result of the disasters which immediately ensued from the commotion of the earth. The manifestations of the earthquake were numerous and varied. … Springs were affected either temporarily or permanently, some being diminished, others increased in flow. Landslides were caused on steep slopes, and on the bottom lands of the streams the soft alluvium was in many places caused to crack and to lurch, producing often very considerable deformations of the surface. This deformation of the soil was an important cause of damage and wreckage of buildings situated in such tracts. Railway tracks were buckled and broken. In timbered areas in the zone of maximum disturbance many large trees were thrown to the ground and in some cases they were snapped off above the ground.
"The most disastrous of the effects of the earthquake were the breaking out of fires and, at the same time, the destruction of the pipe systems which supplied the water necessary to combat them. Such fires caused the destruction of a large portion of San Francisco, as all the world knows; and they also intensified the calamity due to the earthquake at Santa Rosa and Fort Bragg. The degree of intensity with which the earthquake made itself felt by these various manifestations diminished with the distance from the seat of disturbance, and at the more remote points near the limits of its sensibility it was perceived only by a feeble vibration of buildings during a brief period.
{587}
"The area over which the shock was perceptible to the senses extends from Coos Bay, Oregon, on the north, to Los Angeles on the south, a distance of about 730 miles; and easterly as far as Winnemucca, Nevada, a distance of about 300 miles from the coast. The territory thus affected has an extent, inland from the coast, of probably 175,000 square miles. If we assume that (he sea-bottom to the west of the coast was similarly affected, which is very probably true, the total area which was caused to vibrate to such an extent as to be perceptible to the senses was 372,700 square miles. Beyond the limits at which the vibrations were sufficiently sharp to appeal to the senses, earth waves were propagated entirely around the globe and were recorded instrumentally at all the more important seismological stations in civilized countries.
"Various manifestations of the earthquake above cited, including the cracking and deformation of the soil and incoherent surface formations, were the results of the earth jar, or commotion of the earth’s crust. The cause of the earthquake, as will be more fully set forth in the body of this report, was the sudden rupture of the earth's crust along a line or lines extending from the vicinity of Point Delgada to a point in San Benito County near San Juan; a distance in a nearly straight course, of about 270 miles. For a distance of 190 miles from Point Arena to San Juan, the fissure formed by this rupture is known to be practically continuous. Beyond Point Arena it passes out to sea, so that its continuity with the similar crack near Point Delgada is open to doubt; and the latter may possibly be an independent, tho associated, rupture parallel to the main one south of Point Arena. It is most probable, however, that there is but one continuous rupture. The course of the fissure for the 190 miles thru which it has been followed is nearly straight, with a bearing of from North 30° to 40° West, but with a slight general curvature, the concavity being toward the. northeast, and minor local curvatures. The fissure for the extent indicated follows the old line of seismic disturbance which extends thru California from Humboldt County to San Benito County, and thence southerly obliquely across the Coast Ranges thru the Tejon Pass and the Cajon Pass into the Colorado Desert."
Report of the California State Earthquake Investigation Commission, Volume 1, pages 1-2.
SAN FRANCISCO: The Great Conflagration.
General Frederick Funston, commanding the United States troops at San Francisco, lost no time in ordering them out for service in the emergency, and his report gives many interesting particulars of the struggle with outbreaking and spreading fires, in which they took an heroic part.
"By 9 A. M.," he wrote, "the various fires were merging into one great conflagration, and were approaching the Palace Hotel, Grand Hotel, Call Building, Emporium, and other large buildings from the south. … By the morning of the 19th the fire had destroyed the main portion of the wholesale and retail section of the city, and was actively burning on a line from about the corner of Montgomery avenue and Montgomery street southwest on an irregular line to Van Ness avenue at Golden Gate avenue. … The progress of the fire was very slow. It averaged not more than one block in two hours. … By the night of the 19th about 250,000 people or more must have been encamped or sleeping out in the open in the various military reservations, parks, and open spaces of the city.
"On the night of the 19th, when the fire reached Van Ness avenue, Colonel Charles Morris, Artillery Corps, in command of the troops in that portion of the city, authorized Captain Le Vert Coleman to destroy a number of buildings far enough ahead of the fire to make a clearing along Broadway, Franklin and Gough streets, which space the fire was unable to bridge, and in this manner was stopped after it had crossed Van Ness avenue and the fire department seemed powerless. It is my opinion that if it had not been for the work done at this place the entire Western Addition of the city would have been destroyed.
"By the morning of the 20th the Western Addition, as that part of the city lying west of Van Ness avenue is called, was considered safe, except from the danger arising from a very threatening conflagration working along the slopes of Russian Hill toward that part of Van Ness avenue lying north of Broadway. All day of the 20th an heroic fight was made by the soldiers, sailors, firemen, and citizens to stop this fire, which had a frontage of about half a mile, and was working its way slowly against the wind. A number of buildings were destroyed here by high explosives, and back firing was resorted to. The fight, at this place was greatly aided by water pumped from the bay at Fort Mason. …
"By the most tremendous exertions the flames were prevented from crossing Van Ness avenue between that port (Fort Mason) and the point where they had once crossed and been fought out. By the morning of the 21st the Western Addition was considered safe, and the advancing flames south from the Mission district had been stayed; but a rising wind caused the fire to turn northeastward from Russian Hill and destroy a portion of the city along the bay shore that had hitherto been spared."
Of the work of dynamiting that was done, mainly by the soldiers, Major General A. W. Greeley, in a special report, says: "The authority for demolitions was in every case derived from the Mayor or his representatives. During all of the 18th and until the afternoon of the 19th the city authorities withheld their permission to blow up any buildings, except those in immediate contact with others already ablaze. Consequently, although we were able to check the fire at certain points, it outflanked us time and again, and all our work had to be begun over in front of the fire. … By [afternoon of April 19th] the Mayor gave permission to take more drastic measures to stop the fire."
SAN FRANCISCO: After the Fire.
Of conditions after the fire General Greeley gives a vivid description, partly as follows:
"On April 18 this was a city of 500,000 inhabitants, the commercial emporium of the Pacific coast, a great industrial and manufacturing center, adorned with magnificent buildings, equipped with extensive local transportation, provided with the most sanitary appliances, and having an abundant water supply. On April 21 these triumphs of human effort, this center of civilization, had become a scene of indescribable desolation, more than 200,000 residents having fled from the burnt district alone, leaving several hundred dead under its smoldering ashes. …
{588}
"The burnt area covered 3,400 acres, as against 2,100 in Chicago and 50 in Boston. … Even buildings spared by the fire were damaged as to chimneys, so that all food of the entire city was cooked over camp fires in the open streets.
"Two hundred and twenty-five thousand people were not only homeless, losing homes and all personal property, but also were deprived of their means of present sustenance and future livelihood. Food, water, shelter, clothing, medicines, and sewerage were all lacking. Failing even for drinking purposes, water had to be brought long distances. Every large bakery was destroyed or interrupted. While milk and country produce were plentiful in the suburbs, local transportation was entirely interrupted so that even people of great wealth could obtain food only by charity or public relief."
SAN FRANCISCO: Loss of Life and Property.
General Greeley "gives the loss of life in San Francisco, including some who subsequently died from injuries received, as 304 known and 194 unknown. In addition, 415 persons were seriously injured. Estimates of the value of property destroyed made up from the reports of settlements by the insurance companies are given as follows in Best’s Special Report on San Francisco Losses and Settlement, published in New York, February 25, 1907:
‘The total loss to insurance institutions throughout the world was from $220,000,000 to $225,000,000. It is probable that the sound value of the property represented by this loss was nearly or quite $100,000,000 greater than the last named figure, so that this conflagration takes rank as the largest in history in point of values destroyed. The loss fell on 243 insurance institutions, plus those foreign companies (twenty or more in number) which have made no report to us.’"
SAN FRANCISCO: Maintenance of Order.
"After the arrival of state troops ordered into service by the governor of California, five separate organizations were maintaining order in San Francisco—the municipal police, the national guard of California, the United States navy, citizens’ committees, and the United States army. Under this multiplied control it was inevitable that some clashes of authority should occur, and that citizens should at times feel hampered by excess of regulation. ‘It bears testimony,’ says General Greeley, ‘to the judgment and forbearance of the personnel enforcing order and to the sensible, law-abiding qualities of the people of San Francisco, that during such prolonged and desperate condition of affairs there should have been but nine deaths by violence. All killed were men, and four of the cases have been the subject of investigation under the civil law.’
SAN FRANCISCO: Relief Measures.
"Invaluable service of relief was rendered by the railway companies, the Southern Pacific, under the personal direction of President E. T. Harriman, and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, giving free transportation over their lines from April 18th to the 26th, and affording every possible facility for the forwarding of relief supplies. The ferries and suburban lines did the same.
"Food, clothing and tents furnished by Pacific coast cities began to pour in, followed quickly by similar supplies from more distant points and by the War Department of the United States under special appropriation promptly made by Congress. The proper handling and distribution of these vast quantities of material and the control of the refugee camps that filled the public parks devolved upon the military authorities. Relief service was promptly systematized by the army officers, ably assisted after the opening week by Dr. Edward T. Devine, special representative of the National Red Cross. After July 2 the army was withdrawn from the refugee camps and the relief work passed under the control of the Red Cross and citizens’ organizations. Mr. J. D. Phelan of San Francisco, chairman of the Finance Committee of the Relief and Red Cross Funds, thus commends the services of the army in its management of the relief operations: ‘As citizens we feel that the army in time of peace has demonstrated its efficiency and usefulness as it has in our days of trouble signalized its splendid qualities on the field of battle.’
SAN FRANCISCO: Behavior of the People.
"General A. W. Greeley in his special report thus characterizes the behavior of the people of San Francisco.
‘It is safe to say that nearly 200,000 persons were brought to a state of complete destitution, beyond the clothing they wore or carried in their arms. The majority of the community was reduced from conditions of comfort to dependence upon public charity, yet in all my experiences I have never seen a woman in tears, nor heard a man whining over his losses. Besides this spirit of cheerful courage, they exhibited qualities of resourcefulness and self-respect which must command the admiration of the world. Within two months the bread line, which at first exceeded 300,000, was reduced to a comparative handful—less than 5 per cent. of the original number.’"
_Frederick H. Clark, Head of History Department, Lowell High School._
SAN FRANCISCO: A. D. 1906. Segregation of Oriental Children in Public Schools. Resentment of Japanese.
See (in this Volume) RACE PROBLEMS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1904-1909.
SAN FRANCISCO: A. D. 1906 (April-October). During and after the Suppression of Saloons.
See (in this Volume) ALCOHOL PROBLEM: CASUAL OCCURRENCES.
SAN FRANCISCO: A. D. 1906-1909. The Rebuilding of the Shattered and Burned City. Improvements in the Reconstruction.
"The great fire of April, 1906, practically obliterated the business section of San Francisco. Vast heaps of brick and stone and iron beams, twisted and bent, filled the area where the great hotels, banks and mercantile establishments, wholesale and retail, had stood. The opportunity to correct original errors and to make improvements in the ground plan of this portion of the city was at once recognized. People said to one another: ‘ London, Chicago, and Baltimore have bitterly regretted, since their great fires, that they did not improve their streets. Are we to fail to take advantage of their mistakes?’ A Citizens’ Committee on Reconstruction was appointed; many valuable suggestions were brought together; and an expert engineer was directed to study the plans and make practical estimates of the cost of the more important improvements. A set of most commendable changes was thus brought to the point of authoritative adoption. These changes included, particularly, the widening of streets needed for main thoroughfares, extension of a few main streets so as to facilitate the distribution of traffic, the extension of shipping facilities along the water front, and improving the thoroughfares leading thereto. The opportunity of making these improvements while the whole area was destitute of buildings was, of course, never likely to recur.
{589}
"At this point the whole matter came to a standstill. It was the misfortune of San Francisco at this critical moment to be under a municipal administration, wholly incompetent and corrupt. Private enterprise was strained to the utmost in the effort to recover from the great losses, and from the want of governmental initiative, all projects of municipal improvement failed for the time. Under a reformed city-government after 1907, a great deal of municipal work was undertaken which will be indicated below.
"Rebuilding of private structures is a wonderful record of courage, energy and resourcefulness. The first stage was the rushing up of temporary wooden structures,—any sort of a building that would afford shelter and permit the resumption of business. For the most part the lumber yards of San Francisco were untouched by the fire, and thus the city had a considerable stock of material for immediate operations. Van Ness Avenue and other former residence streets were soon lined with one-story wooden buildings over which appeared the well-known names of down-town firms.
"The second stage in reconstruction was the removal of the ruins left by earthquake and fire. The business section of the former city was constructed mainly of brick. Whether from ignorance or prejudice the former building laws of San Francisco did not permit the use of concrete except for floors and foundations. Only a few of the more recently constructed buildings were of steel. Thus the first great problem was presented by the standing brick walls.
"For a few days the use of dynamite for the overthrow of standing walls was permitted, and in this way much additional damage was done to buildings not wholly ruined by the earthquake and fire. Subsequently it was found to be far more systematic and advantageous as well as safer to pull down the standing walls by means of wire cables and stationary engines. Pulling down old walls became for a time a trade in itself.
"Thousands of men found employment in cleaning the old bricks and stacking them up for use in rebuilding. For the removal of the vast quantities of debris,—twisted pipe and beams, broken brick and crumbled plaster, temporary railways were constructed over the level down-town district, and elaborate plans were made for a wholesale business by steam transportation. There was trouble over loading facilities, however, and the greater quantity was carried away by two horse dump-wagons, the material being used for filling in low lands along the water front and elsewhere. All California felt the demand for horses and wagons that this great work created.
"Immediately after the fire the work of revising the building laws was taken up. Fortunately this task received the intelligent guidance of a citizens’ committee composed of local builders, architects and engineers. The building regulations were rescued from their contradictions and confusion, and a clear, systematic ordinance was secured. The most notable forward step was the authorization of reinforced concrete buildings.
"Architects and engineers interested in the problems of reconstruction organized a ‘Structural Association’ as a clearing-house for improved building methods. The utmost pains were taken to study the effects of the earthquake and the conflagration in order to secure every possible advantage from the lessons inculcated. The results of this study may be summarized as follows.
"Steel frame buildings (Class A) were perfectly able to resist the effects of earthquake shock of the severity of the disturbance of 1906, and when properly protected, to endure the test of conflagration as well. Concrete, both plain and reinforced, rose rapidly in favor as structural material. Opinion as to the continued use of brick in construction was divided, but on account of the need of brick in the cheaper buildings, there was no tendency toward its falling into disuse. Wired glass, that is, plate glass in which a mesh of fine wire netting is embedded has been brought into favor, the idea being that when this glass is subjected to great heat it may crack, but will not fall.
"Along with the improved methods of construction, the rebuilding of office and business structures afforded an opportunity of modernizing them. Merchants went so far as to form a ‘Down-Town Association’ which held weekly meetings for the purpose of studying the problems of rehabilitation and of taking advantage of every suggestion for improvement. The new buildings have been perfected in lighting and sanitation and in exterior finish and interior arrangements have been brought up to the standard of the world’s best types. Thus the business district of the new city has been made immeasurably superior in durability, cleanliness and appearance, to what it was before the fire.
"The amount of reconstruction that has been done is shown in the following table taken from the San Francisco Chronicle of April 18, 1909, which summarizes the work done in three years. The table was compiled from the municipal records.
"Private building operations, April 18, 1906 to April 18, 1909:
Number. Cost.
Class A 82 $19,391,982
Class B 109 8,042,831
Class C 1,369 42,416,072
Frame 12,352 50,962,813
Alterations 6,334 9,528,310
Total $130,344,008
"Class A buildings having steel frames; stone, brick or concrete facing, fire-proof floors. Completely fire-proof.
"Class B buildings of reinforced concrete, brick or stone, with steel beams entering into the main walls, fire-proof.
"Class C brick, stone or concrete buildings with floors and floor-framework of wood.
"As the actual cost usually exceeds the estimate that goes into the public record by about 15 per cent. it would be proper to estimate the cost of all this construction at $150,000,000. Of this amount it is estimated that less than $10,000,000 has been furnished from outside of San Francisco,—local capital having proven itself sufficient for this vast work. Within this same period the public service corporations have expended nearly $20,000,000 in reconstruction,—the greatest work being the practical rebuilding of the street-car lines. For municipal reconstruction the city has repaved nearly all of the business streets and has voted bonds for $18,200,000. From the funds thus provided permanent improvements of great importance are now (August, 1909) in progress.
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"The election authorizing the sale of bonds was held on May 11, 1908. The purposes for which these bonds were issued are thus announced by the Public Utilities Committee of the Board of Supervisors:
"‘Fire Protection Bonds, $5,200,000, for the installation of an extensive high pressure water system which will give superior fire protection to the greater part of the thickly built portion of the city, and designed to be the most serviceable of its kind in the world. With this installed it will be almost impossible for a conflagration to ever again visit the city.
"‘Sewer Bonds, $4,000,000, for the construction of a complete sewer system which will discharge the sewage in a manner that will perfectly safeguard the health of the city.
"‘School Bonds, $5,000,000, for the construction of school-houses to the number of more than thirty, replacing those destroyed by fire in April, 1906, and providing sites and additional structures in districts now inadequately supplied.
"‘Hospital Bonds, $2,000,000, for the construction of modern hospitals.
"‘Hall of Justice Bonds, $1,000,000, for the construction of buildings for the police and other departments of the city government.
"‘Garbage System Bonds, $1,000,000, for the construction of modern works for the disposal of the city’s waste in a sanitary manner.
"‘With these improvements the City of San Francisco will be equipped with public works that will insure it a prominent place in the cities of the world in respect to all things that go to make stability and give permanence to the community as a great trade and industrial center.’ The rapid recovery of San Francisco from the losses of the great fire is further shown by the following comparison of values from the Assessors Reports:
Value of Taxable Property.
1905. 1906. 1908.
Real Estate $304,136,185 $237,082,752 $258,642,215 Buildings 97,830,165 50,250,480 90,996,500 Personal Property 122,264,596 88,805,510 103,912,469 Total $524,230,946 $376,138,742 $453,551,184
_Frederick H. Clark, Head of History Department, Lowell High School._
SAN FRANCISCO: A. D. 1908 (July). Visit of the Battleship Fleet.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR: NAVAL.
SANITARY UNDERTAKINGS.
See (in this Volume) PUBLIC HEALTH.
SANTOS-DUMONT, A.
See (in this Volume) SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: AERONAUTICS.
SARRIEN-CLEMENCEAU MINISTRY.
See (in this Volume) FRANCE: A. D. 1906.
SARTO, Giuseppe, Cardinal: Elected Pope.
See (in this Volume) PAPACY: A. D. 1903 (JULY-AUGUST).
SASKATCHEWAN: Organized as a Province of the Dominion of Canada.
See (in this Volume) CANADA: A. D. 1905.
SAXONY: A. D. 1906. Political Reform.
See (in this Volume) ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: GERMANY: A. D. 1906.
SCANDINAVIAN-AMERICAN SOLIDARITY.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION: INTERNATIONAL INTERCHANGES.
SCHMITZ, EUGENE E.
See (in this Volume) MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: SAN FRANCISCO.
SCHOOL CHILDREN, UNDERFED.
See (in this Volume) POVERTY, PROBLEMS OF.
SCHOOL PEACE LEAGUE, The American.
See (in this Volume) WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1908.
SCHOOLS.
See (in this Volume) EDUCATION.
SCHOUVALOFF, COUNT, ASSASSINATION OF.
See (in this Volume) RUSSIA: A. D. 1905 (FEBRUARY-NOVEMBER).
SCHREINER, W. P.: Opposition to Disfranchisement of Colored Natives in South Africa.
See (in this Volume) SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1908-1909.
----------SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: Start--------
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: Aeronautics: The Development of the Aeroplane and the Dirigible Balloon.
To be lifted from the earth by an inflated sack of gas lighter than air, and be drifted with it by the winds, was an interesting experience for a few adventurous people, after the Mongolfiers, in 1783, had found it could be done; but the practical advantages from it were slight, so long as the voyager of the air had no slightest control of his journeying. The possibility of such control only came within the range of inventors’ dreams when motor enginery had been carried far towards the promise of much power with little weight. The promise was half a century behind its fulfilment, however, when Henri Giffard, the notable French engineer, is said to have constructed a balloon which lacked nothing but the adequately light and vigorous motor in order to be as [much a] dirigible as any of the present day. But the needed motor began to take form, and success in the propulsion of balloons on steered courses, with some independence of the winds, began to be realized, in the experiments of Count Zeppelin, in Germany, and of M. Santos-Dumont in France, beginning about 1898.
Before that date, however, invention had been started on bolder lines, seeking independence of the clumsy gas-bag, and striving to mount the air as the bird does, by pushing against it the inclined planes of his wings. Otto Lilienthal, in Germany, began experiments to that end in 1893. He had no motor; but starting from a height, and "making judicious use of the movement of the wind," he accomplished gliding flights of about 1200 feet, and the machines he constructed were suggestive of ideas to the experimenters who followed him. He was killed by a fall in 1896. Many were then working at the problem of aerial flight without the lifting force of light gases. {591} Some studied it scientifically and some attacked it in the rough manner of sheer empiricism. Of the former, in the United States, were Octave Chanute, the engineer, and Professor Samuel P. Langley, the astronomer and physicist of the Smithsonian Institution; in England there was Sir Hiram Maxim. These gentlemen arrived at no practical success in their own experimenting, but they furnished good guidance to the work of their more fortunate successors. A little later the scientific students of the problem were joined by the inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell. And then came the two workers who advanced from empiricism to science in their undertaking, and who won the first great successes by a happy combination of the two.
The brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright have told, in an article contributed to The Century Magazine, how they were stirred to serious interest in the aviation problem in 1896 and began to read what Langley, Chanute, Mouillard and others had written on it. Entering, purely as a sport, on experiments in gliding flight, on Lilienthal’s lines, they became fascinated by the pursuit. From the first they appear to have chosen what is known as the biplane structure for their machines, the invention of which they credit to a previous inventor, Wenham, whose design of it had been improved by Stringfellow and Chanute. To this construction, of two planes, one above the other, for supporting surfaces, they have steadfastly adhered.
At the outset of their experimenting the Wrights found a difficulty in the balancing of "flyers" which previous workers did not seem to have treated seriously enough, and they settled themselves to the conquest of it at once. This and other problems soon carried them from empirical testing into scientific studies, which occupied several years. They found that the accepted measurements of wind pressure, on given plane surfaces exposed at different angles, were unreliable, and they applied themselves to the making and tabulating of measurements of their own. It was not until this work had given them "accurate data for making calculations, and a system of balance effective in winds as well as in calms," as well as the necessary data for designing an effective screw propeller, that they felt themselves prepared "to build a successful power-flyer."
So far, these thorough-going workers at the problems of aviation had been experimenting with a machine designed, as they said, "to be flown as a kite, with a man on board," or without the man, "operating the levers through cords from the ground." Their active experimenting began in October, 1900, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. In 1901 they made the acquaintance of Mr. Chanute, and he spent some weeks with them, observing and encouraging their work. In September and October, they say, "nearly one thousand gliding flights were made, several of which covered distances of over 600 feet. Some, made against a wind of thirty-six miles an hour, gave proof of the effectiveness of the devices for control." Late in 1903 they had reached the point of testing a power-machine, and sailed into the air with it for the first time on the 17th of December in the presence of five lookers-on. "The first flight," they tell us, "lasted only twelve seconds: a flight very modest compared with that of birds; but it was, nevertheless, the first in the history of the world in which a machine carrying a man had raised itself by its own power into the air in free flight, had sailed forward on a level course, without reduction of speed, and had finally landed without being wrecked. The second and third flights were a little longer, and the fourth lasted fifty-nine seconds, covering a distance of 852 feet over the ground against a twenty-mile wind."
In the spring of 1904 the experimenting of the Wright Brothers was transferred from Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, to a prairie not far from their home, at Dayton, Ohio. There they overcame final difficulties in the maintaining of equilibrium when turning their machine in circles of flight; and then, at the end of September, 1905, they suspended experiments for more than two years, which they spent in business negotiations and in the construction of new machines. Their experimenting was not resumed until May, 1908 (again at Kitty Hawk). At this time it was directed to the testing of the ability of their machine to meet the requirements of a contract with the United States Government to furnish a flyer capable of carrying two men and sufficient fuel supplies for a flight of 25 miles, with a speed of forty miles an hour.
Meantime, during the two years of suspended experimenting by the Wrights, other workers in Europe and America had been approaching their successes, so far as to be competitors for the important prizes now offered very plainly for winning in the aviation field. M. Santos-Dumont, turning his attention from dirigible balloons to aeroplanes, had made, at Paris, the first public flight on that side of the ocean; and though he covered no more than 220 yards, it was a long stride in practical success. Henry Farman, Louis Bleriot, M. Delagrange, in France, Glenn H. Curtiss and A. M. Herring, in the United States, were making ready to dispute honors with the Dayton aviators, of whose actual achievements the public knew little, as yet.
On all sides there was readiness for surprising and astonishing the public in 1908. Farman, at Paris, in March, exceeded a flight of two miles; Delagrange, at Milan, in June, covered ten miles, and more; Farman, in July, raised his record to eleven miles, and Delagrange carried his to fifteen and a half in September. The Wrights had made flights that ranged from eleven to twenty-four miles in the fall of 1905; and now, in their renewed trials of 1908, these distances were more than doubled. Wilbur Wright went abroad, to exhibit their machine in France and elsewhere, while Orville, in September, submitted it to official tests at Fort Myer, near Washington. There, on different days in that month, rounding circuits of the parade ground, he made time records of continuous flight that ran from 56 to 74 minutes, travelling estimated distances that stretched in one instance over fifty-one and a third miles. These trials at Fort Myer were interrupted sadly by an accident, from the breaking of a propeller-blade, which caused the machine to drop to the ground while in flight. Lieutenant T. E. Selfridge, U. S. A., who rode with Mr. Wright at the time, was killed, and Mr. Wright suffered a broken leg.
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Wilbur Wright, meantime, was entering on great triumphs in France. At Le Mans, on the 21st of September, he traversed 68 miles in a continuous flight of a little more than an hour and a half. This achievement was far surpassed by him on the 18th of December, when 95 miles were travelled in an hour and fifty-four minutes, and again, on the 31st of December, when the stay in the air was prolonged to two hours, nine minutes and some seconds, and the distance covered was 76½ miles.
These records of the Wrights for time of continuous flight were beaten by a number of European competitors, as will be shown below. Otherwise, the records of 1909 show no very marked advance beyond those of 1908; but the year had excitements in aviation, connected especially with attempted flights over the English Channel. Hubert Latham, a recent French practitioner in aviation, was the first to venture this leap through the air from France to England. His machine was described as being an Antoinette monoplane, designed by M. Levevasseur. He launched it from Calais in the early morning of July 19, and traversed about six miles of the passage when his motor failed and he fell to the water, unhurt, and was rescued by an attendant steamer. Six days after Latham's failure, on the 25th of July, Louis Bleriot, using another monoplane machine, made the crossing with brilliant success, flying from Calais to Dover, 21 miles, in 23 minutes, and winning the prize of £1000 which the Daily Mail, of London, had offered for the performance of the feat. M. Latham then repeated his attempt and was unfortunate again, his motor giving out after it had carried him within two miles of the Dover shore.
Orville Wright, at this time, July 27, was demonstrating at Fort Myer the ability of his aeroplane to carry two persons in a well-sustained flight. With Lieutenant Frank P. Lahm, of the Signal Corps, as a passenger, and having President Taft among his spectators, he made a flight of an hour, twelve minutes and forty seconds, accomplishing upwards of fifty miles at an average speed of forty miles an hour. A day or two afterwards he carried Lieutenant Benjamin D. Foulois over the ten mile course from Fort Myer to Alexandria at a speed of more than forty-two miles an hour.
In the last week of August the first race meeting for heavier-than air flying machines occurred at Rheims, France, and a dozen aviators from France, England and America competed for large prizes in long distance and duration flights. A number of new records was made, and new names acquired note. Louis Paulhan kept the air for two hours and forty-three minutes with a Voisin biplane, covering 83 miles. Hubert Latham surpassed this in distance and speed, making 96 miles in two hours and eighteen minutes; and this again was beaten by Henri Farman, who travelled 118 miles, remaining in the air over three hours. M. Latham used the Antoinette monoplane, and M. Farman a biplane of his own design. Mr. Glenn H. Curtiss won the prize for speed, doing 18 miles in twenty-five minutes and forty-five seconds.
Orville Wright had now gone abroad and his brother had returned to America. In August and September the former gave exhibitions at Berlin, breaking some of his own records, carrying a passenger in his machine for an hour and thirty-five minutes, on the 18th of September, and rising, on the 1st of October, to an unexampled height, believed to have exceeded 1000 feet. This, however, was greatly exceeded in January, 1910, by Hubert Latham, at Mourmelon, France, who rose to 3280 feet, and by Louis Paulhan, at Los Angeles, California, 4165 ft. On the 3d of October the Crown Prince of Germany was his companion in a short flight.
Meantime Wilbur Wright, in America, had endeavored to supply one of the spectacles arranged for the Hudson-Fulton celebration at New York; but the intended programme of aviation was spoiled by forbidding winds. He did, however, make one astonishing flight, on the 4th of October, from Governor’s Island, up the Hudson to Grant’s tomb, and, on his return, passing over the British battle-ships then lying in the river. The distance travelled was about twenty miles and the time of the journey thirty-three minutes and a half. Unfortunately it was unexpected, and was seen by a small part only of the millions who had been watching several days for a flight. On the next day Mr. Wright made the statement that no more public exhibitions would be given by his brother or himself. "Hereafter," he said, "we shall devote all our efforts to the commercial exploitation of our machines, and fly only as a matter of experiment, to test the value of whatever changes we decide to make in the construction."
Turning now back to the development of the motor-propelled and dirigible balloon, we find that field of aeronautics very nearly monopolized at the beginning of the twentieth century, so far as the public saw it, by the Brazilian millionaire, A. Santos-Dumont, who spent his time and his wealth at Paris in ballooning. The French Government had been authorizing army experiments in dirigible ballooning since 1884, and a motor-driven air-ship of that description, designed by Captain Renard, and named "La France," had made a trip from Chalais-Meudon to Paris and return in September, 1885, being the first balloon ever navigated back to its starting point; but not much in the same line to excite public interest appears to have been done in the next sixteen years. Then, on the 19th of October, 1901, a lively stir of interest everywhere was excited by the exploit of Santos-Dumont, in navigating his balloon from St. Cloud to and around the Eiffel Tower and back to the starting point. He had done the same privately three months before, at a very early morning hour of July 12, on which occasion he broke his rudder at an early stage of the journey, descended in the Trocadero Gardens, made repairs and then went on doing the whole round in an hour and six minutes, including the stop.
Expectation, however, that controllable navigation of the air, in average conditions of wind, might really be an approaching and not very distant fact, cannot be said to have had much awakening in the world until the performances, in 1908, of Count Zeppelin’s huge airship, 440 feet in length, called Zeppelin No. IV., which enclosed numerous envelopes of gas in a rigid aluminum frame. On the 2d of July, 1908, he drove this great balloon from Friedrichshafen, on Lake Constance, to Luzerne, 248 miles, within twelve hours. Starting again from Friedrichshafen, August 4, intending a 500 mile trip, he made a lauding at Oppenheim, 260 miles distant, returned thence to Stuttgart, and finally to Echterdingen, where a hurricane storm wrecked his airship completely, causing its motor to explode. Public sympathy with the veteran aeronaut and public faith in his work were so strong that a fund was raised promptly by subscription for the building of another of his costly balloons.
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With this he was ready for new voyages in the spring of 1909, and started from Friedrichshafen on the 30th of May, carrying two engineers and a crew of seven, travelled 456 miles to Bitterfield, where, without landing, he turned back; but landed later near Goeppingen, receiving a slight injury to the balloon in landing by contact with a tree. The whole distance travelled was about 850 miles, in 37 hours. Late in August the Count accomplished a long desired voyage from his headquarters on Lake Constance to Berlin; but was forced to land at Nuremberg for repairs, and again at Bitterfield, disappointing the great crowds which waited at Berlin, till late at night on the 29th, with the Emperor, to welcome his arrival. When he came, the next day, however, the public enthusiasm showed no cooling. "He was received," says a despatch from Berlin, "with all the honours which the Court and capital could pay him, and his triumphal entry into the city this afternoon as the honoured guest of the Emperor, was not merely a dramatic success but a national demonstration." And now, from this glancing survey of achievement thus far in the navigation of the air, with and without help from the levitation of gas, what expectations of further achievement can we reasonably indulge? Here is one answer, from a notably scientific mind,—that of the late Simon Newcomb, the astronomer:
"It would seem that, at the present time, the public is more hopeful of the flying-machine than of the dirigible balloon. The idea that because such a machine has at last been constructed which will carry a man through the air, there is no limit to progress, is a natural one. But to judge of possibilities, we must advert to the distinction already pointed out between obstacles interposed by nature, which cannot be surmounted by any invention, and those which we may hope to overcome by possible mechanical appliances. The mathematical relations between speed, sustaining power, strength of material, efficiency of engine, and other elements of success are fixed and determinate, and cannot be changed except by new scientific discoveries, quite outside the power of the inventor to make. That the gravitation of matter can in any way be annulled seems out of the question. Should any combination of metals or other substances be discovered of many times the stiffness and tensile strength of the fabrics and alloys with which we are now acquainted, then might one element of success be at our command. But, with the metals that we actually have, there is a limit to the weight of an engine with a given driving power, and it may be fairly assumed that this limit is nearly reached in the motors now in use. … Owing to the levity of the air, the supporting surface must have a wide area. We cannot set any exact limit to the necessary spread of sail, because the higher the speed the less the spread required. But, as we increase the speed, we also increase the resistance, and therefore we must have a more powerful and necessarily heavier motor. … Bearing in mind that no limit is to be set to the possible discovery of new laws of nature or new combinations of the chemical elements, it must be understood that I disclaim any positive prediction that men will never fly from place to place at will. The claim I make is that they will not do this until some epoch-making discovery is made of which we have now no conception, and that mere invention has nearly reached its limit. It is very natural to reason that men have done hundreds of things which formerly seemed impossible, and therefore they may fly. But for every one thing seemingly impossible that they have succeeded in doing there are ten which they would like to do but which no one believes that they can do. No one thinks of controlling wind or weather, of making the sun shine when we please, of building a railroad across the Atlantic, of changing the ocean level to suit the purposes of commerce, of building bridges of greater extent than engineers tell us is possible with the strength of the material that we have at command, or of erecting buildings so high that they would be crushed by their own weight. Why are we hopeless as to all these achievements, and yet hopeful that the flying-machine may be the vehicle of the future, which shall transport us more rapidly than a railroad train now does? It is simply because we all have so clear a mental view of the obstacles in the way of reaching such ends as those just enumerated that we do not waste time in attempting to surmount them, and we are hopeful of the flying-machine only because we do not clearly see that the difficulties are of the same nature as those we should encounter in erecting a structure which would not be subject to the laws of mechanics.
"I have said nothing of the possible success of the flying-machine for the purposes of military reconnaissance or any other operations requiring the observer to command a wide view of all that is on the landscape. This is a technical subject which, how great soever may be its national importance, does not affect our daily life."
_Simon Newcomb, The Prospect of Aerial Navigation (North American Review, March, 1908)._
Here is another, from Thomas A. Edison, the inventor:
"In ten years flying machines will be used to carry mails. They will carry passengers, too, and they will go at a speed of 100 miles an hour. There is no doubt of this."
These are the words of Mr. Edison in an interview published in the New York Times, August 1st, 1909. But while he is sure that the "flying machine has got to come," he is not at all sure that it will come along the lines pursued in the present experiments. "The flying problem now consists of 75 per cent. machine and 25 per cent, man," he said, "while to be commercially successful the flying machine must leave little to the peculiar skill of the operator and must be able to go out in all weathers." He continued:
"If I were to build a flying machine I would plan to sustain it by means of a number of rapidly revolving inclined planes, the effect of which would be to raise the machine by compressing the air between the planes and the earth. Such a machine would rise from the ground as a bird does. Then I would drive the machine ahead with a propeller."
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Mr. Edison believes it is a question of power. "Is it not thinkable that a method will be discovered of wirelessly transmitting electrical energy from the earth to the motor of the machine in mid-air?" He asked and answered his own question, saying:—"There is no reason to disbelieve that it can and will be done." He added, however, that there was great room for improvement in explosive engines. "Any day we are likely to read that somebody has made picric acid or something else work—done some little thing that will transform the flying machine from a toy into a commercial success." And when it is perfected, he says, the flying machine may end war by becoming a means of attack that cannot be resisted.
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: Agriculture: Dry Farming in the West.
For twenty consecutive years, in scores of places from the James River to the Arkansas, Mr. H. W. Campbell, of Lincoln, Nebraska, the pioneer "dry farmer" of Arid America, "has been uniformly successful in producing without irrigation the same results that are expected with irrigation, with comparatively little additional expense, but not without a great deal more watchfulness and labor. What Western people have become accustomed to calling the ‘Campbell system of dry farming’ consists simply in the exercise of intelligence, care, patience, and tireless industry. It differs in details from the ‘good-farming’ methods practised and taught at the various agricultural experiment stations; but the underlying principles are the same.
"These principles are two in number. First to keep the surface of the land under cultivation loose and finely pulverized. This forms a soil mulch that permits the rains and melting snows to percolate readily through to the compacted soil beneath; and that at the same time prevents the moisture stored in the ground from being brought to the surface by capillary attraction, to be absorbed by the hot, dry air. The second is to keep the sub-soil finely pulverized and firmly compacted, increasing its water-holding capacity and its capillary attraction and placing it in the best possible physical condition for the germination of seed and the development of plant roots. The ‘dry farmer’ thus stores water not in dams and artificial reservoirs, but right where it can be reached by the roots of growing crops.
"Through these principles, a rainfall of twelve inches can be conserved so effectively that it will produce better results than are usually expected of an annual precipitation of twenty-four inches in humid America. The discoverer and demonstrator of these principles deserves to rank among the greatest of national benefactors."
_John L. Cowan, Dry Farming the Hope of the West (Century Magazine, July, 1906)._
"It is difficult for one who is used to the commonplace methods of tilling the soil which obtained a quarter of a century ago to believe that a new method has been discovered which will triple and quadruple the results of the old system in those parts of the country in which the rainfall is somewhat restricted. The imagination cannot immediately grasp the statement that dry farming methods would lift the Kansas wheat crop from 75,000,000 to 216,000,000 bushels. Yet this is a fact.
"If the mind of the eastern farmer can grasp this tremendous fact he will be ready to credit the statement that there are millions of acres in the western country which were until a few years ago regarded as utterly worthless, but which are now cheap at $25 an acre. To the wheat industry alone of the western country the proved fact of the value of dry farming means more than any other development fact in the agricultural history of this country. What is true of increased yields in dry farming is equally true, and in a larger degree, perhaps, with respect to irrigation. For years the government has been warning the country that the increased production of wheat is not keeping pace with the increased consumption.
"Should this continue it would mean that ere long the United States would be compelled to draw a part of its wheat supply from the Canadian Northwest. It would also mean that the United States would lose the export wheat trade with the Orient, which is bound to increase rapidly. It is not generally known that the 400,000,000 people in China are being educated to the use of wheat and other cereals than rice, and that, therefore, the demand for wheat will continue to increase. …
"One of the facts which Mr. Harriman realized far in advance of any one else and which was an important factor in his transportation plans was the possibilities of dry farming as well as irrigation. Before he began to talk much about these subjects he set about to prepare his system to reap the first and most substantial part of the results of dry farming and of irrigation. Other railroad builders are now beginning to realize that Mr. Harriman is prepared to transport the products of the West, of the Northwest and the Southwest between almost any parts of this country, as well as through many ports from San Francisco to the South Atlantic ports, including one or two on the western coast of Old Mexico. Although he and former President Roosevelt were at war in many respects, it was Mr. Harriman that gave the former President much of the information he acquired regarding the boundless resources of the West. By doing so he caused the government to work even more energetically than it had been working for the conservation of the nation’s resources."
_Chicago Record-Herald, July 11, 1909._
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: Anniversary Celebrations.
The eightieth birthday of Dr. Rudolph Virchow, founder of cellular pathology, was celebrated on the 13th of October, 1901, by a remarkable assemblage of distinguished physicians and surgeons from many countries, who made pilgrimages to Berlin to do him honor.
The centenary of the birth of Charles Darwin, and the semi-centennial year of the publication, in 1859, of his work on "The Origin of Species," were commemorated in every part of the world; but the great collective demonstration of honor to Darwin’s memory, organized by the University of Cambridge, his alma mater, was a tribute of surpassing impressiveness. As described by the London Times, on the opening day of this extraordinary celebration, June 22, 1909, "the whole learned world, from Chile to Japan," was joined in the homage paid. "Some of those who will be present," said The Times, "were his comrades, most of them have been in some measure his working contemporaries. {595} Two hundred and thirty-five universities, academies, and learned bodies at home and abroad have nominated delegates to represent them; and of these 107 are situated in foreign countries and British dominions outside the United Kingdom. Thirty of the most famous institutions in Germany, thirty in the United States, fourteen in France, ten in Austria-Hungary, eight in Italy, as many in Sweden, seven in Russia, and lesser numbers in seven other foreign countries have honoured the occasion by naming some of their most distinguished members to take part in it. The distant seats of learning in the younger British countries have responded with not less cordiality; seven in Canada, seven in Australia, five in New Zealand, and the same number in South Africa have appointed delegates; India and Ceylon are represented by eight. Within the United Kingdom 68 universities and societies are lending their support; and, in addition to the appointed delegates, there are some 200 invited guests, who include men eminent in every walk of life. … No such academic tribute as the present festival has ever been paid to the memory of an individual within so short a time of his own life."
The commemorative exercises of the occasion were continued through three days.
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: Astronomy: The Astronomy of the Invisible.
"The discovery of double and multiple stars from the effects of the gravitational attraction on their luminous components is known as the ‘Astronomy of the Invisible.’ It was first suggested by the illustrious Bessel about 1840. … The greatest extension of the Astronomy of the Invisible has been made by Professor Campbell, of the Lick Observatory. In the course of the regular work on the motion of stars in the line of sight, carried out with a powerful spectroscopic apparatus presented to the Observatory by Honorable D. O. Mills, of New York, he has investigated during the past five years the motion of several hundred of the brighter stars of the northern heavens. … With such unprecedented telescopic power and a degree of precision in the spectrograph which can be safely depended upon, it is not unnatural that some new and striking phenomena should be disclosed. These consisted of a large number of spectra with double lines, which undergo a periodic displacement, showing that the stars in question were in reality double, made up of two components, moving in opposite directions,—one approaching, the other receding from the Earth. There were thus disclosed spectroscopic binary stars, systems with components so close together that they could not be separated in any existing telescope, yet known to be real binary stars by the periodic behaviour of the lines of the spectra so faithfully registered on different days. …
"Campbell’s work at the Lick Observatory derives increased importance from its systematic character, which enables us to draw some general conclusions of the greatest interest. He has thus far made known the results of his study of the spectra of two hundred and eighty of the brighter stars of the northern heavens. Out of this number he finds thirty-one spectroscopic binaries, or one ninth of the whole number of objects studied. … It seems certain that a more thorough study will materially increase the number of spectroscopic binaries; and Professor Campbell thinks one sixth, or even one fifth, of all the objects studied may eventually prove to be binary or multiple systems. Such an extraordinary generalization opens up to our contemplation an entirely new view of the sidereal universe. …