TOM WATSON’S MAGAZINE

THE MAGAZINE WITH A PURPOSE BACK OF IT

May, 1905

Politics and EconomicsThomas E. Watson[257]
Public Ownership in Chicago—A Bitter Attack Upon the South—Remember the Rascals—
Introductory to a Letter from a Boy—An Educational Department—Editorial Comment.
The Lady’s SlipperCyrus Townsend Brady[273]
PopulismCharles Q. De France[305]
Secretary People’s Party National Committee
To Roosevelt[307]
The Regalia of MoneyAlexander Del Mar[308]
The Open Door of the ConstitutionFrederick Upham Adams[312]
To One DepartedBernard P. Bogy[317]
Pole Baker (Chapters IV-VII)Will N. Harben[318]
The Conservative of TodayJohn H. Girdner, M.D.[330]
A Character Study of Byron and BurnsElizabeth Bailey Traylor[333]
The Man With White NailsCaptain W. E. P. French, U.S.A.[336]
Organization and EducationWharton Barker[342]
The Panic of 1893W. S. Morgan[345]
The Cradle of TearsTheodore Dreiser[349]
The Racing TrustThomas B. Fielders[350]
DependenceReginald Wright Kauffman[357]
What Buzz-Saw Morgan Thinks[358]
The Heritage of Maxwell Fair (Chapters VIII-X)Vincent Harper[361]
Money and PricesE. L. Smith[372]
The Say of Reform Editors[373]
News Record[377]
TollJoseph Dana Miller[384]

Application made for entry as Second-Class Matter at
New York (N. Y.) Post Office, March, 1905
Copyright, 1905, in U. S. and Great Britain.
Published by Tom Watson’s Magazine,
121 West 42d Street, N. Y.

TERMS: $1.00 A YEAR; 10 CENTS A NUMBER

TOM WATSON’S MAGAZINE ADVERTISER

How to Overthrow Plutocracy

Several million people in the United States are in substantial accord with the demands of the People’s Party. A majority of all voters would welcome Government Ownership of Railroads and other public utilities. The recent great victory in Chicago for Municipal Ownership demonstrates this fact. What Chicago has done locally can be accomplished in the nation—and WILL be done as soon as the people overcome

Political Inertia

With many the voting habit becomes fixed after one or two elections. The ordinary man keeps on “voting ’er straight” long after he has discovered that his party’s actions are out of joint with his own views. Party “regularity” commands the average man’s support long after he KNOWS his party is headed wrong. Some really great men, even, have placed party “regularity” before principle.

A Great Light

on the correct principle of organization is to be found in that admirable work by George Gordon Hastings,

The First American King

A dashing romance, in which a scientist and a detective of today wake up seventy-five years later to find His Majesty, Imperial and Royal, William I, Emperor of the United States and King of the Empire State of New York, ruling the land, with the real power in the hands of half a dozen huge trusts. Automobiles have been replaced by phaërmobiles; air-ships sail above the surface of the earth; there has been a successful war against Russia; a social revolution is brewing. The book is both an enthralling romance and a serious sociological study, which scourges unmercifully the society and politics of the present time, many of whose brightest stars reappear in the future under thinly disguised names. There are wit and humor and sarcasm galore—a stirring tale of adventure and a charming love story.

Hon. Thomas E. Watson says:

“I read ‘The First American King,’ and found it one of the most interesting books I ever opened. Mr. Hastings has not only presented a profound study of our social and economic conditions, but he has made the story one of fascination. It reminds me at times of Bellamy’s ‘Looking Backward,’ but the story is told with so much more human interest, the situations themselves are so much more dramatic, that it impresses me very much more favorably than any book of that kind I have ever known.”

Interesting as the story is as a romance and as a critical sociological study, one of its vitally important points is

How to Organize

Mr. Hastings says:

“It has been suggested,” continued General Mainwarren, “that a wise course for patriotic leaders of your day would have been to have abandoned the hope of converting and securing the grown voters as a body. It would have been best for them, at a given time, to have said: ‘Beginning from today, we will pay no attention to any male who is more than fifteen years of age and who is now, or within the next six years will be, entitled to a vote. But we will direct all efforts to an entirely new body of suffragists.’ They should then have turned their attention to the women of the land, to the mothers of future generations of voters. It has been said that ‘Every woman is at heart a royalist.’ It could with equal truth be said: ‘Every woman is by nature a politician.’ ... Look at the influence exerted politically by various women of whom history speaks.”

This Is the Key-Note of Success

For fifteen years the People’s Party, in season and out of season, has preached “Equal Rights to All, Special Privileges to None.” It has persistently demanded that government shall attend to public matters, and that private business shall be conducted by individuals with the least possible interference—and absolutely no favoritism—by government. It has continually demanded public ownership and government operation of railroads and other public utilities. It has urged the initiative, referendum and the recall; a scientific money system; the abolition of monopoly in every form. Millions of voters—as the Chicago election clearly indicates—are in accord with the People’s Party; but heretofore the voting habit, the “vote ’er straight” political insanity, has kept them in political slavery.

Educate the Boys

Let us train up a new generation of voters—without diminishing our efforts to break up old party habits—who will have the courage of conviction and correct ideas regarding politics and economics. Let us interest the mothers, so we can have the boys taught to cast their first votes on the side of Justice. Habit will then keep them voting right.

Let Us Begin Now

Mr. Hastings’s book is a thought-provoker. It combines romance with sociology and teaches while entertaining. With “The First American King” and TOM WATSON’S MAGAZINE in another 100,000 homes, our first great step will be taken toward overcoming plutocracy. With this end in view, we have made arrangements whereby we can offer a dollar book, 350 pages, and a dollar magazine one year, 128 pages monthly, both for only $1.50.

Tom Watson’s Magazine and The First American King $1.50

In order to treat all alike, the book will be sent postpaid to any present subscriber of TOM WATSON’S MAGAZINE on receipt of 60 cents. No person not a subscriber can buy “The First American King” of us for a cent less than $1.00. If you have not already subscribed for the magazine, send us $1.50 today for this attractive combination, and expedite the work of building up the People’s Party of the future.

Address all orders to

TOM WATSON’S MAGAZINE, 121 West 42d Street, New York

Tom Watson’s Magazine

Vol. I MAY, 1905 No. 3

Politics and Economics

BY THOMAS E. WATSON

Public Ownership in Chicago

SEVERAL weeks ago, in an interview published in the New York World, I expressed the opinion that the principle of public ownership of public utilities was stronger than any political party.

The recent victory won by it in Chicago makes the truth of that statement apparent.

Here was a city which a few months ago gave the Republican ticket the enormous majority of 60,000. So far as parties are concerned, the Republican Party stands precisely where it stood when Roosevelt won that triumph. So far as the Democratic Party is concerned, it has not budged an inch from the ground which it occupied when it met its Waterloo in the November elections. What is it, then, which gave to the candidate of the minority party a decisive success, so soon after an overwhelming defeat? Evidently, it was the principle which he represented.

The National Democratic Party has never declared itself in favor of public ownership. The National Republican Party has never done so. The People’s Party is the only National organization which has proclaimed and battled for the principle which was involved in the Chicago election.

So far back as 1890 the People’s Party of the state of Georgia, and of other states, grew tired of the deceptive compromise called Public Control; threw it aside as a failure; boldly advanced to the more radical ground of Public Ownership, and formed its line of battle. In spite of abuse, ridicule and defeat, our party has never faltered in its steady advocacy of the principle which at that time met the aggressive opposition of both the Democratic and Republican Parties. In the campaigns made by Mr. Bryan he stood for no such principle as this. In the campaign led by Belmont and Parker and Gorman in 1904 the Democratic Party stood for no such principle as this; nor has the Republican Party ever dared to proclaim itself in favor of such robust radicalism. Therefore, it is folly to say that the victory won in the Chicago election is a Democratic victory. It is misleading to say that this election illustrates the fact that “the Democratic Party always wins when it is Democratic.” The principle of public ownership has never been a part of the political stock in trade of the Democratic Party. Therefore the principle of public ownership of public utilities cannot be classed as Democratic, if we use the term in the partisan sense which attaches to it. The principle of public ownership is Populistic, and it is merely rendering to the pioneers of that movement simple justice when we say that the Chicago election, which wiped out party lines and gave to the people and to the principle a magnificent victory, should redound to the credit of those much-abused and misrepresented men who thirteen years ago unfurled that particular flag and began to fight beneath it.

The people of Chicago evidently grew tired of being plundered; grew ashamed of their own political imbecility; grew ashamed of their own municipal cowardice. Roused to action by a few magnetic leaders who were not afraid and who were not to be sidetracked by hypocritical compromises, they marshaled their strength and demonstrated how easy it is for the masses to throw off the yoke of those who plunder them under forms of law. Nobody ever doubted for a moment that the people of Chicago, in the main, were honest, courageous, public-spirited, but they had submitted so long to the initiative and the domination of a few organized rascals who intrenched themselves in places of power, safeguarded by legislation, that it seemed wellnigh hopeless to expect them ever to revolt. The fact that they have revolted, and have reversed the results achieved at the November election, gives another illustration of what I said in the first issue of this magazine, namely, that the election of 1904, properly construed, was so encouraging to the reformers as to become an inspiration. It was pointed out that the victory of Douglas in Massachusetts, of Folk in Missouri, of La Follette in Wisconsin, each of whom was known as a reformer, could be construed in no other way than that the people were tired of party names, of party traditions, of party machines and party hypocrisy, and were determined to go to the support of any man and any principle which promised them the relief which they so much needed. The triumph of Judge Dunne, the Democrat, following so speedily upon the heels of an adverse vote against Judge Parker, the Democrat, absolutely clinches the truth of what I said, namely, that the only party, the only principle, the only sentiment which grew stronger by the campaign of 1904 was that of radicalism.

Why shouldn’t the lesson of the Chicago election be taken to heart by every great city and every small town in this Republic? If the people of Chicago can turn the rascals out, the people of New York can turn the rascals out, the people of Philadelphia can turn the rascals out. Talk about vested rights and charters which grant monopolies! Nobody wants to confiscate property or violate contracts, no matter how ill-judged those contracts may have been. But we say this: Just as private property was assessed and taken under the principle of Eminent Domain, in order that corporations should construct their railways, their telegraph lines, their telephone lines, so the same principle of Eminent Domain can be applied to return to the people what was taken away from the people. Assess these properties at a fair valuation, pay honestly and fully what they are worth, then take them over for the public to be operated for the benefit of the public. The law of Eminent Domain can be applied to all sorts of property, real and personal, the tangible thing called an acre of ground and the intangible thing called a charter.

Consider this Chicago election in the broad National point of view. How can it give any encouragement to Mr. Roosevelt, who is still tinkering and pottering at the worn-out fabric of Governmental control? How can it give any encouragement to the Democratic Party, which has nothing in its platform which can be twisted into a declaration in favor of that thing which Chicago has just done? So far from being a vindication of the Democratic attitude, as expressed in all of its National platforms, it is a rebuke to the timid, weak-kneed, short-sighted leaders of National Democracy. The vindication is to those men, who, in the years gone by, proclaimed the principles, preached the gospel, scattered the literature, endured the odium, fought the battle, bore the heat and burden of the day, and are now in this late hour looking up, elated, joyful, exultant, happy, that at last the smile of success has rested upon the earnest, untiring efforts which have gone so long without recognition and reward.

The victor in the Chicago election was the great Populist Principle, Public Ownership!

A Bitter Attack Upon the South

Ever since the close of the Civil War there has been a growing sentiment on both sides of Mason and Dixon’s line in favor of mutual forbearance, the purpose being to speed the day when the North and South shall become reconciled.

In the South no speaker will now add to his popularity or influence by reckless abuse of the North.

We had supposed that the North was equally tired of the speaker or writer who puts the torch to sectional prejudice or who wantonly inflicts upon the South a blow which he must realize will arouse angry resentment.

When the last gun was fired at Appomattox, the biggest, bravest, best hearted men on each side united in the effort to stem the tide of sectional hatred and to knit together the bonds of brotherly love.

General Grant, by his magnanimity at the surrender, set a sublime standard.

General Lee, by his noble advice and example, gave the South a lesson whose influence for good cannot be overestimated.

Horace Greeley, when he volunteered to sign the bond of Jefferson Davis, and Senator L. Q. C. Lamar, of Mississippi, when he pronounced a magnificent memorial address upon Charles Sumner in the Senate, were but following the illustrious precedents of Grant and Lee.

Later, there came the mission of Henry Grady and of John B. Gordon, upon the one side, and the conciliatory words and deeds of William McKinley on the other.

Nor should we forget the fine tribute paid to Southern character and courage in the writings of Theodore Roosevelt, who as President has honored the sons of Stonewall Jackson, Jeb Stuart and General Beauregard, and who, in one of his latest appointments, has given preference to General Rosser, the youngest of the Confederate brigadiers.

The battle-scarred veterans of the North have been meeting in memorable reunions the survivors of those who followed Johnston and Forrest and Jackson and Lee; and the most touching and inspiring scenes have been witnessed at these encampments where the South and the North recognized each other’s honesty, valor and generosity, and each section vied with the other in the glorious work of harmonizing the nation.

At the grave of General Grant it was the presence of our Southern soldier, John B. Gordon, which testified to the North the sympathy of the South.

And only a few days ago President Roosevelt inquired diligently into the circumstances of the widowed Mrs. Gordon to know whether or not an appointment as Postmaster for the city of Atlanta would be acceptable to her.

During the Spanish war the South sprang into the ranks under the old flag, at the tap of the drum, and the blood of a Southern boy was the first that was shed in the conflict.

It was the ranking cavalry leader of the expiring Confederacy who steadied the lines before Santiago, prevented a retreat, and brought from Mr. Roosevelt the manly acknowledgment that to General Joseph Wheeler, more than to any other man, was due the fact that we won the victory.

It was a Southern boy who took his life in his hands in the effort to block the Spanish harbor, and worthily earned the title of “The Hero of the Merrimac.”

It is sad to think that all this patriotism may not have made a deep impression upon the country.

It is sad to realize that the work of such men as Alexander H. Stephens, Benjamin H. Hill, Senator Lamar, Thomas Nelson Page and Henry W. Grady has left so much still to be done before that man, North or South, who endeavors to inflame the passions of the sections shall be made to feel that he has excited for himself the contempt and disgust which he deserves.

In a recent issue of the New York Independent comes Albert Bushnell Hart, Professor of History at Harvard University, distilling as much bitterness and gall as ever fell from the lips of John J. Ingalls or Thaddeus Stevens.

He writes an article called “Conditions of the Southern Problem,” and a more thoroughly exaggerated and libelous contribution to public discussion has not been made during the last twenty years.

The average reader will get some idea of the value of Mr. Hart’s conclusions when he comes upon the sober statement that “white mountaineers (of the South) have been known to take their children out of school because the teacher would insist that the world is round.”

Who stuffed Dr. Hart with that old joke?

What credit does he do to himself when he shows to the world that he accepts such worn-out jests as facts?

Does he not know that there are plenty of wags all over the world—even in Pullman cars—who take a delight in playing upon the credulous?

He will meet men who will tell him that in certain backwoods communities “the people don’t know that the war is over,” or he will be told that in some mountain counties “they are still voting for Andrew Jackson.”

But would Professor Hart take such statements for anything but jokes?

Doesn’t he know that the jest about the rural belief that the world is flat instead of round belongs to the same gray-haired family?

Even a professor of history should learn that there is just as great a difference between jokes and facts as there is between facts and jokes.

Professor Hart says that “in a few communities, notably South Carolina, the poor whites have unaccountably discovered that if they will always vote together they always have a majority, and they keep a man of their own type in the United States Senate. In most other states, however, politics is directed by intelligent and honorable men.”

Isn’t this a rippingly reckless arraignment of the entire state of South Carolina? Does the Professor of History at Harvard mean to say that the politics of South Carolina is directed by men less intelligent and honorable than those of “most other states”?

If so, upon what ground does he base the accusation?

As a matter of fact, the poor whites do not control South Carolina. It is the middle class whites who control South Carolina, and who elected Ben Tillman to the United States Senate.

Of course, Professor Hart intended to give Senator Tillman a side-wipe of special vigor, and he did it, striking the whole state at the same time he struck Tillman. But to what extent was the blow deserved? Ben Tillman may, or may not, be an ideal Senator. He may, or may not, be an ideal leader. Opinions differ about that, even in South Carolina.

But why should a Northern writer select a Southern senator and a Southern state to be held up in this insulting manner to public odium? In what respect does Tillman’s record in the Senate, for honesty and ability, compare unfavorably with that of Quay of Pennsylvania, Platt of New York, Aldrich of Rhode Island, or Gorman of Maryland? Each one of those senators has been basely subservient to thievish corporations, and has helped them to fatten on national legislation at the expense of the great body of the people.

Can Dr. Hart say that of Ben Tillman? I defy him to do it.

Dr. Hart asks, “Why should the negro expect protection when the white man is powerless against any personal white enemy who chooses to shoot him down in the street, when not one white murderer in a hundred is punished for his crime?”

Dr. Albert Bushnell Hart is evidently thinking about the case of James Tillman, of South Carolina, who shot down in the street Editor Gonzales, and who was acquitted, on his trial.

By all sane persons it is admitted to be utterly unfair to judge the entire South, or North, by any one case, or by any one crime.

It is useless to argue the guilt or innocence of James Tillman; but we all know that human nature is prejudiced by political feeling; and none will deny that the feud between Tillman and Gonzales was a political feud. The killing was a political killing. In a case like that the action of court and jury will be influenced by political feeling, whether the result be right or wrong.

Has Albert Bushnell Hart never heard of a political feud in any other part of the world than the South, and has he never known political feeling to protect one who was prosecuted for a crime? Has he never known of instances in Northern cities where prisoners at the Bar apparently owed their salvation to secret societies of any sort—or to political pull of any sort?

It has not been so very long since Edward S. Stokes met James Fisk on the staircase, in the Grand Central Hotel, in New York City, and shot him down.

One might think this amounted to about the same thing as the shooting down of a personal enemy on the street.

Fisk died, as Gonzales died. Stokes was tried, as Tillman was tried. Stokes was not hanged in New York any more than Tillman was hanged in South Carolina.

Will Dr. Hart please furnish an explanation which will not fit the South Carolina case as snugly as it fits the New York case?

Professor Hart asks, “Why should the Northern people believe that the South means well by the negro when such a man as Governor Vardaman, of Mississippi, brutally threatens him and his white friends in the North?”

When and where has Governor James K. Vardaman “brutally threatened the negro and his Northern friends”?

Governor Vardaman, not many days ago, risked his political life, to say nothing of personal danger, to protect a negro from a white mob. Perhaps every white man in the mob had voted for Vardaman, and was his personal and political friend; yet, although it was generally believed that the negro was guilty of a heinous offense, this Governor, who has been singled out for abuse, did not hesitate one moment to jeopardize his whole political future by throwing around the hunted negro the official protection of the law.

No matter how much Governor Vardaman may be mistaken in some of his views, and some of his utterances, no man ought now to deny that he possesses personal and political courage, or that his respect for law is of that high character which proclaims, “The color of a man’s skin shall not be the measure of his legal rights.”

Furthermore, Dr. Hart says, “in one respect the poor whites are terrible teachers to the negroes; they are an ungovernable people and do not allow themselves to be punished for such peccadillos as murder.”

O Mr. Professor of History at Harvard! has your blind passion against the South lost you to all sense of proportion in the making of public statements?

If the poor whites of the South “do not allow themselves to be punished for such little things as murder,” why do they go to the penitentiary at all?

You will find a sufficient number of poor whites in the penitentiaries of the South—are they there just for the fun of it?

Speaking of the negro, Dr. Hart again says, “he may not murder or assault, or even speak saucily to a white person, on most dreadful penalties. Partly for self-protection, still more from a feeling of race supremacy, it is made a kind of lèse-majesté for a negro to lay hands on a white man; even to defend his family or his own life, the serpent must not bite the heel of the chosen people.”

What utter disregard of facts!

Let me cite a few cases which come within my personal knowledge.

In McIntosh County, Georgia, one of the most prominent white planters was deputized by the sheriff to arrest a negro who had been engaged in a riot. The white man authorized to arrest the negro went to his house and called for him at night. The negro refused to come out. The deputy forced his way in, and the negro shot him dead. There were three negroes in the house, all participating in resisting the officer.

The white man’s court acquitted two of the negroes, and sent one up for ten years.

In the penitentiary of Georgia, at this time, are some white men serving out their terms at hard labor for an outrage committed on a negro man in one of the country counties near Atlanta.

A white man, by the name of Alec Harvill, belonging to the class of poor whites, was tried for murder in one of the Piedmont counties for which Mr. Hart has such a contempt, and was convicted.

He is now serving a term in the penitentiary, as he has been doing for the last five or six years.

How was he convicted? Upon the testimony of a single negro witness. Nobody saw the alleged crime, or pretended to have seen it, except this negro boy.

And yet the white judge and the white jury believed the negro in preference to the father or mother of the accused.

In another of the Piedmont counties of Georgia a white man outraged a negro woman.

Within the last ninety days that criminal has been tried by a white judge and jury—the prosecution being pushed by the state of Georgia through her Attorney-General.

The lower court convicted the criminal, the Supreme Court has affirmed the finding, and the white man will have to meet the penalty of the law for his violation of a negro woman.

Several years ago a white man named Robinson, living in Waynesboro, Ga., killed a negro.

The white man had cursed a negro woman, who had “put in her mouth” while he was holding a conversation with a negro man.

When Robinson cursed the woman the deceased threw off his coat and rushed at Robinson, exclaiming, “I won’t stand that!”

Robinson backed, saying, “Don’t come on me! Stand back!”

The negro continued to advance; Robinson drew his pistol and shot his assailant.

Robinson was tried, convicted and sent to the penitentiary.

In Wilkes County, Ga., a convict boss whipped a negro convict who sulked and wouldn’t work. The negro had a bad character, and was serving sentence for a grave offense.

The whipping may possibly have caused the negro’s death, though there was much testimony to the effect that he died from natural causes.

At any rate, a white judge and jury convicted the boss who inflicted the whipping, and he had to serve his time in the penitentiary. Robert Cannon was his name.

In another instance I myself furnished the evidence of maltreatment of a negro convict in the Georgia penitentiary, and, the facts being made known to the Governor of Georgia, a fine of $2,500 was imposed on the Convict Lessee Company.

The Governor was General John B. Gordon.

The name of the negro convict was Bill Sturgis.

Examples like these could be multiplied indefinitely from Georgia and every Southern state.

Another astonishing fact is related by Dr. Albert Bushnell Hart.

“The most intelligent white people admit the fact that they are trying to keep the negro down because otherwise the lowest white men will marry negro women.”

Now, where on earth did Dr. Hart get that?

Does not Dr. Hart know that the antipathy between the negro and the poor white is, and always has been, greater than the antipathy between the negro and the property-owning white?

Does not Dr. Hart himself, in another part of his article, express the belief that a dangerous antagonism exists between the poor whites and the negro?

Does Professor Hart believe that the true reason why the Southern people wish to maintain white supremacy is to keep poor whites from marrying negro women? Does he not realize that he makes himself a laughing-stock when he gives his name to a statement of that kind? No white man, rich or poor, wants a negro woman for a wife!

Dr. Hart may put that down as a proposition which is absolutely true.

There are many white men, unfortunately, who establish relations of concubinage with negro women, and this crime is frequently punished in the Southern courts; but where is the evidence that white men wish to take negro wives?

If that inclination is so strong, so ungovernable as to become the motive of the South in maintaining white supremacy, it should be capable of proof. Now, where is the proof? Produce it, Dr. Hart!

The simple truth of the matter is that Dr. Albert Bushnell Hart has allowed himself to be stuffed with a whole lot of nonsense upon a subject which he does not understand.

Now for a parting quotation from this precious article of Harvard’s professional historian:

“Good people (in the South) rarely make much distinction between the man who is guilty and the man who looks like a criminal; between shooting him down in the street or burning him at the stake; between burning the guilty man or his innocent wife; between the quiet family inferno with only two or three hundred spectators and a first-class, advertised auto-da-fé with special trains, and the children of the public schools in the foreground.”

There you have it, in all its true amplitude and animus!

“The good people” of the South do not strive, according to Dr. Hart, to draw the line of distinction between the man who is guilty and the man who simply looks guilty. They establish no real distinction between the guilty man and his innocent wife. It makes no difference to these “good people” whether they have a quiet family inferno, with two or three hundred spectators, or the first-class, advertised burning, when special trains are run and the public-school teachers give the children a recess in order that they may attend the exhibition!

If that is not mere partisanship, frothing at the mouth, what is it?

It certainly cannot be seriously taken as a truthful summing up of a general situation.

An irresponsible stump-speaker, in the reckless rush of a hot political campaign, would have better sense than to deal in hyperbole in that furious fashion.

But when a man of Dr. Hart’s standing publishes stuff like this it does harm. It misleads the North and arouses passionate indignation in the South.

When Dr. Hart does work of that wild sort he is no longer a historian; he is simply an incendiary. He is a child playing with fire.

If I were to apply to the North the same measure which Professor Hart has applied to the South, could I not convict the “good people” of his section, as he has convicted “the good people” of mine?

Are “the good people” of the entire North to be held up as utterly lawless, making a jest of “such peccadillos as murder,” because of the late doings at Wilmington, Del., or at Springfield, O.?

Has Indiana had no lynchings; has Colorado had no carnival of crime?

James Tillman, of South Carolina, “shot down in the street” a mortal political foe who had, beyond all question, given him great provocation.

I do not say that James Tillman was justified in his act—I merely say that he had provocation, great provocation.

He was acquitted, but he was not sent to Congress.

He left the court-room a broken, chastened man; and is now leading a life of sobriety, industry and rectitude.

Not many years ago, on a Sunday morning, a saloon-keeper and his son, in the city of Boston, Mass., beat down a drunken man who had broken a window-pane of said saloon—beat him down on the streets, and kicked him to death after he was down.

Apparently the man’s sole offense was that he had broken a pane of glass and refused to pay for it.

The saloon was open in violation of law.

The glass was broken by a man too drunk to know what he was doing.

And the two men of Boston fell upon the helpless, drunken wretch, and kicked him to death in the streets.

Was Massachusetts and all the North condemned for that?

What became of the homicides?

One received a nominal punishment, which was not a real punishment; and the other boasts that he was never punished at all.

Where was the boast made?

In the House of Representatives of the United States—for Boston, Mass., actually sent to Congress the man who had helped to kick another man to death in the streets!

His name? John A. Sullivan. I beg pardon—it is,

The Honorable John A. Sullivan.

South Carolina is far behind Massachusetts—she has not yet sent James Tillman to Congress.

In the name of the Good God who made us all—are we never to hear the last of these bitter revilings of the South?

Are we never to reach the Era of Good Feeling for which so many strong men have toiled, so many pure women have prayed?

Will the blind Apostles of Hate never “Let us have Peace”?

Shall the marplot and the bigot and the partisan and the Pharisee forever be able to thwart the nobler efforts of nobler men?

Shall Ransy Sniffle always succeed in embroiling those who want to be friends?

When I think of Abraham Lincoln—magnanimous, broad, far-seeing, praising the Confederates who had stormed the heights at Gettysburg, calling upon the band to play “Dixie” on the night following Lee’s surrender—and then contemplate this narrow, spiteful, out-of-date Professor of History at Harvard, I realize more than ever how much the South lost when a madman assassinated the statesman who had her blood in his veins, sympathy for her in his heart, and a knowledge of her in his mind.

In vain will Congress return the battle-flags of the Lost Cause, in vain will the McKinleys and the Roosevelts labor for the Era of Good Feeling, if the violent partisans of the North, playing into the hands of the almost obsolete fire-eaters of the South, give to sectional hatreds a new lease of life.

Remember the Rascals

The law provides that a Congressman shall be paid a salary of $5,000 per year; and in order that the compensation shall be equal, among members, the Government pays their traveling expenses. Otherwise the Representative who comes from the Pacific coast to the Capital, paying his way, would realize very much less on his salary than a Representative from Maryland or Virginia.

The cost of travel was greater in the olden days than now, and the free pass had not then become one of the devil’s favorite inventions. Consequently, the lawmakers declared that the taxpayers should furnish twenty cents per mile to meet the expenses of the Representative in going from his home to the post of duty.

Inasmuch as every member of Congress—occasional cranks excepted—now rides on the free passes, the mileage has become a considerable addition to the salary.

A member who lives west of the Mississippi will find his pay increased a sixth, or a fifth, according to the distance from the Atlantic seaboard; while the delegate who comes from Hawaii will pocket considerably more than $2,000 for the alleged cost of getting to Washington.

So far, good. Everybody knows that Congressmen do not pay their way, and everybody knows that mileage no longer has any honest foundation; but we’ve got used to the grab, and we let it go, as inevitable, with a weary sigh of hopeless disgust.

But the Congress which recently adjourned broke all previous records and gave the country a new chapter in the record of brazen dishonor.

Previous to the meeting of the regular session there had been an extra session. This held on till the regular session began. There was no interval between the two. So far as time was concerned, the one ran into the other. Hence, no member went home from the extra session and came back to the regular session.

There was absolutely no “recess” at all—not a minute between the one session and the other.

Now, behold the evil influence of a bad example.

The President got the idea that while there was no actual recess between the two sessions of Congress, there was a “constructive” recess.

The Mephistopheles who whispered this baleful advice in the ear of Mr. Roosevelt was a better friend to the appointees who were to benefit by it—General Wood and Dr. Crum, for example—than they were to the President. The members of Congress were not slow to reason the case to this effect:

If there has been such a recess as to give General Wood a promotion in the army, and to Dr. Crum a fat office in the revenue service, then it has been a recess for all purposes.

“If the President can fill offices upon a supposed recess, we can fill our pocket with mileage upon the same supposition.

“The whole thing being imaginary, that theory which puts Wood higher up on the pay-roll, and which puts a negro in the Custom House at Charleston, will also imagine that we went home during the supposed recess, and that we have just returned from Georgia, Alabama, Wisconsin, California and the state of Washington. It’s a poor rule that won’t work both ways.”

The law clothes the President with the power to make recess appointments—which rids him of the necessity of consulting the Senate. In this instance, he created a recess in his mind, when none existed in fact, and the result was good for Wood and Crum.

The imaginary recess having been created by the President, the members of the Lower House took an imaginary trip home during the imaginary recess, and then proposed that they be paid their imaginary expenses, not in imaginary money, but in hard cash.

Therefore, sixty-odd Republicans and forty-odd Democrats, and two Union Labor men, voted to give themselves $190,000 of the people’s money to pay for imaginary journeys made during an imaginary recess.

It is doubtful if a more shameless attempt to steal from the public treasury has ever been attempted.

The Senate killed the measure, not because the Senate itself is so pure and honest—for it isn’t—but because it could safely rebuke the House—which it despises—and pose as Watch-dog of the Treasury, without loss to itself.

The people are entitled to know the names of the rascals who tried to steal $190,000 of their money.

Tennessee will not be shocked to know that “Slippery Jim” Richardson voted for the grab.

She may be shocked to know that Brownlow did the same thing—Brownlow, the son of the famous Parson.

South Carolina may be astonished to learn that on the roll of dishonor are the names of Aiken and Legare.

Virginia will see that she has been misrepresented by the vote of Maynard.

Louisiana will find three of her votes on the shameful list—Pujo and Broussard and Davey.

The Democracy of Missouri may feel indignant at the vote of Hunt, and Mississippi at that of Hill.

As the list of names is printed elsewhere, it is not necessary to particularize further; but I note one thing with special interest.

The Massachusetts Congressman who was selected by the enemies of W. R. Hearst to attack him on the floor of the House gave the country a chance to learn who was the cleaner, better man.

Hearst did not vote for the steal; Sullivan, of Massachusetts, did!

The people of Georgia may wish to know where Congressman Bartlett was when the vote was being taken. His name is not recorded against the steal. Nor is that of Brantley or that of Adamson.

Where were they?

These three gentlemen are paid $15,000 per year to stay in their places and safeguard the rights of the people who elected them.

Where were these three Georgians when this piece of rascality was being put through the House? If they were necessarily absent why did they not arrange “pairs,” and thus give their votes to defeat the robbers? Did they DODGE?

If so, Why?

Alabama will want to know where Bankhead and Wiley were; Texas will ask explanations of Stephens; Tennessee of Sims; Kentucky of Hopkins and Stanley.

Every man who voted for the mileage grab, or who dodged the vote, should be marked for political punishment by the constituency which he betrayed.

Introductory to a Letter from a Boy

As a rule, I do not help schoolboys in writing their speeches or in preparing for debates. In fact, I make it a rule not to do so.

It is best for the boy to dig his own bait. The sooner he learns to rely upon himself, the better. In that way only will he become strong.

But sometimes I break my own rules—for the sake of variety, perhaps—and I did it not long ago when a certain college in Georgia took as a subject for debate the proposition:

“Resolved, That the South should have supported Watson in the last Presidential election.”

Of course, there were but two names to be considered in the discussion—Watson and Parker.

Teddy wasn’t in it at all. And that is a queer thing, too, for about one-third of the white people of Georgia believe just as Teddy does about the money question, the Tariff system, the Panama business, the Philippine policy, the big navy project, the Railroad rate reduction, and so forth and so on.

But they wouldn’t vote for Teddy to save his life.

And why?

They have a distinct presentiment that if they should vote for a man like Roosevelt they would never dare to go to sleep again lest they wake up next morning and find niggers sitting at the breakfast-table on the level of social equality.

Consequently, Roosevelt didn’t cut any ice in the schoolhouse debate.

Parker and I—we had it all to ourselves. Good-natured people will not begrudge this honor to Parker and me, I am sure, for we are clearly entitled to something, and Teddy has just about carried off everything else. He can afford to be generous, and to let two of his late competitors wear the laurels in a college debate away down in Georgia.

Whether Parker coached the boys on his side I am not informed.

If he didn’t, they must have had a tough job getting up “points.” It is a task at which the average boy would need prompt and patient assistance.

Perhaps, W. J. B. was appealed to. At all events, he should have been. The Nebraska Talk-Factory turns out quite a variety of finished product, and the kind of garment it wove for the adornment of Parker, late in the last campaign, was a marvel in its way—especially when one considers how suddenly the machinery had to be readjusted to fill that particular order.

As to myself, I frankly confess that I “suspended the rules” and gave my champion some “points.” This was wrong, but human.

Had I known that the judges presiding over the debate were two Democrats and a Republican, I would have furnished points to the Parker side, also. Then my champions would have come out ahead.

My private opinion is that I could have coached the Parker champions in such a way that even a pied-piper tribunal, composed of two Georgia Democrats and a New York Republican, would have had to call in a fourth man to know how to decide.

Provided, always, that W. J. B. had stayed out of it.

Of course, when he butts in, nobody can say what may happen.

Well, the boys debated, the judges decided, and Parker won out.

The remainder of the story is related by the ingenuous youth who fought for me in that contest, and I am going to give you his letter just as he wrote it.

THE LETTER

Manassas, Ga., March 13, 1905.

Hon. T. E. Watson, Thomson, Ga.

My Dear Sir: On the fourth of January you were so kind as to send me a few very strong points for my speech. About the same time Hon. Jas. K. Hines also sent me some points.

Our debate was postponed until the tenth inst. For I was sure we would need ample time to prepare for such a fight as we would have to make.

In my letter to you I mentioned the opposition which I thought we would have to encounter, and the amount of interest that would be manifested in such a subject.

In this I was not disappointed or mistaken.

The badges were eagerly sought all day previous to the debate, and the Watson badges were worn by quite a number.

The Auditorium was filled with people. The rostrum was covered with an arch, coming from either side of the stage, made of ribbon.

Half of the arch was made of the Watson colors, and half of the Parker colors.

As I entered town that afternoon I heard a little boy cry, “Hurrah for Tom Watson!” This alone paid me for the effort and work on the debate.

To secure impartial judges was the one thing dreaded from the start, and in this we made a miserable failure.

Two Democrats and a Republican were the best we could do. Or at least the third man came from New York.

My colleague opened with a strong speech. Before the first on the negative side finished, all my fear had vanished, and I was really anxious to have my say.

The chairman reprimanded some little boys for bumping their heads, a few moments before I began. I opened by saying that I wanted one of those little boys to bump his head as much as he liked because I heard him cry, “Hurrah for Tom Watson!” Turning to the audience, I asked all the little girls to remember that little boy at the proper time. Then I carried the little fellow step by step from the Claxton Institute to the President’s chair on the People’s Party Platform.

Our speeches over, the committee retired for consultation.

Our opponents looked the worst whipped of any I ever saw.

The audience began to call for Watson badges to take the place of their Parker ones.

It is generally very much out of place for anyone to accuse a committee of a wrong decision on purpose, but the case was so plain that I do not hesitate to say that their decision was based on the condition of their hearts before they heard our speeches.

But many were on our side. One of the Emory College boys, a very prominent physician and a strong Democrat, and brother-in-law to one of the committee, was outspoken in saying that the affirmative side won.

I never cared for the decision being given against me so little as I did this time, for everyone, almost, in the audience knew the right.

Our debate no doubt resulted in waking up the people to some degree, for our opponents could only eulogize you.

Ever rest assured of my highest appreciation of the points sent me.

Wishing that you may live long to continue your fight for the many against the few, I am,

Very respectfully yours,

S. B. McCall.

A missive like the foregoing is decidedly interesting to me, and the spirit moves me to say certain things to my correspondent, which I do, in manner and form following, to wit:

A LETTER TO A BOY

My Dear Young Friend: I do not know you personally, have never grasped your hand and looked into your eyes, but your letter makes me think well of you.

In the first place, it discloses the fact that after all your careful preparation for the debate, you made an extemporaneous speech. Good. No one can be a debater on any other terms. It is possible that one may be an orator and be unable to leave the written form, but the gift of extemporaneous expression is absolutely essential to a debater.

To think on one’s legs—that’s a gift; and it seems that you have it.

Again, I learn from your letter that you knew you had on your hands a hard task in maintaining the unpopular side of the debate, and that you did not shrink from the burden. Good again. That’s the way to become a man. The boy who is ever on the lookout for the easy job, the popular side, and who runs away from obstacles or opposition, will always remain a boy—and not much of a boy at that.

There is but one rule for you if you want to be a man—absolutely but one—and that is to do your level best to reach a clear, correct idea of what is right, and then stick to it and fight for it, in spite of the “world, the flesh and the devil.”

This rule will make you enemies, and will give you just about as many hard knocks as are needful to your health, but if you want to be a man, that’s the price you’ve got to pay.

You say you found difficulty in securing impartial judges.

Well, I should think so.

The “impartial judge” is one of those pleasing fancies with which we amuse ourselves, for the reason that we can’t help it. We have got to get decisions some way or other, and we don’t quite like the idea of settling grave questions by spitting at a mark, or of guessing whether it is heads or tails in the tossing of a coin—therefore, we resort to “the impartial judge.”

It is one of the jokes of Christian civilization which nobody laughs at because we have agreed that it is not a joke.

Just between me and you, the “impartial judge” is brother to the “non-partisan editor,” and twin-brother to the “disinterested office-seeker.”

You say that it is generally wrong to criticize the conduct of those who make decisions.

You are mistaken about that. It is generally the proper thing to do. And it is often the only thing you can do. True, it is not as much satisfaction as we are entitled to, but it’s something.

What would baseball be, if we couldn’t cuss the umpire?

How could lawyers who lost their cases blow off the indignation, if they couldn’t cuss the judge?

You state that you were not cast down by the decision which went against you. Right. Why should you be?

Whatever was true, previous to the decision, was true afterward.

And there’s where our political leaders fall down.

They go about the country telling the people that a certain candidate for office is “unfit for the nomination,” and after he is nominated the same politicians claim that the nomination makes him fit.

How can a nomination make a bad man good?

That’s a deferred question which W. J. B. will answer some day or other, and you will then see it done to the queen’s taste.

Evidently you are not discouraged by the fact that you went up against a tribunal which wouldn’t yield to reason, eloquence, fact or fancy—a tribunal which had made up its mind before its members heard your speech. Right again. It’s your duty to furnish the convincing argument; it is not in your power to supply judges with minds open to conviction.

Bigger men than you have run up against immovable obstacles of that kind.

Consider W. J. B., for instance. He found, in New England, a lot of tribunals, the low, the high and the middle, which were not to be convinced that he, W. J. B., was entitled to $50,000 that old Mr. Bennett thought he was leaving to our Nebraska friend by will.

You and I would think that as the money belonged to Bennett, and Bennett had declared in writing that W. J. B. should have it, the judges would not interfere.

But they did. No amount of eloquence, of the best W. J. B. sort, could budge them an inch. Our Nebraska friend got knocked out all along the line.

Did it cast him down?

Not in the least. He is as cheerful—not to say saucy—as you are over your little tumble. That is just the way to be: but one should always try to get some lesson out of one’s defeats, so that one will know better how to do next time.

If you should ask W. J. B. what lesson he has learned from that series of knockdowns in the New England courts, he would answer: “The next time a benevolent Yankee comes to my house, and offers to make me a bequest of $50,000, I will take him out and introduce him to a safe and sane lawyer who knows how to draw a will.”

Cultivate what is best in your character and mind.

Do not imitate anybody.

Study good models for the purpose of making the best possible man out of yourself.

Develop your pride—not your vanity, conceit or egotism.

Be too proud to stoop to anything mean.

Associate with the best people. If among your companions there are those whose talk or conduct is vile, weed them out from your life.

I feel deeply on this point, and I repeat, WEED THEM OUT.

Cultivate the honesty which makes a man what he appears to be.

Don’t be a sham.

Be a reality—as earnest, powerful and fearless as is possible to your nature.

When defeat knocks you down, don’t lie there. As soon as you get your breath back, rise, brush the dust off, and go up against the enemy again.

Reach a clear conception of what you want to do, and can do; be sure that this is something noble in itself—then hammer away with all your might, and keep hammering.

Remember that modesty is almost as becoming to a man as to a woman, but that humility has no place in man’s relation to man.

If you are not as good as any other man, it’s your fault.

The world, and all its rewards, are as much yours as anybody’s.

But remember this also: the race is to the swift, and the battle is to the strong, USUALLY.

If you would win the race, be swift; if the battle, be strong.

An Educational Department

There are thousands of boys and girls, some in schools and colleges, some not, who are anxious to learn, to develop themselves and to RISE.

Many, many things they yearn to know which the class-room teachers do not teach.

Many a subject they are eager to study, if somebody will but show the way.

Often there are speeches to be made, essays to be written, debates to be prepared, and the boys and girls simply do not know how to start about it.

For instance, they are suddenly required to speak or write on the question:

“Should the Government own and operate the railroads?”

They have never read anything about it, perhaps. Therefore they inquire:

“Where can we get some literature on the subject?”

These young people do not want someone else to write their speeches or essays; they want nothing more than to be told where to get the materials to work with—the data upon which to construct their own argument.

When I was a boy I felt the need of that kind of help very keenly.

How was I to know what books contained the information sought?

Who could tell me?

I soon found that teachers did not love to be bored by inquiries of that character, and therefore I had to browse around in the library at random for what was wanted.

If the book needed was there, I generally found it, after wasting much time in the search.

If it was not there, as frequently happened, I was at my row’s end. I had to debate without the full preparation which should have been made.

To help out many a student who may be troubled as I used to be, I am going to improvise and conduct in this magazine a modest little Educational Department.

Primarily it is meant for the young people. But the rule will be made as flexible as I feel like making it.

Age limits are not fair—no matter whether Osler was joking or not.

It is not my plan or purpose to write anybody’s speech or essay; but, where there is a subject of real importance to be discussed by word or pen, I am willing to direct the preparation of the student by telling him or her where the necessary information can be had.

It would perhaps not be improper for me to suggest some general ideas on the subject to be discussed—these ideas to be worked out and put in form by the student.

Often I might render good service to the boys and girls by telling them where the books they need can be bought at the lowest price.

It took me many years to learn how to buy books, and it is a thing worth knowing—unless you have more money than I ever had.

The letters written to me in this department will be published as written; but the names of the writers will be withheld.

Therefore, no correspondent need be embarrassed in making inquiries.

My replies will be given in the magazine.

Hereafter all letters asking for information—historical, literary, political, economic—will be answered through the EDUCATIONAL DEPARTMENT.

P. S.—Students are requested not to ask help on this subject, viz.:

“Resolved, That there is more happiness in the pursuit than in the possession.”

Those whose duty it is to maintain “the pursuit” will please consult Mr. Bryan; those who sustain “the possession” are referred to Mr. Roosevelt.

Editorial Comment

Those orthodox partisan editors who sneered at my comment on W. R. Hearst as a man who did things while others were talk—talk—talking, will please study the election returns from Chicago and hand me out revised opinions.

That was a Hearst fight, and Hearst himself was personally in the thick of it. He said little and accomplished much.

Would still like to swap a score or two of mere talkers like—well, no matter—for another such myth as Hearst.

A wise man—and his name is Dennis—has an article in the April number of Everybody’s to prove that free trade has created in England that poverty-stricken mass of humanity which he includes under the general name of “Hooligan.”

According to Mr. Robert Hunter, the Hooligans of the United States aggregate 10,000,000—and we haven’t had any free trade, either.

Evidently the wise Mr. Dennis has not located the true cause of poverty in England.

It was famine, and the high price of bread, which forced Sir Robert Peel to abandon protection and to carry free trade into effect.

Bread was cheapened and the cost of living reduced.

Did that inflict such great misery upon the poor?

If the wise Mr. Dennis will study the subject more thoroughly he will probably reach the conclusion that poverty in England is the product of land monopoly, a vicious financial system and a governmental establishment in which a lot of hereditary bloodsuckers prey upon the body politic.

Free trade is the law of nature; it never did, and never can produce national misery, poverty or decadence.

If the wise Mr. Dennis will study the subject thoroughly he will discover that the Corn Laws of 1815 were passed for the purpose of giving special benefits to the landlords of Great Britain. By the poor the act was regarded as such a direct attack upon themselves—such a barefaced design to make them pay higher prices for the necessaries of life—that resistance to the law grew riotous and had to be put down by force.

Says Justin McCarthy, the historian:

“The poor everywhere saw the bread of their family threatened, saw the food of their children almost taken out of their mouths, and they broke into wild extremes of anger.”

But the soldiers were called out, the riots put down, and a sufficient number of the poor hanged to quell the remainder.

Thus the land monopolists of Great Britain—many of whose titles to their enormous holdings are tainted with all manner of fraud and wrong enforced and odious law which robbed the poor to benefit the rich.

In 1817 the troops were used again to crush the laborers who were crying out against oppression.

In 1819 soldiers were used once more.

Then the submission of despair brought quiet times until 1830, when the people again attempted to throw off the hateful yoke of barbarous laws. In the House of Commons Sir Francis Burdett denounced the Duke of Wellington as

“Shamefully insensible to the suffering and distress which were painfully apparent throughout the land.”

“O’Connell declared that many thousands of persons had to subsist in Ireland on three half-pence per day.”

A tolerably successful workingman sometimes got sixty-five cents a week, and the price of the four-pound loaf was twenty-five cents.

From 1830 to 1836 matters went from bad to worse. Business was depressed, trade stagnant, poverty severe in many parts of the country.

In 1838 a crisis came. Three-fifths of the manufacturing establishments of Lancashire shut down. Thousands of workmen were thrown adrift, moneyless, foodless, desperate.

It was then that three great men, Cobden, Bright and Villiers, seized the leadership of Discontent and began the famous crusade against Protection, as typified in the Corn Laws of Great Britain. “Vested interests,” of course, raised the usual howl.

The land monopolists stubbornly closed up in lines of sullen opposition to reform. They beat off every attack, pocketing year after year the famine prices which the people were compelled to pay for bread.

Suddenly, in the summer of 1845, a cold, wet, sunless season fell upon the British Isles and the whole potato crop of Ireland—the sole dependence of the vast majority of the Irish people—rotted.

The food of Ireland was gone; in her poverty she could not pay the English landlord’s price for bread, and the Corn Laws forbade her buying the cheap bread of America and Continental Europe.

It was then that Lord John Russell attacked the whole system of Protection as “the blight of commerce, the bane of agriculture, the source of bitter divisions among classes, the cause of penury, fever and crime among the people.”

It was then that the great Tory Minister, Sir Robert Peel, followed the promptings of his heart and determined that the people should have cheaper food.

He abolished the Corn Laws, and conferred inestimable blessings upon the common people of his country.

The noble act cost him his political life—for that was the penalty which outraged land monopoly, led by Disraeli, inflicted upon its former chief.

The Corn Laws were repealed in 1846.

Mr. Dennis comes along and tells us that Free Trade is responsible for “Hooligan”—for poverty in England.

Mr. Rider Haggard—now in this country in the interest of Hooligan—ought to know as much about the poor of Great Britain as Dennis knows.

What does Rider Haggard say?

That the present deplorable condition of the English poor began with 1874.

How, then, can that condition be connected with the Corn Law repeal?

May it not be logically connected with legislation of more recent date?

Or may it not be connected with economic developments elsewhere?

Tremendous changes in the conditions of people in Europe and America have been brought about by financial legislation much more nearly contemporaneous with 1874 than the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846.

Then, again, the vast addition to the wheat and corn areas in the United States alone have had a mighty influence on prices in Great Britain.

It may be that rents are so high in England that the tenant farmer finds it impossible to pay his tribute to the land monopolist, compete with American grain fields, and have anything left for himself.

Indeed, Mr. Haggard states that one of the reasons why the agricultural laborer is so disheartened in England is that there is no chance for him to become the owner of land.

An exchange says:

“The headmaster of an English school says he read Roosevelt’s inaugural to his boys and asked them where it was found. Unanimously they answered, ‘Jowett’s translation of Thucydides.’ Whereupon the headmaster gives us parallel columns to show that Pericles said it all before, on an occasion somewhat similar. But Teddy is too honest to crib; he was deceived by his clerk on oratory. Let it go at that.”

If it is true that Mr. Roosevelt did use one of the speeches of Pericles as an inaugural address, Mr. Bryan may wish he had not been so quick with the announcement that it was a poor speech. Pericles is generally considered to have been an orator who would have compared not unfavorably with W. J. B. himself.

The India-rubber qualities of the Monroe Doctrine are being made manifest with a vengeance.

Once we understood it to mean, in a general way, that Europe must “Hands off”—no more conquest, colonization, or extension of the European system to the American Continent.

By Mr. Cleveland, England was told, with firmness, that she couldn’t steal Venezuela’s land, even though the theft consisted of the simple device of moving the boundary line.

With Mr. Roosevelt’s advent to power comes a decidedly new chapter in the evolution of the Monroe Doctrine.

We are to assume a sort of Trusteeship for adjacent governments.

We must see to it that they conduct themselves decently and in order. They must pay their debts to citizens of other countries and behave themselves generally in a way that meets our approval.

Mr. Roosevelt, in advancing the Monroe Doctrine to this extent, has undertaken a big contract for this country.

If we are to be the Policeman for South America, Santo Domingo, Cuba, Mexico and Central America, we must, first of all, have a powerful navy.

This is clear to everybody.

What is not so clear is that a powerful standing army will inevitably follow—as sure as fate, it will follow.

For it is certain that a natural result of our hectoring, bulldozing, overlord attitude toward countries like those mentioned will make them our bitter enemies. South America already hates us, and has cause to hate us.

The manner in which we sanctioned the collection of claims against Venezuela, by the warships of Europe will not be forgotten.

This feeling will be intensified by Mr. Roosevelt’s recent utterances, and will spread through all the peoples affected by it.

If we are to compel these governments to knuckle down to every Asphalt Trust, or other speculative syndicate, which enters the country for the purpose of exploitation, the time will certainly come when our attempts to make them conform to our standard of what is decent and orderly in dealing with plundering corporations will be resisted.

What then?

Our navy can bombard the cities of the coast, but will our marines leave the ships and defeat the land forces of the interior?

Evidently not.

What, therefore, must we do?

Send army against army, as we shall have sent navy against navy.

Consequently the same policy which logically requires a powerful navy will likewise require a powerful standing army.

And our masters know it!

Mr. Roosevelt:

Do you, also, laugh at young Garfield?

Please don’t give us any more of that silly boy.

More than one-half the voters of Colorado cast their ballots for Alva Adams, candidate for Governor.

But Adams did not get the place.

Less than half the voters supported James Peabody, and Peabody acted as Governor for one day.

Not a soul voted for Jesse McDonald for Governor, yet Jesse gets the whole term of office, excepting the one day given to Peabody.

The voters of Colorado evidently enjoy self-government about as much as it can be enjoyed.

The Lady’s Slipper

BY CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY
Author of “The Two Captains,” “The Corner in Coffee,” “A Little Traitor to the South,” “The Southerners,” etc.

I
THE SLIPPER IS SOUGHT

WHAT happened to me the night before? I was not certain as to details, but I recalled the main facts with singular distinctness. I had lost every coin that I possessed. A hasty search of my pockets in the morning disclosed the absence even of that one louis which, on account of its markings, I had resolved never to part with, save in the gravest emergency. I was stripped bare, “down to a gant-line,” as old Bucknall would have said. That much was obvious. I had possessed no jewels save the ring I had filched when I took the Frenchman’s purse. That, too, was gone. I suppose I played it away with the rest.

I still had my sword. It was a serviceable blade, which I had purchased with the Frenchman’s money so soon as I arrived in Paris. A gentleman and his sword, backed by a stout heart—well, one might be in worse plight. But as I thought about the night before I seemed to remember—and here was where I was not quite clear—that I had affixed my name to certain pieces of paper, I. O. U.’s! To what amount I was obligated by these transactions I did not know. But whether it was for one franc or a thousand, I was unable to discharge the debt. My creditors must give me time or—They were a jolly lot, those Frenchmen, and I had held up my end as long as the gold pieces lasted. America had taken no disgrace from my ability to stand in a game and win or lose like a gentleman. True, it was generally the latter that fell to my play.

Now I was sick of it all! I hated wine and women and play. I wished, as never before, that I were on the deck of a stout ship again, with the new flag, the Stars and Stripes, fluttering from the gaff-end and the breath of the salt wind in my face. This and a tidy Englishman of equal force under our lee. Gods! That was a man’s work and a man’s place. This drifting around from one gambling resort to another in Paris, with a crowd of roysterers—and worse—this night after night at the tables—bah, I had had enough of it!

It was a life I had never fancied, and if Dr. Franklin had been at home I had never entered upon it. After I escaped from the British prison-ship, and after I took that Englishman’s purse on the highway—only he turned out to be a Frenchman, but it was then too late for me to alter my intention to provide myself with the sinews of war—and after I managed to get to Paris and found our Ambassador gone to Holland or Spain or some other outlandish country, what was I to do? With plenty of money, no occupation, no ship, nor any present chance of getting one, no friends, and a reckless, adventurous disposition, I fell in with a fast set, and this was the outcome.

I could not find her either, although I swear I searched high and low and spent not a little of the proceeds of my highway robbery in trying to run her down. There was no use in going over all this. I got up from the couch on which I had thrown myself dressed as I was, staggered over to the table, splashed my face with water and caught a glimpse of myself in the little mirror that hung on the wall. Worn, haggard, bloodshot—my own father would scarce have known me. I was ashamed, bitterly so. I had never been a gambler or a drinker, and I vowed that I would never be again. I had played the fool once and I did not propose to do it a second time. Yet these interesting resolutions were forced into the background by the demands of my present situation.

What was I to do? Breakfast! I loathed the idea. Still, I must eat to live. I hadn’t a cent with which to bless myself. What was the date? It was the tenth—no, the eleventh—of the month. Dr. Franklin would be back on the thirteenth. Once I could get speech with him all would be well, but how was I to exist until then?

I sat down by the window and tried to think of some device. God knows my situation was critical, but I declare that I could only think of her! Perhaps my inability to find her—for she had vanished as completely as if the earth had opened and swallowed her—had made me reckless, careless, a willing prey to the knaves who had brought me to this pass. I will admit, even then, that I loved her. I closed my eyes and I could see her as I saw her that evening outside of Paris. I could hear her scream in the hands of those ruffians. I went over the whole thing as I had done a thousand times. My rush at the villains! I was a pretty hand at cudgel-playing as well as a good swordsman, for I had no weapon but a stout stick.

The first fellow I caught fairly on the head, and he dropped like a felled bullock. I put my hand up and could feel a little partially healed scar along my cheek where the bullet of the one-eyed scoundrel cut a lock of hair and grazed me. He got a crack on his pistol arm which put him out of action. I could still see his face, convulsed with pain and rage, his one eye shooting fire at me as he retreated before me. The other rascal was a coward, for he fled immediately. I shall never forget the look on Mademoiselle’s face when she thanked me! They had torn her mask off when they had dragged her from her horse. I found it again and also managed to catch her horse.

Although I was dressed like a French peasant I think she realized that I was of gentle blood. She was surprised at the ease with which I mounted her on her horse, and when she gave me that louis—my hand went to my breast. Yes, it still hung there! I hadn’t gambled that away, thank God!—and, as I promptly returned her another, she seemed to understand. I wonder what she did with hers? She told me that I had not only saved her from assault but that I had done more, I had saved the honor of France, and that she would some day prove her gratitude. Then she galloped away from me and left me standing staring in the road like a fool, madly in love with her!

Aye, this evidenced my folly, I will admit, but as they say here, “What would you?” She was the first lady I had seen in three years of cruising, and such a woman! If you had seen her you would have understood. How I had searched for her! Blue eyes, dark hair; tall, exquisitely molded, graceful figure; dainty hands and feet—this vague description might have fitted any woman or a million, and she was one of that million. It was no use. I should never see her again, and if I saw her now, disgraced as I was, I must avoid her. So absorbed was I in these miserable musings that I hadn’t heeded a tap at the door.

“Ma foi!” cried a rather shrill, metallic voice as a man opened the door and stepped within. “My dear friend, I have rapped several times, and so I took the liberty....”

“Oh, come in by all means, Monsieur du Trémigon,” I replied, rising and welcoming the newcomer, although with no great cordiality.

He was the hatefulest of all the crowd with whom I had cast my lot since I had been in Paris, and I more than suspected it was to him that I had passed those little pieces of paper which began more and more definitely to impress themselves upon my recollection.

“I suppose,” I said, “that you have come to settle our accounts of last night, Monsieur?”

“There is no haste about that,” he returned politely enough, “but since you insist, as well now as any other time.”

“I shall be honest with you, Marquis,” I returned bluntly; “I’m afraid I shall have to ask your indulgence for a short time.”

He drew from his pocket a package of papers and laid them on the table. I took them up as I spoke, and although I am no great hand at figures, I saw that the total was appalling. My heart sank, but I flatter myself that I displayed as equable a demeanor as the man opposite me. It has always been my practice to put a bold face on everything.

“Pray give yourself no uneasiness whatever about these little matters,” said the Marquis in his most genial manner—and the more gentle and kindly he was, strange to say, the more I hated him! “Or rather,” he continued, interrupting me as I began to speak, “I can show you a way to discharge them with little difficulty to yourself, and that immediately.”

“Show me that way!” I cried. “I will avail myself of it at once. To tell you the truth, I am sick of the life I have led in this city.”

“I thought,” said du Trémigon, smiling meaningly, “that you were scarcely suited for——”

“What do you mean?” I cried, glad for the chance to vent my indignation upon someone. “Didn’t I bear myself like a gentleman?”

“Oh, quite so, entirely so. You misapprehend me, my dear Burnham,” he protested.

“Well, I dare say you are right,” I replied carelessly, too troubled to quarrel, “I am a sailor. The sea is my world. I am at home there or on my father’s plantation in the Carolinas. But this is nothing to you. The point is, I am in your debt.”

“This ring, Monsieur,” said the Marquis, lifting his hand. “Do you know whose it is?”

“Yours, I suppose, since you won it,” I replied. “It was mine.”

“Pardon me, it was originally mine.”

“What!”

“Mine.”

“Then you are——?”

“The gentleman whose purse you kindly relieved him of a few weeks ago in England.”

“Impossible!” I cried.

“Impossible, but true, Monsieur. I recognized you when I met you last week at Varesi’s”—the name of a popular gambling resort—“I wasn’t quite sure, however. At least, I had no proof until last night. This ring? You remember taking it?”

“Oh, perfectly,” I said.

“And this louis?” He pulled out the curiously marked coin. “A pocket piece I have had for a long time. I should know it among a thousand.”

“You have established your case,” I answered defiantly. “You understand that I am no common thief or highwayman? I am an American naval officer. Serving under Cunningham on a privateer, I was captured, thrown into prison, escaped. Being penniless in the enemy’s country I determined to take the purse of the first traveler who came along. I took you for an Englishman. When I knew you were French, it was too late. I can only say that I will give you another I. O. U. for all that I have despoiled you of, and so soon as I can communicate with America you shall have the money.”

The Marquis showed his white teeth in a grin—how I loathed him!—waving his hands as he did so.

“As to that, we will discuss it presently. Meanwhile, what did you do with the papers you robbed me of in England?”

“Tore them to pieces and scattered them in the first river I crossed.”

“Damnation!” cried the man. “I could stand the loss of the money, but the loss of those papers wellnigh ruined me!”

“How so?”

“I was carrying some secret despatches to the British Government, in spite of the war, and your blundering made me fail in my mission.”

“Blundering!” I cried.

“Pray be calm, Monsieur,” he exclaimed; “the word may have been ill-advised, but you will recognize that some consideration is due me.”

He looked meaningly at the little pile of notes. I followed his glance, snatched up another piece of paper, scribbled a line on it and added it to the heap.

“That covers your loss, including the ring.”

“Monsieur Burnham,” said the Marquis, “are you aware of the exceedingly difficult position into which you have got yourself?”

“I should say I am! Being absolutely without funds, I am forced to ask total strangers to accept my bare word that I will discharge my obligations so soon as I hear from America. This, with the seas swarming with British ships, may be a matter of months.”

“There is your Ambassador. He knows you, doubtless?”

“Dr. Franklin doesn’t know me from Adam. He’s a Philadelphia Quaker, and I am from North Carolina. He has never seen me, nor I him. He knows my father and family, though. If there were any of our officers in the city, if Commodore Jones or Dick Dale had only returned from Texel, I should be all right, but as it is, I am completely at your mercy.”

I hated to say that word, but there was no help for it. The Marquis bowed gracefully.

“Your remark is singularly accurate, Monsieur. At my mercy!”

He opened his mouth and tapped his white teeth with two of his white fingers. I wanted to choke him. Why, I could not say, for he had been considerate, and I owed him a lot of money. I had robbed him in England, and, besides, I had put him to serious inconvenience.

“At my mercy,” he repeated, nodding.

“I have admitted that fact,” I said sharply. “I do not see that it is necessary to remind me of it again.”

“Oh, pardon me. You Americans are so impetuous. Cultivate calmness, my friend—English phlegm, if you will. It is a most valuable asset in any game.”

“That’s as may be, Marquis, but I play no more games with you.”

“Pardon me again,” he returned coolly; “we play yet one more hand, Monsieur, and I have the deal.”

“What are you driving at?”

“I told you there was a way by which you could discharge your obligations.”

“Declare it then, and let us close this transaction!”

“You are doubtless unaware, and I speak to you in confidence, that my large estates are greatly encumbered. I have a passion for play. I do not always enjoy the fortune I have had with you, and—” He laughed as he spoke. “In short, I find myself in very straitened circumstances.”

“I suppose you want your money and want it quick?” I burst out. “I can understand and I promise you——”

“There you go again, Monsieur. I want money, it is true. I was born wanting money, I have lived wanting money, and, I suppose, I shall die wanting money.”

You won’t have any use for it after that, I thought, but all I said was: “Proceed, Monsieur.”

“You are doubtless unaware, also, that Mademoiselle Gabrielle de Rivau, Comtesse de Villars in her own right, granddaughter of the Duc de Rivau-Huet, is my cousin?”

“I have never heard of the young lady, but I recognize the honor of the relationship,” I said coldly.

The Marquis was not devoid of wit. His eye flashed, but he proceeded deliberately:

“Quite so. Her grandfather is my grandfather also. She is one of the richest women in France. Our respective parents arranged a marriage between us when we were children. The carrying out of that contract depends entirely on three people, the young lady, the Duc de Rivau-Huet and myself. It was stipulated that no constraint was to be used, and that, when she reached her twentieth year, she was to give her consent without pressure, freely and willingly. If she did so, and her grandfather interposed no objection, and I desired it, we were to be married. If not”—he shrugged his shoulders—“I lose.”

“Lose what?”

“The lady and, incidentally, her fortune.”

I confessed to a very languid interest in the love affairs of the Marquis and the lady, but for politeness’ sake I asked him another question.

“Permit me, since you have broached the subject, does the lady consent or refuse?”

“She consents, but the Duke refuses.”

“Ah!”

“But I hope that his refusal is not irrevocable.”

“For your sake I trust so,” I replied. “Yet I fail to see how this concerns me.”

“You shall learn directly. Mademoiselle de Villars is one of the Queen’s maids of honor. She usually resides at the Court at Versailles. For this week, however, she is on leave of absence, I have learned, and is in residence at the Hôtel de Rivau-Huet in Paris.”

“Yes?” I said interrogatively. I was beginning to have some curiosity as to whither all this tended.

“As I said, the Duke seems insensible to the advantage of an alliance with me.”

No wonder, I thought, but I took good care not to voice my feelings.

“I have decided to compel him to consent.”

“And Mademoiselle de Villars?” I questioned suspiciously.

“She also wishes it. I may say”—he simpered disgustedly—“she is more anxious than I.”

“Monsieur du Trémigon,” I said sternly, repressing with difficulty an inclination to kick him, “do you assure me of the truth of what you have said?”

“Certainly.”

“On your word of honor as a gentleman?”

“As a gentleman and as a noble of France, Monsieur.”

I ought to have known, but I did not, and there seemed to be nothing for me to do but accept his statement.

“How do you propose to get the Duke’s consent?” I asked.

“There is a way to apply pressure to him, Monsieur, which will ... let us say ... induce his consent.”

“You wish to compromise her in her grandfather’s eyes?” I said, fathoming his meaning at last.

“Exactly.”

“But with her consent....”

“Your intuition does you credit.”

“That’s more than your intention does you,” I burst out scornfully.

“I can afford to indulge you in these little pleasantries, my friend,” he returned, with an evil look, “because....”

“Why?” I cried.

“Because I intend that you shall be my agent in the little process.”

“You are reckoning without your host, Monsieur,” I said quickly. I was boiling with rage.

“But not without my servant, Monsieur.”

“Servant?” I raged.

“Yes. Do you realize that I have but to place these things in the hands of the authorities to have you clapped into prison?”

“I have been in prison before and got out. I can stand it again—for the sake of a woman.”

“You will doubtless get out of the prison into which I shall put you, but it will be to go to the hangman, or to the headsman if you can prove your gentle blood.”

“What!”

“You forget that little transaction in England. You are a highway robber! I have evidence enough to convict you beyond doubt.”

“The French Government would never....”

“The French Government is angry enough over the loss of those papers, and the punishment for highway robbery is death,” he sneered.

“My God!” I cried.

“’Tis useless to appeal to Him,” mocked du Trémigon. “Rather do you fall back on your mother-wit—if you have any—to help you.”

“What do you wish me to do?” I asked desperately.

“’Tis very simple. We are about the same height and build. We do not look unlike——”

“You flatter me!”

“’Tis the fact that does that,” he replied, bowing deeply. “In the dusk you can easily pass for me, especially if you wear a familiar suit of my clothes. I will get you into the grounds of the Hôtel de Rivau-Huet below Mademoiselle’s apartments. The building is vine-covered. Being a sailor you can easily scale the wall and enter her chamber. You are to bring me thence some article of personal wearing apparel—say a slipper, or a ring, or——”

“Is that all?”

“That’s all.”

“Why don’t you do it yourself?”

“It is hardly necessary to enter upon that, Monsieur.”

“If I am to do the thing,” I replied hotly, “I must know everything.”

“Well, then, the Duc de Rivau-Huet has threatened me with imprisonment if he catches me in his hôtel again.”

“And you wish me to take that risk?”

The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders.

“I am to do this at the peril of my life?”

“It seems to me,” said the Marquis equably, “that your life is forfeit if you don’t do it, and——”

“Enough!” I answered. “I am in your power. When I made the serious mistake of taking you for a gentleman I began my ruin. I’m sorry I didn’t kill you in England. I suppose there’s no help for it. I must do the work. When do you wish this adventure undertaken?”

“Tonight. If you will come to my rooms, I will fit you out, give you the plan of the hôtel and make all other arrangements.”

“And those papers?”

“They shall be returned to you when you place what you secure from the room in my hands.”

“What assurance have I as to that?”

“The word of a gentleman.”

“In your case I prefer something else.”

The Marquis flushed angrily. Why he controlled himself I do not know, unless it was because he was so desperately anxious to carry out his plan and I was his only instrument.

“What do you propose?” he asked.

“To go before a notary and draw up an agreement, leaving the papers in his hands, including the ring and the coin, and a signed statement, acquitting me of complication in the robbery. These papers he is to give to me in the morning, if I succeed. Furthermore, I won’t go into the matter without the assistance of an old sailor with whom I cruised.”

“Take as many assistants as you please, Monsieur,” said the Marquis; “and now we will go to my apartments. Will you honor me?”

He rose and offered me his arm.

“I have to do your dirty work,” I replied, “and that obliges me to walk by your side, I suppose, but it doesn’t compel me to take your arm.”

My soul revolted against carrying out my part of the plot, even though by so doing I was obliging a lady. True, she might be—and if his words were true, she was—in love with du Trémigon, but I was sure she could not know him as I knew him. Besides, what were the love affairs of the Marquis and his cousin to me? I had no personal interest in either of them.

All I had to do was to fetch a slipper or some personal belonging from her chamber, as she herself desired. The long and short of it was that I was resolved to do it. I had to!

II
THE SLIPPER IS FOUND

From some servant in the Duc de Rivau-Huet’s hôtel, du Trémigon had learned that the Comtesse de Villars was to be from home that night. He arranged to have me passed through the gate. After that I was to look out for myself. The Duke’s hôtel, which was surrounded by ample grounds, was just outside the city walls. The Marquis told me that, dressed in his clothes and with a cloak he was accustomed to wear, I should very well pass for him, and that in all probability no one would molest me unless I fell in with Éspiau, the Duke’s body-servant, or some of the upper officers of the household. The domestics were well affected toward him, and as all the world loves a lover, they would be disposed rather to encourage than to hinder.

Du Trémigon, with singular parsimony, I thought, had designed a rather shabby suit for my use. I insisted upon seeing his wardrobe and selected the handsomest garments he possessed. He protested, but vainly, for I said that I must be dressed like a gentleman. He pointed out that I would probably tear and certainly soil his court suit in climbing. I returned that if I carried out his enterprise and won him a rich wife he could well afford to lose a suit, whereas if I were caught and shot it would be some consolation to me to know that I was well dressed for dying.

I took a sword from the rare collection of weapons which he had in his apartments. I may not be much of a card player, but I pride myself that I know a weapon, and I chose a blade that I could depend upon. I got two pistols for myself and two for worthy Master Bucknall. Bucknall was an old shipmate of mine. I knew I could depend upon him. We had fought side by side on several cruises, and although he had not been with me when I was captured, he had appeared in Paris after a shipwreck in which he had been picked up by a French frigate. I found him penniless, and, of course, took care of him, intending to take him with me when I saw Dr. Franklin and arranged to go back to America. The Marquis had him fetched from his lodging, and I explained the whole situation to the worthy seaman.

Bucknall was to remain concealed in the grounds beneath Mademoiselle’s room while I was within. I didn’t care to be taken in the rear, and I knew if an alarm were given, that Bucknall would keep a way of escape open for me as long as he could. To him I gave my sword and pistols.

I had studied a plan of the chateau and I knew the lay of the land and the position of the chambers perfectly. A bath, a rest and a meal completed my preparations. No, I forget one thing. I knew that many a door that will not open to iron and steel is facile to a golden key, and I made du Trémigon provide me with a rouleau of louis. He did it with an ill grace. In the first place he had none too many, and, in the second, I suppose, he thought he had laid out enough in the adventure. I insisted, however, giving him in lieu thereof another signed paper to add to his collection. This and the visit to the notary, where I saw things made secure from my point of view, filled the day.

At eight o’clock we sallied forth. Du Trémigon had furnished us with a couple of horses. We had no difficulty passing the gates—he had provided us with the password—and finding the Duke’s mansion. The Marquis did not accompany us. He intended to give out that he had paid a visit to the Countess in her chamber, and in proof of it was to exhibit her slipper. The Countess, being at a masked ball where no one could recognize her for hours, could not disprove his statement. Of course, if anybody saw him elsewhere his plan would fail, so he was to lie close and await our return.

When we came near the place I left the horses in care of an innkeeper to whom du Trémigon had recommended me. I gave instructions to have them ready for instant service at any time. I expected that we would be back before midnight. Then Bucknall and I walked boldly down the road toward the gate of the mansion. Du Trémigon had told us that his servant was one-eyed, so Bucknall was disguised by a patch over one eye, which gave him great inconvenience, by the way, and at which, sailor-like, the old sea-dog growled mightily. I drew the Marquis’s cloak up around my neck, pulled my hat down, and assumed as well as I could his mincing gait and manner. In the dark we might well pass for du Trémigon and his servant. The porter at the gate was expecting us. He made no difficulty about passing us through. Then we were left to shift for ourselves.

The night was dark and chill. There were no dogs in the yard. The Duke kept his hounds in the country. No one disturbed us as we made our way cautiously along the wall under the trees to the window of the Countess’s apartment. A few lights showed here and there through the different openings on this side of the house. Among them a faint illumination came from the window beneath which we stood. I looked at it with interest. It seemed that no one could be in the room. The light was probably a single candle, left burning in case of need. This agreed with our information.

Making sure that no one saw us, we crossed the grass and stopped under the window. The house was an old one. There were buttresses against the wall, and the one nearest the Countess’s window was in a dilapidated condition. A vine ran all over this side of the building. I was always active and I had not dissipated in Paris long enough to have lost my nerve. I glanced upward. It would not be difficult. If the vine held—and its stem was as thick as my wrist—the ascent would be easy. Wrapping my cloak around me so as to protect du Trémigon’s clothes, and with a word of caution to Bucknall, whom I saw secreted comfortably in the black recess between the buttress and the wall, I quickly made my way up. So long as I had the assistance of the buttress it was nearly as easy as walking up a stair, or as simple as climbing the battens on the side of a ship. The last yard was more difficult, but I managed it with a few scratches and with a minimum of noise.

I had no opportunity to peer into the room or see what was before me. I reached the sill, threw my leg over it and stepped quietly within. I stood by the window listening. Neither from outside nor inside was there any sound. I had been unobserved.

Satisfying myself on this point, I stepped back from the window to avoid the line of light and looked about me. The room appeared to be a woman’s sitting-room. There was an air of refinement, of grace and culture about it that made me sure. There were books on the table, pictures on the walls, a piece of some sort of needlework thrown carelessly on a chair. Several doors opened from the room. According to the plan, that on the right should be the Countess’s boudoir, and beyond that her bedchamber. I stepped softly across to this door. I listened. There was no one in the other room apparently. I turned the handle carefully and entered.

Just beyond me was the door of the bedroom. Repeating my performance, I walked over to it and listened. No one was there. I opened the door and looked in. Like the others this room was lighted by a single candle. Like the others, it was unoccupied.

It was quite evident that du Trémigon’s informant was correct. The Countess was out. Her maid, who should have been on guard, had taken advantage of her mistress’s absence to go off on a little jaunt of her own, I supposed. I closed the door of the bedroom softly and began a hasty examination of the boudoir. A dress lay across a chair. A magnificent costume, it seemed to me.

A pair of shoes—a ravishing pair of tiny shoes—stood on the floor at the bottom of the gown. These might do. But no, they had not been worn; they were entirely new. Du Trémigon had insisted upon something personal and familiar. I walked over to the dressing-table, which was covered with a mass of silver and porcelain. They bore the de Villars crest, but so did a number of things in du Trémigon’s own home. None of them would answer.

I remembered the room contained a closet. Nerving myself further, I opened the nearest door. On the floor, confronting me, lay a pair of small, worn, blue satin slippers with red heels. They were slightly shaped to the feet of the wearer from long usage. There were no other feet in the world that could wear those slippers, in all probability. I stooped and picked one up. It would serve admirably.

III
THE SLIPPER IS RENOUNCED

With the slipper still in my hand, I turned to find myself confronting a woman!

She was standing at the door leading to the antechamber. How long she had been there I knew not. Indeed, after the first start of surprise, I had room for but one thought. The woman was she whom I had rescued on the way to Paris, with whom I had fallen madly in love! For whom I had sought high and low—whom I had prayed that I might see again.

She was looking at me composedly from under level brows. I observed that her hand was on the bell-cord.

“Monsieur,” she said—and oh, how well I remembered her voice—“if you move, or make a sound, I pull the bell. My servants are within a moment’s call. You will be overpowered immediately.”

“Mademoiselle,” I returned, disguising my natural voice as well as I could and thanking the Lord that my French was perfect, and that in the dim light, she did not recognize me apparently, “I am at your service.”

“I wish,” she continued, “to talk with you. The situation amuses me.”

She spoke as she might in the presence of some new spectacle. Her manner assured me that her interest in me was entirely impersonal. She was tired and bored. This was a new experience apparently which she wished to make the most of. I could think of nothing adequate to say, so I bowed profoundly.

“What is your name and what are you doing here?”

“My name, Mademoiselle, matters nothing.” In my agitation I forgot, and spoke in my natural voice. She started as she lifted the candle and looked keenly at me.

“Why!” she exclaimed, “’tis the man of the highway!”

I do not know whether I was glad or sorry to hear her say those words. At first I thought to deny it, but somehow it was impossible.

“You have discovered me, Mademoiselle,” I said.

“Then you were masquerading as a sailor. Now——”

She looked me over from head to heel, and I have been told since that I made a brave appearance. Du Trémigon had displayed excellent taste in clothing, and this was his handsomest suit. I stood proudly erect, putting a bold face on the situation, with one hand upon my sword, my hat in the other, which also held the slipper, as if I were about to be presented to the King.

“Now,” she said, “you are masquerading as a gentleman.”

“Pardon, Mademoiselle,” I returned, “I am a gentleman”—she put up her hand, but I would not be denied—“masquerading as a ... thief.”

I blessed her in my heart for her hesitation over that word.

“Is it because you have stolen the Marquis du Trémigon’s clothes?—for I believe, if I am not mistaken, they are his.”

“Your observation does you infinite credit, Mademoiselle.”

“I thought so. Is it for that reason you are masquerading as a thief?”

“Because I have come here without regard to clothes to—” I protested.

“To take my jewels?” she interrupted.

“Mademoiselle!” I cried, starting back, the blood flaming in my face again. “You think——”

“I think nothing, Monsieur. I discover a strange man in my apartments at night. He says that he is masquerading as a thief. What else am I to infer?”

I was dumb before her merciless logic.

“Mademoiselle,” I began desperately, “I deeply regret——”

“So, too, do I. I knew—at least I thought I knew, on that day, the day you did me such brave service—that you were a gentleman, in spite of what you wore, yet—well, I see I was deceived.”

“Don’t say that!” I protested again.

“Why not, Monsieur?”

“Mademoiselle, I am here in defiance of every rule of propriety, I will admit. You may well think me a thief,” I began, with passionate haste, “but I am only following your example.”

“How, sir?” she exclaimed.

“You, too, are not guiltless of robbery.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, indignantly drawing herself up.

Oh, how magnificent she looked! I wanted to throw myself at her feet and confess everything, but I did not—then.

“You have stolen my heart, Mademoiselle.”

“And you came to look for it in my jewel-case?” She laughed somewhat contemptuously.

“I have come for yours in exchange,” said I; although I had a neat opening in her question, I judged it best to let it pass.

“Monsieur!”

“I am a poor sailor, Mademoiselle, but I have sought you throughout the land. I babbled everywhere as I ran of blue eyes, dark hair, a witching face. I found you—nowhere!”

There was a ring of truth in these words—although of course it did not explain my presence there—that I believe influenced her.

“’Tis impossible, Monsieur—” she began at last.

“Look into the glass, Mademoiselle, and see how believable it is,” I broke in.

“That you should have come here on such an errand and——”

“I would go to the end of the world if I might find you there, Mademoiselle,” I boldly said, taking a step nearer to her.

“Monsieur!” she cried, clutching the bell-rope once more. “Pray keep your distance.”

“I am content merely to look at you,” I said, stopping short instantly.

“Monsieur, on your word of honor as a—” She paused.

“As a thief?” I questioned.

“As a gentleman,” she said softly, and I could have kissed her feet for that. “Did you come here for me?”

“Mademoiselle,” I said, “it is a long story. You have honored me by your conversation. You found something gentle in me on the road and in spite of appearances—that are so grievously against me now—you have reposed a certain degree of confidence in me. Will you allow me to tell you briefly who and what I am?”

“I am anxious to learn it.”

“Will you not be seated? You may release the bell-rope, on my word, without danger. I would rather die than harm you. Indeed, my greatest ambition is to devote my life to your service.”

“Fine words, Monsieur, and such as I have often heard from other cavaliers.”

“I doubt it not, Mademoiselle. Such beauty of person and grace of mind as yours cannot remain unchallenged. This shall be my excuse.”

“No more of this, if you please, but of yourself.” It was ineffable condescension, and you may imagine how I appreciated the honor.

“My name is Francis Burnham. My family on the distaff side is French—Huguenot. The blood, I believe, is noble. My great-grandfather was an English gentleman. My father met my mother in North Carolina. The acreage my father owns is equal to a French county.”

“You are an American, then?”

“I have that honor. I am also an officer in the American Navy. My country is ill provided with warships. Many naval officers have been forced to accept positions in privateers. I was a lieutenant in Captain Gustavus Cunningham’s privateer ship, the Revenge. We were captured by a British frigate and taken to a British prison-ship. I escaped thence and was on my way to Paris, to see Dr. Franklin, when I had the good fortune to be of some slight service to you. That gold piece you gave me, I have it here.” I saw her hand involuntarily move to her breast and my heart leaped as it assured me that she also had retained and cherished the coin I had forced upon her. “I have loved you ever since I saw you that day, Mademoiselle. I have sought you in vain only to find you tonight.”

“That, Monsieur,” she said quietly, “does not yet explain your presence here.”

I was dumb again.

“How did you discover my abode?”

I could make no reply.

“How did you learn my name?”

Unthinking, I answered:

“I do not know your name at this moment.”

“I am Gabrielle de Rivau, Comtesse de Villars.”

“Great heavens!” I exclaimed.

Would you believe it? It had not occurred to me for a moment that this was she! I had jumped to the conclusion that she was perhaps some friend of the Countess’s. I had never dreamed that fate could deal me so sorry a trick as to involve me in such a part against the woman I adored. “Are you the Comtesse de Villars?”

“I am.”

“I did not know.”

“Monsieur Burnham, you are full of mystery.”

“I have told you nothing but the truth, Mademoiselle.”

“Yes, but not all of it. Is it not so?”

I was silent.

“Monsieur, do you not realize that I have committed a great imprudence in allowing you to converse with me here alone, under such circumstances? That my duty should be to pull the bell and hand you over to the Duke’s retainers for punishment? That you owe much to my forbearance?”

“I realize all that you say, Mademoiselle, and I am filled with shame.”

“Why, then, are you here? What are you doing in the Marquis du Trémigon’s clothing? What is that you hold?” I thoughtlessly lifted my hand. “My slipper!” she exclaimed, flushing in her turn. “You have been in my closet yonder. What does it all mean?”

“I will speak!” I replied desperately, resolved to make a clean breast of the whole affair. “I am in the power of the Marquis du Trémigon. I owe him money.”

“Heaven help you!”

“I am surprised to hear you say that!” I exclaimed in amazement.

“Monsieur,” she said quickly, disregarding my remark, “my purse is on the table. Let me discharge my obligation. Take what you will.”

“Mademoiselle, for God’s sake, think not so unkindly of me! He threatened me with imprisonment for debt. That is nothing, a mere bagatelle. I could have borne that without hesitation. I have broken prison before.”

“Well?”

“There is more. When I escaped from the British prison-ship I was penniless; alone in England. I halted the first traveler I met, thinking to despoil the enemy for my needs as an act of war. That traveler happened to be the Marquis du Trémigon. I met him afterward at—at places where they play in Paris,” I went on. “He won all my money, a ring I had taken from him and a coin which bore certain markings. These things were proofs positive. He threatened to charge me with highway robbery. The punishment is death. I pleaded with him, promising to repay him if he would give me time. Our minister is absent, Commodore Paul Jones not in Paris. I was desperate. I loved life, Mademoiselle, for it held you as a possibility.”

“But that you should come here, Monsieur? How does that——?”

“Hear me, Mademoiselle. The Marquis du Trémigon has informed me of the nature of the agreement regarding your proposed marriage.”

“And what did Monsieur du Trémigon say as to that?”

“That by the terms of the contract three people must consent willingly before the marriage can take place.”

“Three, Monsieur?”

“He said so.”

“And those are?”

“Yourself, your grandfather and himself.”

Her lip curled.

“Proceed, Monsieur. This is most interesting.”

“He said further that you were—forgive me—anxious to marry him.”

I could see Mademoiselle clench her hand. I could mark the flash of her eye.

“That he was anxious to marry you, but that your grandfather refused his consent. And that, with your approval, he had arranged to”—it was a deeply humiliating thing to say with her standing before me like an outraged goddess, but I had to go on—“to compromise you with him so that your grandfather would no longer withhold his consent.”

“And you were to be the means whereby this plan was to be carried out?”

“To my shame I admit it. I agreed to come here and take some article belonging to you of a personal character.”

“My slipper?”

“That or whatever else I could secure. I wore his clothes because he wished the servants to recognize them, and thus be prepared to swear that he was with you.”

“’Tis a pretty plot for a gentleman!”

“Mademoiselle, to my sorrow and regret, I acknowledge it. Yet I beg to assure you that not even the fear of imprisonment or death would have made me consent, had I not believed that I was doing a lady a service.”

“Do you think you do any lady a service by forcing her into the arms of Marquis du Trémigon?”

“But if she loves him?”

“Monsieur,” she said hotly, “she hates him!”

“Is it possible?”

“You have been grossly deceived. The only consent necessary to the marriage is my own. My grandfather has not withheld his consent. He has left it entirely to me.”

“You, Mademoiselle?” I exclaimed, my heart leaping at the thought that she did not love that villain.

“I have refused and shall refuse. The whole plan is an attempt to compromise me, to force my consent.”

Into what a scheme had I been betrayed! The sweat rose to my forehead.

“Mademoiselle,” I cried, “for God’s sake acquit me of any such dishonor!”

“I do, Monsieur, freely.”

“I shall go back to du Trémigon and explain my appearance to him immediately. I shall compel him to give me satisfaction for this insult—an insult to you as well as to me. Your quarrel with him shall be mine. He will trouble you no more,” I added significantly.

“Your plan is vain, Monsieur. I know the Marquis du Trémigon. You will find him surrounded by such a force as will paralyze your efforts. He will refuse to fight with you.”

“At least I shall have the satisfaction of telling him what I think, and I shall go to prison if necessary.”

“I would not have you suffer on my account, Monsieur.”

“Mademoiselle, you are kindness itself. I deserve nothing whatever at your hands. If you could only believe in me, in my love for you, a little before I go——”

“Monsieur, the circumstances are very unusual. That day you so bravely rescued me from those scoundrels and treated me with such chivalry, I knew you were not of the common people. Your dress indicated that, but my heart—my mind, that is—told me otherwise.”

Her voice faltered, but she looked at me clearly with those glorious eyes of hers.

“But when I found you here and thought you meant to degrade me, to force me into the arms of that villain——”

“Mademoiselle!” I protested, “you cannot accuse me as I do myself. At least I can make amends now.”

“But is there nothing I can do for you?” she asked.

“Nothing. The papers, the obligations, the evidence against me, are in the hands of a notary. If he does not hear from the Marquis and myself tomorrow, he has orders to hand the packet to the Chief of Police.”

“What do you propose to do, sir?”

“To warn you. Beware of du Trémigon. Although he has failed in this instance, he will surely strive again to compromise your honor. There will be one ray of comfort in my soul, that I have again been able to render some slight assistance to you. And I cherish the hope, if you think of me at all, that you will bear in mind that I love you.”

“But, Monsieur——”

“Mademoiselle, if I had met you under happier circumstances, I should have made it my prayer to live for you. Now at least I can die for you, and I trust that my death will redeem this disgrace upon my name.”

I laid the little slipper softly on the table. I kissed it tenderly, reverently, before I put it down. I stepped nearer to her. She stood, as if paralyzed, gazing upon me. There was a flush in her cheeks; her bosom heaved. I sank at her feet and took her hand. It was icy cold. Mine was burning. I kissed it fervently and rose.

“Farewell,” I said, and then heard sounds, footsteps in the hall, a knock at the door of the anteroom through which I had to pass in order to make my escape.

IV
THE SLIPPER IS BESTOWED

I made a swift movement toward the door, intending to rush to the window, no matter who barred the way. I reached for my sword as I did so. Quick as I was, Mademoiselle was quicker. Although her face had gone white at the noise, she had instantly begun to sing—strange action, for which I could then see no excuse. Still lilting lightly a charming little air, she stood between me and the door.

“Not that way!” she whispered in the breaks of the song. “It would be death. In there.”

She pointed toward her bedroom. The knocking was resumed, this time more loudly. A voice cried:

“Countess Gabrielle!”

Her check of me had spoiled my chance. There was nothing but obedience. I slipped into the bedroom and closed the door. The song broke off suddenly. I could hear distinctly all that was said. Mademoiselle raised her voice, crying:

“Who is there?”

“Your grandfather,” was the answer.

“Enter, Monsieur.”

“The door is locked.”

How I blessed that lock! So, I doubt not, did Mademoiselle. She went slowly to the antechamber, fumbled at the lock a few moments, and opened the door. I heard two people enter.

“Wait, Messieurs!” cried Mademoiselle as she caught sight of the second visitor. “I was preparing to retire.” With marvelous quickness she had taken off her bodice after I had entered the bedroom, and was bare-necked and armed before her grandfather. She hastily slipped on a dressing-robe and once more turned to him.

“’Tis only Éspiau,” said the Duke quickly.

“I am very glad indeed,” said Mademoiselle, with a gay little laugh, “for you caught me quite unaware.”

“Was I mistaken or was there a tremble in her voice? Her situation was grave. Had the Duke discovered me, he would have killed me out of hand, unless I inflicted a like penalty upon him, which, under the circumstances, never entered my mind.

“I thought,” continued the old Duke as he entered the boudoir, “that I heard voices.” He looked around suspiciously.

“You did, Monsieur,” answered the Countess.

“Great heavens!” thought I, “are you about to betray me?”

“Whose?” went on the old man again.

“Mine; I was singing.”

She began that little song, the music of which I shall never forget, although I am no great hand at carrying a tune.

“Humph!” said the old man. “You did not go to the masked ball?”

“No, Monsieur, I was tired. I have been reading in the library and have but recently come here.”

“There was no one in the anteroom when you entered?”

“No one, sir.”

“Have you been in the room beyond since you came up?”

“Not yet.”

“Éspiau!”

“Monsieur le Duc!”

“Examine yonder chamber. It may be some thief has concealed himself there.”

The Duke turned his head away to survey the room and Mademoiselle shot one glance, pregnant with agony and entreaty, at the old servant. He had been as a father to her from childhood—indeed, he had been her father’s foster-brother.

“Very well, Monsieur le Duc,” answered the servant.

I heard him crossing the room. What should I do? There was no place of concealment. The window happened to be barred, else I should have thrown myself from it. Should I fall upon him and run my sword through him? I drew the weapon, without making a sound, and waited. The door opened slowly and only partially, Éspiau saw me at once. He put his finger to his lips and closed his eyes.

“I see no one, Monsieur le Duc,” he said, turning his head.

“Examine thoroughly,” returned the old man.

Éspiau stepped into the room, looked under the bed, shook the curtains, making a deal of noise as he moved about, managing to say to me:

“Silence, as you value your life!”

Presently he returned to the others. I breathed a long sigh of relief. I remember wiping the sweat from my brow.

“Monsieur le Duc was doubtless mistaken,” said the old man quietly.

“Yes,” said the Duke; “I’m glad of it. Times are in such disorder. There are many masterless men about, and your apartment is easy of access from the garden. I must change it, Countess.”

“At your pleasure, grandfather,” said Mademoiselle, and then she actually began to sing that little love song again. The courage of that girl was superb! It made me love her more madly than before.

“I am glad to find you home,” said the Duke, “for I have brought you some papers which require your signature. I intended to leave them until morning, but unless you feel inclined to retire——”

“No, Monsieur, I never felt so wide awake in my life,” answered Mademoiselle.

“Good! I will leave them here then. Éspiau will explain them to you, and we can finish the discussion in the morning. I am tired and feel the need of rest. Good night.”

“Good night, grandfather,” said Mademoiselle; “may you rest well.”

“Good night, my child,” said the old man, relaxing for the moment the formality of his address as he took her hand, drew her toward him, pressed a kiss upon her forehead, bowed to her as to a queen and walked away.

The two left within the boudoir moved not until the echo of the Duke’s footsteps died away in the distance of the corridor.

“Mademoiselle,” at last began Éspiau in a voice in which sorrow and affection strove for the mastery.

“Judge me not,” said Mademoiselle quickly.

“Who is that man?”

I thought now it was time for me to make my entrance. I opened the door, therefore, and presented myself.

“My name is Francis Burnham, my good fellow. I am an officer in the American Navy.”

“How came you here and what would you do?”

“That scoundrel du Trémigon sent him here to compromise me,” the Countess interposed.

“The dastard!” exclaimed the servant.

“But Monsieur did not think it was I,” continued Mademoiselle. “You remember when I went on that errand for Her Majesty the Queen?” I started at this. Éspiau nodded. “This gentleman had the good fortune to save me from capture then. I should have been robbed of those papers. I found him here this evening. He had abjured his errand and was upon the point of departure when——”

“My friend,” I interrupted, “what Mademoiselle says is absolutely true, and I believed, furthermore, that I was doing her a service.”

“I need not your assurance for that, Monsieur,” said the old man proudly; “the house of de Rivau does not lie.”

“I wish the same might be said of the house of du Trémigon; but be that as it may, I am not anxious to forfeit any man’s good-will.”

“Not even that of a servant?” he interrupted.

“Not even that. It was a case of life or death for me. I am in du Trémigon’s power. Not knowing that it was Mademoiselle—for I did not learn until this evening that she was Comtesse de Villars—I came. I am sorry. I am going back to give myself up to the Marquis. You may guess what that will mean.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Before I go, allow me to express my gratitude for your forbearance. You have saved my life. The Duke would have killed me, for I should have made no resistance.”

“It was death for me to see you there, to suspect—but Mademoiselle will forgive me——”

“There is no need, my good Éspiau,” said the Countess, extending her hand.

The old man kissed it like a gentleman. Indeed, I dare say, compared to du Trémigon, and others that I had met in Paris, he was as fine a gentleman as any of them.

“I should like to shake you by the hand,” I said.

“Monsieur honors me,” said Éspiau.

I didn’t know whether there was sarcasm in his voice or not, but we shook hands vigorously.

“Mademoiselle,” I continued, turning to her, “there is but one thing for me to do.”

“What is that?”

“To wish you farewell and to go as I came.”

“Wait,” said Mademoiselle, her hand on her breast. “I have something to say to you.”

“At your service, Mademoiselle.”

“Éspiau, can you trust me further?”

“In everything, Mademoiselle,” said the old man.

He was a well-trained fellow, with as much tact as discretion. He bowed to me, and I swear I couldn’t help it, I returned his bow as if he had been an equal, and he marched out of the room as stately as a grenadier.

“Is there no way,” began the Countess hastily, “for you to escape du Trémigon?”

“None.”

“I have money.”

“Mademoiselle,” I cried, “I shall take nothing from this room but the recollection of your kindness, the consciousness of your worth, the sense of your beauty.”

“But you will be imprisoned!”

“I have had this hour of freedom. The rest is nothing.”

“They will put you to death.”

“Without you, I do not care to live.”

“Mon Dieu, what shall I do?”

“If you could say—if you could let me believe—it will be but for a short time—that, were the circumstances other than they are, you might perhaps have cared for me, it will lighten the hours and give me something sweet to dwell upon. It will make me indifferent to any fate.”

“Monsieur—I—I—” she faltered, her face aflame. She buried it in her hands.

I sank on my knee and seized the hem of her gown. Then I felt her hands upon my head. I rose to my feet. I don’t know how or why, but I swept her to my breast in an embrace. Her lips met mine.

“No more,” she said, pushing me away. “I have gone too far already. You must not go to him now.”

“I am in heaven already, Mademoiselle, and death cannot alter the fact that you return my love.”

“But you will not go to him?”

“I must.”

“No!”

She stooped, and before I knew what she was about, she took off one of her dainty slippers—warm from her little foot—and placed it in my hand.

“Give that to him,” she said; “you will be free and I shall know how to protect myself.”

“Mademoiselle!”

“In pity leave me! Go!”

I could not resist that. Besides, after a warning cough Éspiau thrust his head through the door and said quickly:

“Someone comes! You must hasten!”

I kissed her hand, and with one backward glance tore myself away.

V
THE SLIPPER IS RETURNED

To scramble down the ivy was the work of a few seconds. The faithful Bucknall was waiting. Without a word we bounded across the park and the bribed turnkey let us out. As for me I was treading on air. I had never been so happy since I was a boy. Never would she have given me that little slipper, against which my heart throbbed madly, if I had been indifferent to her. Did I intend to give it to du Trémigon? Never! I should let him do his worst. Something would happen. I should get out of it in some way.

When we reached the inn we found our horses ready. After we were safely mounted old Bucknall broke the silence.

“Did ye git it, yer honor?” asked the old sailor.

“Get it, Bucknall? Do you remember me telling you of the lady whom I saved from highwaymen on the road to Paris?”

I had to tell someone. It would have killed me not to have been able to confide in a soul, and Bucknall was faithful and devoted beyond the ordinary.

“I remembers it well, sir.”

“She was the lady in the house yonder.”

“You don’t say so, sir!”

“I love her, Bucknall!”

“Then ye didn’t git it?” said the old salt coolly.

“Get it? Of course, I got it. It’s in my waistcoat, over my heart.”

“You’ll give it to the Markis?”

“Never! I’ll keep it until the day of my death.”

“That’s likely to be pretty soon, yer honor, if wot ye say is true.”

“I can’t help that. I wouldn’t give it to that lying hound to purchase my life. When I die I wish it buried with me.”

And then I told him squarely what a scoundrel the Marquis was and how he had befooled me about Mademoiselle’s desires.

“Wot are ye goin’ to do, ef I might ax yer honor?”

“I’m going to du Trémigon and tell him I refuse to do his bidding and let him do his worst.”

“Wot’ll he do?”

“Clap me into prison, I suppose.”

“Hadn’t we better cut an’ run fer it right now?”

“I can’t. He has my word of honor that I would report the success or failure of my mission.”

“I guess he ain’t troublin’ hisself about honor, is he?”

“I suppose not.”

“W’y should you, sir?”

“That’s the disadvantage a gentleman labors under in dealing with a scoundrel.”

“I see. Hev ye thought that ye’ll be sarched by the police an’——?”

“By Jove!” I interrupted. “That’s so.”

“An’ wot ye’ve got’ll be tuk from ye?”

This was a new complication. I had no doubt in that case that the slipper would eventually fall into the hands of du Trémigon and my sacrifice would avail nothing. What was to be done? I could think of nothing. I had no friends in Paris whom I could trust except this humble sailor. Unless I gave the slipper to him I should have to throw it away. In truth I should never have taken it. It was a mad impulse that possessed the Countess to give it me.

“Bucknall,” I said at last, “you are right. I cannot keep this slipper.”

“I think not, sir.”

“There is no one that I know in Paris to whom I can intrust it but you.”

“I reckon not, sir.”

“Here it is,” I said. I am not ashamed to say that I kissed it before I gave it to the sailor. It was dark and he could not see, but if it had been broad daylight I should not have cared.

“Wot am I to do with it, sir?”

“I want you to do it up carefully in a package. Put the best wrappings about it and tie it up shipshape. Leave it at the American minister’s for Dr. Franklin when he comes back, which should be tomorrow or next day. You can get someone there to address it to my father’s plantation.”

I gave him the address and made him repeat it many times until he had it letter-perfect.

“Now,” I said, “you must leave me and shift for yourself. Here”—I reached my hand in my pocket and took out the money that du Trémigon had given me. I might as well be hanged for an old sheep as a lamb, I reasoned, and I passed it all over to the faithful sailor. “You speak passable French,” I continued—he had picked up enough of the language in his Mediterranean cruises to make himself understood—“keep yourself close until you see the American minister. Tell him of my plight and perhaps he may be able to do something. At any rate see that he forwards the package. You need not say what’s in it.”

“What about my hoss, sir?”

“Give me the rein.”

“An’ I thanks God to get off’n him,” returned Bucknall, sliding to the ground with great alacrity. “And, harkee, Master Burnham, ye ain’t seen the last of me, yet, sir. I’ve got a few idees in my ol’ head, sir, an’ don’t you git ready for death too suddint like.”

He turned and was gone.

A short time brought me to du Trémigon’s house. He was waiting for me, wellnigh consumed with anxiety and curiosity. I do not care to go into the details of our interview that night. Suffice it to say, I felt entirely free to express my opinion of him and that I did so without let or hindrance. Of course, he carried out his part of the program, and at daybreak I found myself in prison facing charges of highway robbery and debts amounting to many thousand francs.

But I was happy. I had hope of the love of the Countess and I didn’t care a rap for anything else. I felt that somehow, in some way, I should manage to get out. I was the most cheerful prisoner under such a heavy charge that ever occupied a cell.

Confinement, I will admit, was a little wearing upon me. The first day passed, and then a second, without a sign from anybody. My examination was set for the morrow. The turnkey who brought me my supper slipped me a note. I was hungry enough—for the prison fare was scanty—but the note claimed my attention. It was in a woman’s hand, of course, and could come only from her, although it bore no crest and was not signed.

The turnkey and the under-governor of the jail are bribed. Tonight, after supper, you will be removed to another cell. This overlooks the street. The bars of the window have been arranged so that they will come out at a touch. When the clock in the nearby church strikes twelve, a messenger and a horse will await you in the alley.

The note stopped there, and then a few words had been added apparently as an afterthought:

These presents from one who cares much what happens to you.

If you have been in a like situation you can guess what happened then. When I was calmer I put the note carefully in my pocket and fell to my supper. I knew that I should need all my strength, and I was of a practical turn of mind even in the midst of my most romantic dreams. I had scarcely finished the poor provender when the turnkey re-entered. He was followed by a couple of other officials. The turnkey in a harsh manner, as if to impress the others, although he winked knowingly at me, said:

“By the order of the commandant you are to be transferred to another cell.”

“I do not wish to be transferred,” I returned hotly, to keep up the deception; “this cell suits me very well, and I am satisfied to remain here.”

“Your wishes are not consulted in this matter,” he returned roughly.

“You villain!” I cried, menacing him.

“Have a care,” he answered; “if you don’t go peaceably we’ll have to take you by force. Here, men!”

His two assistants stepped forward. I concluded that I had done enough, so, grumbling mightily, and giving evidence of my displeasure, I suffered them to lead me to the other cell, where I was soon locked in for the night. With what impatience I waited for the appointed hour!

At the first stroke of the bell I was at the window. The bars came out in my hand. Someone had chiseled out the mortar and replaced it with putty. I gained the sill and dropped. It was a long fall, but I was delighted when I alighted upon a truss of hay, which had evidently been thrown at the foot of the wall on purpose to receive me. I scrambled up and looked about. A man approached me. He had a weapon. I was without arms, and although I stood ready to spring, I had no doubt he was a messenger.

“Monsieur Burnham?” he asked.

“The same.”

“Come with me.”

I followed him down the narrow street on tiptoe. So far as I could see it was entirely deserted. The street opened upon a little park or square. Under the trees I made out horses. There were three of them. A figure sat upon one. My heart leaped into my mouth as I discerned it to be a woman. One of the horses was turned over to me. My conductor took the third, first handing me a hat and cloak. Then he turned and, indicating that we should follow, made his way into the street. On account of the lateness of the hour, and the fact that the jail was in a remote and unfrequented portion of the town, the street was dark and empty. We passed a lantern presently and its rays fell upon the woman who had persistently avoided conversation with me. Under this light, although she wore a mask and was shrouded in a cloak, I knew that it was the Countess. Nothing could stop me then. I swung my horse in toward hers and laid my hand on her arm.

“Mademoiselle,” I said, “it is to you that I owe my freedom.”

“Not yet,” she replied, but she did not shake off my hand, and we rode side by side, the horses going at a good pace.

“First, you gave me something to live for—” I said.

“That was?”

“Yourself. Now you give me life to enjoy you.”

“Monsieur,” she said, dodging the issue, “we have but little time to converse. I learned of your plight——”

“How, Mademoiselle?”

“From your servant, an ancient sailor. He followed you, learned where you were imprisoned, and immediately sought me.”

“How did he get access to you?”

“He had a—talisman, Monsieur, that insured him an immediate hearing.”

I was completely puzzled, but Mademoiselle gave me no time for thought. She went on hurriedly:

“I bribed the commandant and turnkey. I provided these horses. The man ahead of us is——”

“Éspiau!” I exclaimed.

“Yes. He will conduct you out of France.”

“And you came, Mademoiselle——??”

“To say farewell.”

“Never!” I cried. “I will leave France, Mademoiselle, but not alone.”

“You mean?”

“I take you with me.”

“Impossible!”

“But do you not love me?” She was silent. “Would you have done all this for me if you had not?” I persisted.

“Gratitude, Monsieur, for services rendered, and——”

“Nonsense!” I said, laughing, “you know that you care. Why, I have lived in the prison upon the memory of that——”

“You are cruel, Monsieur.”

“Is it cruel for a man who loves a woman to take the woman, if she loves him, away with him?”

I was young and reckless. I didn’t care what happened. I swung my horse in closer to hers and slipped my arm around her. She struggled, but in despite of her struggles I kissed her. Her head sank on my shoulder.

“Don’t!” she whispered. “You are so strong. I cannot let you go——”

That was a wise pair of horses, for they stopped while I poured out my soul to her there and then. What her answer might have been I know not. Yet I was prepared to take her away by force when we were suddenly alarmed by Éspiau. He had ridden ahead a few paces; now he came back on the run.

“Soldiers!” he said hastily. “The King’s guard! We must flee!”

“Monsieur,” said the Countess, quickly releasing herself and thrusting a little parcel into my hand, “here is the talisman. Go! unless you wish to disgrace me. Éspiau and I will remain here.”

She had right on her side. We must not be found together. To assist in the escape of a prisoner, charged with a capital offense, was a serious matter. I swerved my horse and started away. But I had not gone ten paces before a heavy hand seized my horse’s bridle and a stern voice bade me stand in the King’s name. Lights appeared on the instant and I saw that I was surrounded. I cast one glance backward at the Countess and Éspiau. They, too, had been arrested. It was a trap! The whole party had been caught. Back of the men who had stopped us I noticed a single horseman.

“Have you got him?” he said as he drew near.

“Yes, Monsieur le Duc.”

I recognized his voice. It was Mademoiselle’s grandfather!

“Take him to my house,” said the old man shortly.

The next moment du Trémigon spurred through the throng. It was he who with the remainder of the King’s guard had apprehended Mademoiselle and Éspiau. He shot one venomous glance at me, in which triumph was mingled with hate, and approached the Duke, whispering a few words. I saw the old man start violently; a look of anger and dismay crossed his face—the Marquis spoke earnestly for a moment or two. The Duke nodded—unwillingly, I thought. The next moment he left us and rode forward with du Trémigon to the side of his granddaughter. I stared after them in despair.

“Where am I to be taken?” I asked one of the officers commanding the escort that had seized me.

“Back to prison.”

“And not to the Duke’s house?”

“An oubliette will doubtless be safer and more comfortable quarters for Monsieur,” said the captain politely, giving the order to march.

Fortune had been both kind and unkind to me once more. On the whole I judged, as I lay in the darkness of the damp, wretched dungeon from which no escape seemed possible, that the balance was on the side of kindness. I had had a breath of fresh air. I had further evidence that the woman I loved loved me. I had come near to freedom with her. And I had the talisman which Bucknall had shrewdly used to gain access to her. I could feel it in the darkness, for I had unwrapped it. It was the slipper—my lady’s slipper that had caused all the trouble! As I pressed it passionately to my lips I felt the crackle of paper inside. A letter! What would I have given for a light by which to read it!

Ah, yes, things looked black to me, but I blessed fortune nevertheless—on my own account, that is. I was filled with anxiety as to what would happen to the Countess between her grandfather and du Trémigon. There was one other matter, which gave me grave concern. When du Trémigon rode up to the Duke he had been followed by a servant on horseback, a particularly vicious-looking man with one eye. The light was not clear and I was not able to see distinctly. Yet I recognized him. Where I had met him, under what circumstances, I could not at first decide, but in the darkness of that dungeon all came back to me. He was the man whose wrist I had broken with my cudgel, when Mademoiselle had been attacked. He was evidently the leader of that assault upon her. She had spoken of the Queen’s despatch. Could it be that du Trémigon had instigated the attack? It must have been the case. I decided that the fact itself was of great importance, and that possibly I might use it in case of necessity.

VI
THE SLIPPER GOES TO COURT

I got through the night somehow. The next morning—I knew it was morning, because some faint light had filtered through a slit near the roof, the most eventful day in my life, which had not been without its surprising incidents—was ushered in by a visit from the commandant of the prison. Why he honored me with his personal attention was not obvious, though I learned later that it was on account of an order of the Queen. Curtly enough he bade me follow him, which I did, nothing loth. Anything was better than the cursed oubliette.

I fancy that I must have presented rather a sorry figure, for he was good enough to show me into a small room where there were some toilet conveniences, and I made myself as presentable as possible. Fortunately, my clothes—I had resumed my own, when I returned to du Trémigon—were of good material and a perfect fit, and I was rather proud of my figure, too. While there I read the note in the slipper. It was small, like the container, but very sweet to me:

Monsieur, [it said], to see you again I come with Éspiau tonight. I bid you an eternal farewell and write what I dare not speak—I love you!

An eternal farewell, eh? I would have something to say about that, I was resolved.

My hat and cloak—that Mademoiselle had provided me with the night before—were fetched, and after a good breakfast, which seemed to have been brought from his own table, he conducted me to a closed carriage and I was driven a long distance through the country, arriving at last at a place that I afterward found to be Versailles.

I tried several times to converse with my guards, but neither would talk to me. I resigned myself to whatever was coming, therefore, and busied myself with thoughts of Mademoiselle. I had been to Versailles seeking Dr. Franklin, but had never seen the royal palace. Consequently I did not recognize it when the carriage stopped and I was led forth. I supposed that it might be one of the residences of the great Duc de Rivau-Huet.

Before I had time to speculate, however, I was blindfolded and led through numberless corridors, up and down flights of stairs, in rooms and out in bewildering succession. I made no resistance. It would have been useless, and the officers who brought me thither informed me that no harm was intended. Finally we stopped, hands fumbled at the bandage, and I opened my eyes to find myself in a magnificent apartment—an antechamber of some sort, evidently. It was void of people, save ourselves and a sentry in the uniform of the Swiss Guards at the door at the farther end.

Running my hand through my hair with the natural instinct of a young man, and shaking myself as if to free my person by the motion, at a gesture from my guide I stepped boldly to the door. The Swiss presented arms, the official tapped on the door and stepped back, a voice I recognized bade me enter, and in another moment I was in the presence of Mademoiselle. She was standing near the door. I took one step toward her and fell on my knees, when a scandalized voice exclaimed in my ear:

“Monsieur, do you not see the Queen?”

“I do,” I answered, without taking my eyes off Mademoiselle, “and I kneel to her with all the homage of my heart.”

Mademoiselle blushed vividly and stepped aside.

“She means the Queen of France, Monsieur,” she said softly.

As I knelt there, my eyes fell upon a young woman—she was only twenty-four—seated farther off at the opposite side of the room, a beautiful woman with a fresh, sweet, innocent face, with nothing especially regal about her, that I could see. I knew in a moment that this was Marie Antoinette. Such was my astonishment, however, that I remained kneeling, my mouth open, in great surprise. Her Majesty was pleased to laugh. She laughed as merrily as a girl.

“Make your homage to the Queen of France, Monsieur,” exclaimed the elderly woman who had spoken to me first, evidently one of the great ladies of the Court.

“Your Majesty,” I replied, finding my wits at last, “I knelt as every gentleman should, to the queen of his heart, and when she stepped aside and revealed to me the queen of all hearts, I was unable to rise.”

“Perhaps, Monsieur, you have sufficiently recovered now to approach more nearly the throne,” she said, pleased at my compliment.

She extended her hand to me. I got to my feet, knelt again before her and kissed it. Queens are always beautiful, but I swear I would rather have kissed Mademoiselle’s hand at any hour. However, I reflected that the honor of America was in a measure committed to me, and I think I bore myself worthily.

“Rise, Monsieur,” said the Queen graciously; “the Comtesse de Villars”—I suppose it is bad manners to look at one woman when another woman is speaking to you, especially if that woman be of royal blood, but I could not help turning my head at her words.

There stood Mademoiselle more beautiful than ever. Indeed, I have observed that she always looks better the more beautiful her background, and Marie Antoinette might be Queen of France, but she was only a background to Mademoiselle that morning.

“Mademoiselle de Villars tells me that you have rendered me a great service.”

“If to love Mademoiselle de Villars,” I began, “with all my heart and soul, be to render Your Majesty a service——”

“Nay, nay, not that way. I fear you would fain rob me of my fairest maid of honor.”

“It ill becomes a gentleman to contradict a lady,” I replied quickly.

Again the Queen laughed. I was lucky evidently.

“What I meant, Monsieur, was that Mademoiselle de Villars tells me that you saved her from assault, capture, I know not what, on the highroad some ten days ago.”

“Your Majesty, I had that good fortune.”

“Mademoiselle de Villars was on my errand. There were papers I did not care to intrust to any save the most intimate hand, which she was bringing back to me.”

“I perfectly understand, Your Majesty.”

“I will not disguise the fact that had these papers fallen into the possession of an enemy——”

“The Marquis du Trémigon?” I interrupted.

“Du Trémigon?” cried Mademoiselle.

“Why he, Monsieur?” asked the Queen.

“It was he who instigated the assault upon Mademoiselle, I am convinced.”

“How know you this?”

“One of the ruffians who menaced the lady was one-eyed. He wore a patch over his face. I was lucky enough to break his wrist with my cudgel.”

“A strange weapon for a gentleman,” said Her Majesty.

“It is honored above my sword, in that it hath served Mademoiselle,” I answered.

“You have a French twist to your tongue,” said the Queen. “Proceed.”

“I recognized the man in the Marquis du Trémigon’s following last night, Your Majesty.”

“I know whom he means, Madame; I saw him, too,” said Mademoiselle. “I heard Monsieur du Trémigon call him Babin. Strange to say, I did not recognize him before.”

“That agrees perfectly with my recollection, Madame. I remember that the man who ran away that day on the road called him by that name.”

“And you think the Marquis du Trémigon wanted these papers?” continued the Queen.

“I am sure of it, Madame.”

“But why?”

“Your Majesty knows that he is a suitor for the hand of Mademoiselle de Villars. He hoped doubtless that if he could get the papers he might—” I hesitated. It was an ugly word to say, yet the Marquis du Trémigon had shown himself to me in his true colors, and I knew there was no knavery he would stop at. “He hoped to influence you, and, through you, Mademoiselle. By the terms of her father’s will she must consent willingly to the marriage, else the contract is void.”

“You seem to know a great deal about the affairs of Mademoiselle, Monsieur.”

“I intend, with your permission, Madame, to know everything about them in the future.”

The Queen smiled.

“He is droll, this cavalier. He speaks like a Frenchman, and wooes like an American.”

“Have I your permission, Madame?” asked Mademoiselle.

“Certainly, my dear.”

“It was the Marquis du Trémigon who betrayed us last night,” she said, turning to me.

“Another score to be settled between us,” I said under my breath.

“He has a creature in his pay in my grandfather’s house, and through him he learned my plan. He laid a very clever trap. Although he could have stopped me at any time, he allowed us to go on, that we might be caught in the act. Now he hopes to win my grandfather’s consent to this marriage, and perhaps by that means force it upon me.”

“You shall never marry him,” I said, utterly oblivious of everything, everybody, except Mademoiselle and that fact.

“And why not, pray, Monsieur?” asked the Queen.

“Because, Your Majesty, I shall marry her myself.”

“Indeed!”

“The word of a gentleman, Madame,” I said.

“But are you a gentleman?” asked Marie Antoinette. There was an accent of raillery in her voice that robbed the question of its sting. “One day you masquerade as a sailor. The next day you enter Mademoiselle’s apartments”—she knew all, then!—“as a thief. Today you stand before me as a criminal.”

“I plead guilty to every charge, Madame. I am a sailor, I am a thief. Last night I would have stolen——”

“What, Monsieur?”

“Mademoiselle.”

“From her grandfather?”

“From the throne itself, Your Majesty,” I replied fervently.

Again the Queen smiled.

“Enough, Monsieur,” she said, rising; “I have exerted myself in your favor. I had an order from the King to bring you here. I have requested the Duc de Rivau-Huet to consign Mademoiselle to my care. I wished to thank you for the service you have done me—to ask you to wear this in memory of my gratitude.”

She drew a rarely beautiful diamond ring from her finger and extended it to me. I kissed the hand and slipped the ring upon my little finger.

“Your Majesty overwhelms me,” I said.

“The reward scarcely equals your merit, Monsieur, and it does not even approach your assurance.”

“Mademoiselle would make a craven bold, Madame.”

“Doubtless,” said the Queen. “And now we have the honor to wish you a safe return to America.”

I looked at Mademoiselle. She had turned deathly pale. Her eyes were filled with tears. Before my glance she lowered her head. My resolution was taken at once.

“But, Your Majesty, I am not going back to America.”

“How, Monsieur! You contradict the Queen?”

“At least, I am not going back alone,” I added respectfully.

“Monsieur, believe me,” the Queen rejoined earnestly, “it is impossible. The Duc de Rivau-Huet would never consent. He is one of the great nobles of France. You——”

“I am a criminal, Madame, and respect no conventions save those dictated by my own heart.”

I could swear that Mademoiselle gave me one grateful glance.

“Is that the custom of America?” asked the Queen.

“Of the world, Madame. When one loves as I, there is but one custom.”

“That is?”

“To give oneself to one’s mistress and to take her for his own.”

The situation was becoming impossible. It was fortunately saved for me by the entrance of an equerry.

“Your Majesty”—he stopped and bowed low—“Monsieur le Marquis du Trémigon would like the honor of an audience.”

“Monsieur,” said the Queen, turning to me, “you still persist in this mad resolution?”

“Madame, I am determined in it. There is but one voice that can send me to America—alone.”

“And that voice.”

“Is Mademoiselle’s.”

“Speak to him, Gabrielle,” said the Queen.

Mademoiselle turned and looked at me. Her lips formed a word; she drew her breath sharply in, but no sound came.

“With reverence to Your Majesty, that word Mademoiselle cannot say.”

“Why not, Monsieur?”

“Because she loves me,” I answered confidently.

The Queen looked from one to the other of us. I only looked at Mademoiselle. She could not sustain the concentrated force of two such stares as ours. She hid her face in her hands.

“Ma foi,” said Marie Antoinette, with one of those quick changes of mood which made her so fascinating, “it is even so. Before two such lovers, I may be pardoned if I forget that I am a queen and remember only that I am a woman.”

“May God bless Your Majesty for that!” I cried enthusiastically. “Does it mean——?”

“That I am on your side, Monsieur? Satisfy me of what has been told me of yourself this morning and we shall see.”

The look that she gave me spoke volumes. I was speechless with happiness. To satisfy her, everyone, of my position would be easy. If only I could get word to Dr. Franklin. He had been a friend of my father in the colonies. He knew many people I knew, and if that mad little Scotsman were here he would be on my side. The Queen gave me no time for reply, for she turned to the equerry and said:

“I will see Monsieur du Trémigon. But wait one moment. Before he is admitted, I wish you to go into that room, Monsieur Burnham. Leave the door open and stand behind the arras. You”—she turned to the elderly lady, who had discreetly withdrawn to the embrasure, and had been carefully studying the landscape during the interview between the Queen, Mademoiselle and myself—“Madame, will you ask the Duc de Rivau-Huet to come into the small room where Monsieur Burnham goes and wait there until I call him forth? Tell him I beg him on no account to give note of his presence until he is summoned. Now”—she turned to the equerry—“bring hither the Marquis du Trémigon.”

I bowed low to Her Majesty and lower to Mademoiselle, and entered the apartment the Queen had indicated. The Duc de Rivau-Huet had evidently been waiting, for a moment later he entered under the guidance of the messenger and stood by my side. He did not know me, of course, but we bowed to each other profoundly and then waited quietly.

A moment later we heard the Queen speaking.

“Monsigneur du Trémigon,” she began, “you wish to see me?”

“Madame, it is the constant wish of every gentleman in France.”

“Prettily said, Monsieur, and, as it happens, I also wish to see you.”

“Your Majesty honors me.”

“You come at an opportune time, therefore.”

“Any time that I can be of service to Your Majesty is opportune,” he answered—the clever villain had a glib tongue, as he had a fine taste in clothes, I could but admit. “I wish that Your Majesty,” he continued, “could give me back my remark.”

“And what was that, Monsieur?”

“That every woman in France might wish to see me.”

“That would be an embarrassment of riches.”

“I should be satisfied if the one nearest Your Majesty cherished that desire.”

He shot one glance at the Countess. I could see them by moving the hangings slightly, and I didn’t scruple to look. The old Duke stood like a stone, wondering why he had been brought here, and as yet unable to comprehend the situation.

“You said that you wished to see me, Monsieur?” asked the Queen, disregarding his last remark.

“My desire gives place to Your Majesty’s.”

“And my will claims precedence of yours, Monsieur. Proffer your petition.”

“Your Majesty, I love devotedly the Comtesse de Villars. We were betrothed in childhood. The time for the carrying out of the contract our fathers made has arrived. I crave Your Majesty’s influence to persuade Mademoiselle de Villars to honor me.”

There was a certain amount of truth in the rascal’s words. I wondered if he really loved her a little bit, or whether it was only to get her money.

“But Mademoiselle de Villars doesn’t love you, Monsieur.”

“With Your Majesty’s aid I trust I shall be able to teach her to do so.”

“I fear that task is beyond you or me, Monsieur du Trémigon.”

“Permit me in Your Majesty’s own interest to dispute that assertion.”

“How now, Gabrielle?” said the Queen, turning to Mademoiselle.

“I hate him!” she cried. I could see du Trémigon wince.

“You hear, Monsieur?”

“I hear, Madame, but”—he tore off the disguise now and spoke with savage firmness—“Mademoiselle must marry me.”

“Must, sir! These are strange words to use to your queen.”

“I speak to a woman now,” answered the Marquis.

“Explain yourself.”

“Mademoiselle is seriously compromised.”

I could see the Countess start and clench her hands. The Queen motioned her to remain silent.

“How is that, Monsieur?” she asked quietly.

“She received me alone in her apartments the night before last.”

“You coward!” cried Mademoiselle.

“Patience, Gabrielle,” said Marie Antoinette quickly. “You have proofs of that assertion, sir?”

From where I stood with a backward glance I could see the old Duke. He had his hand on his sword, his face was as white as death. He was perfectly rigid. He had been told to remain where he was, however, until he was summoned, and he would not move.

“You have witnesses?” continued the Queen.

“I have. I was seen to go through the gate at eleven o’clock. I climbed to Mademoiselle’s window by the ivy. I remained in her apartment one hour. It was this suit that I now wear in which I presented myself to Mademoiselle.” He turned swiftly to the Countess. “Does not Mademoiselle recognize it?” he said, with a triumphant leer.

She shuddered away from him. And indeed it was the one I had worn!

“You do recognize it, Gabrielle?” asked the Queen. Mademoiselle said nothing, but it was quite evident that she did.

“Your story,” said the Queen composedly, turning to the Marquis, “is most interesting, Monsieur, if it could be believed.”

“Out of consideration to one of your maids of honor”—I could have killed him at the hateful emphasis he laid on that last word—“I hope I may be spared the pain of public testimony.”

“You give me your word of honor that three nights ago you were in Mademoiselle’s apartments?”

“I do.”

“Your word of honor as a gentleman?”

“Your Majesty has said it.”

“Oh, this is infamous—infamous!” cried Mademoiselle.

“And you, Countess, what do you say?” continued the Queen.

“It is a falsehood, a dastardly falsehood!”

A look of relief swept over the old Duke’s face then. His apprehension gave place to a growing anger. I could realize how hard it was for him to remain quiet beyond that curtain. As for me I would have given everything on earth to go out and kill du Trémigon.

“You do not wish to marry this man—pardon, this gentleman—Gabrielle?” asked Marie Antoinette.

“I would rather kill myself!”

“Monsieur du Trémigon,” said the Queen, “have mercy!”

“Madame, love has no mercy. I am passionately devoted to Mademoiselle.”

“And is that why,” asked Marie Antoinette, with a swift change of manner, “that you set your man, Babin, and two other ruffians to attack Mademoiselle on the road to Paris ten days ago?”

She drove her queries home with the directness of sword-thrusts. The Marquis gasped, fell back, utterly dismayed. He moistened his lips and strove to speak.

“I—I—I do not know what Your Majesty means—” he faltered. “I had a servant called Babin in my employ, but I have discharged him.”

“You did not know,” said the Queen pitilessly, “that Mademoiselle was carrying papers of infinite concern to me? Relying on your sense of honor”—she smiled mockingly—“I tell you the truth. They were letters that I had written years ago—silly, foolish letters, which yet might have given me trouble. Mademoiselle volunteered to get them and bring them to me. And you, Monsieur du Trémigon, having learned this in some way—oh, I have fathomed the whole procedure,” she went on, rising and confronting him. “You thought to get me in your power and force a consent from Mademoiselle through her love for me!”

“Madame, I am innocent. I know no more about this than you have told me. Babin has not been in my service for months. I know nothing about the letters.”

“Do you swear it?”

“I swear it!”

The Queen struck a bell on the table at my side. The equerry presented himself.

“Is Monsieur Éspiau there?” she asked.

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Admit him.”

In another moment the old servant of the Duke entered and fell on his knees before the Queen.

“Rise, my friend,” she said, with that gentle grace, that benignity, that ought to have endeared her to the whole of France, high and low, rich and poor; “were you at the Hôtel de Rivau-Huet on last Wednesday night?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Were you in the apartments of the Comtesse de Villars?”

“I was, Your Majesty.”

“Between the hours of eleven and twelve?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Was the Marquis du Trémigon there?”

“No, Your Majesty.”

“And you would believe a servant’s word before mine?” said du Trémigon furiously.

“We shall see. Call Monsieur Burnham,” she said to the attendant.

I did not wait to be called. I was through the door in an instant. Du Trémigon started with additional surprise when he saw me.

“What do you know of this charge of the Marquis du Trémigon?” asked the Queen after I had saluted her.

“Your Majesty, I know that the Marquis du Trémigon was in his hôtel between the hours of eight in the evening and one in the morning. By no possibility could he have been in the apartment of Mademoiselle de Villars. Furthermore, the man Babin was in his employ yesterday.”

“You hound!” cried du Trémigon, and then I stepped close to him. He shrank back. I stepped nearer. The Queen might have interfered, but I rather think she enjoyed it.

“You know,” I said, frowning at him, “that you were not in the apartments of the Comtesse de Villars on that evening or any other evening.” He opened his mouth as if to speak. “Not a word or I’ll kill you where you stand!”

“Your Majesty,” he cried, dexterously avoiding me, “will you condemn me on the words of a lackey and a criminal?”

I started toward him again, but the Queen raised her hand. She looked at the equerry again, an old and trusted attendant, upon whom she could rely.

“The Duc de Rivau-Huet”—she pointed to the door—“bring him here.”

The Duke was almost as quick as I. The curtain was torn aside and he came in erect, with his hand on his sword.

“Your Majesty.” He bowed low before her, a graceful and gallant old gentleman.

“Monsieur le Duc,” said the Queen, extending her hand to be kissed, “you are ever welcome. As the head of the house to which the Marquis du Trémigon belongs. I wish you to hear his charges and his denials, that you may judge him accordingly.”

“I have heard, Your Majesty,” said the Duke, “and give me leave to say I need neither the evidence of Éspiau nor of this gentleman—whoever he may be—to convince me that the Marquis du Trémigon has lied.”

“And I tell you,” burst out the Marquis, “that this man is a common thief, a highway robber and—” He pointed to me.

“Have a care, Monsieur,” said Marie Antoinette quickly; “highway robbery is a grave accusation. Was it on the road to Paris that he committed this highway robbery? This is a most serious indictment. Look again. Think! Do you press the charge? Do you really mean it?”

VII
THE SLIPPER FINDS ITS WEARER

“His Majesty the King!” cried an usher at the great door, throwing it open. “His Excellency, the Minister of the United States, Dr. Franklin, Commodore John Paul Jones, Monsieur Bucknall, sailor,” he added.

Into the room came the King of France, a stout, heavy-set, rather stupid-looking young man. Following him I saw the familiar figure—I had seen many portraits of him in public print—of Dr. Benjamin Franklin. By his side—and it was a good sight for any eyes—walked the handsome little daredevil of a Scotsman in his naval uniform, looking as cocky as if he had been strutting on his own quarter-deck. And then—did my eyes deceive me?—came the rolling form of worthy Master Bucknall. I blessed that man in my heart. He had brought Mademoiselle to my assistance in the prison and now he had completed his work by looking up Dr. Franklin and the rest. Where he had found the Commodore I did not know.

I had heard he had recently arrived at L’Orient, but not that he had come to Paris.

“Madame,” said the King, approaching the Queen who courtesied deeply before him, “I wish you good morning. Ah, Duke, I am always glad to see you. Mademoiselle de Villars, you are fit to stand before Her Majesty, and I could pay you no higher compliment.”

I was amazed to hear this fat, commonplace, prosy-looking man speak so pleasantly, but in sooth Mademoiselle, with her cheeks flushed, a little sparkle of tears in her eyes, her head thrown back—well, any man of taste would have recognized which was Queen of Love and Beauty in that room. The King bowed shortly and coldly to du Trémigon and looked with some interest at me.

“Monsieur,” said the Queen to her husband, “will you allow me to present to you Monsieur Burnham, an American naval officer?”

I bowed low before the King. France was our ally and we hoped much from her, and although we in America had cut kings and queens out of our books, I felt it necessary for me to be politic.

“Dr. Franklin, you are always welcome,” continued the Queen, “even though you do come garbed in sober gray to our gay Court.”

“Your Majesty,” returned the old Quaker gallantly, “I wear gray that it may contrast the better with the high color of my admiration for the Queen of France.”

“And this is our old friend, the Commodore. We are glad to have you back at Versailles after your splendid fighting, Monsieur,” said the Queen, dimpling with pleasure at Dr. Franklin’s compliment and giving her hand to Paul Jones, who had waited with ill-concealed impatience for this recognition of his rank and station.

“To see you again, Your Majesty,” began the doughty little Captain, with a shade too much fervor, I thought, “is better fortune than to capture a ship like the Serapis.”

“You must tell me about that action, Monsieur.”

“I shall be pleased to attend upon Your Majesty at any time for that or any other purpose,” he replied. “And if it were necessary to secure entrance to your levee, I would cheerfully engage to capture another British frigate.”

The Queen laughed kindly at the little Captain, and then she stared toward Bucknall, who stood shifting from one foot to another, twisting his hat in his hand. She was a good-hearted woman and would fain neglect no one—not even the humblest.

“And who is this?” she asked.

“Madame, give me leave,” I interposed. “He is a sailor to whom I owe life, liberty and—love!”

“Looks he not like a cupid’s messenger?” queried Her Majesty, smiling, and then the King broke in.

“Have you sent for the prisoner, Madame?”

“Your Majesty, he is here?”

“What, this gentleman?”

The Queen bowed.

“What have you to say for yourself, sir?” the King asked me.

“Much, Your Majesty. I am an American naval officer, as Commodore Paul Jones can bear witness.”

“’Tis true, Your Majesty. He sailed with me on the Alfred, and a better officer I did not have, and I say it who have a right to testify.”

“Good,” said the King. “Proceed, Monsieur.”

“I was captured with Captain Cunningham in the Revenge.”

“Give me a fleet, Your Majesty,” interrupted Commodore Jones, “and we’ll stop all that.”

The King smiled and nodded to me.

“I escaped from a British prison-ship, robbed a gentleman in England, got money from him, came to France hoping to find Dr. Franklin or Commodore Jones. Neither was in Paris. I lost my money, fell into the hands of an enemy, and was lodged in jail, whence I have been this morning brought here by Her Majesty’s gracious interference.”

“How did you lose your money?” asked the King, quite as a father might have spoken to his son. There was something pleasant about the plain, homely man. I hesitated not a moment.

“I am sorry to say, Sire, that I gambled it away.”

The King shook his head.

“I can make good your loss,” he said; “but play is the curse of the young nobles of my Court, and of all strangers who come to Paris, as well.”

“Your Majesty is most kind. When I can hear from America I shall be able to discharge all my obligations, and I wish to say to Your Majesty and before you all”—all meant Mademoiselle—“that I shall eschew play in the future.”

“There were charges against you of highway robbery, I believe?”

“On information laid by me, Your Majesty,” broke in du Trémigon.

“But Monsieur du Trémigon withdraws the charges now. Highway robbery! It hath an ugly sound,” said the Queen. “How is that, Monsieur du Trémigon?”

I never saw such a look of baffled rage and hatred as that on du Trémigon’s face. He was completely powerless. The evidence against him was too strong. He tried to speak, but there was no help for it. He bowed at last.

“I am too much of a gentleman”—I have always been suspicious of a man who protests his quality overmuch, by the way—“to contradict the Queen of France.”

“Good,” said the King. “But there were some papers?”

“Monsieur du Trémigon lost them, unfortunately,” again interposed the Queen.

“Very careless, I’m sure,” commented the King severely.

“I,” volunteered Dr. Franklin, “will be surety for Monsieur Burnham’s debts to the Marquis du Trémigon.”

“The word of a gentleman so vouched for is sufficient,” said the Marquis, raging in his heart, but helpless.

“I’d rather pay him the money, doctor, and owe it to you,” I said softly to Dr. Franklin.

“Is it a great sum, lad?” whispered the Quaker aside. “Our exchequer is running low. And, hark ye, that highway robbery in England. ’Tis hardly a crime of which you could be convicted in France.”

Now, why had neither I nor anyone else thought of that!

“We will attend to the debt,” said the King, after a momentary consultation with the Queen. “Now, gentlemen, no more of this.”

Of course when he put on his royal look and said that, there was nothing more for me to do.

“Pardon, Your Majesty,” said the Duc de Rivau-Huet, who had noted all that had occurred with ill-concealed impatience. “Monsieur du Trémigon has another announcement to make.”

“What is that, Duke?” asked the King.

“Your Majesty is doubtless aware that my son and the father of the Marquis du Trémigon entered into a contract that their children should be married at a suitable age, provided they were both willing to carry out the agreement?”

“I have heard so,” answered the King.

“The Marquis du Trémigon wishes, in the presence of these witnesses, to renounce all pretension to the hand of Mademoiselle de Villars.”

“Your Majesty,” protested the Marquis in one last desperate attempt to gain his end, “Monsieur le Duc mis——”

“I believe I am not mistaken, Monsieur,” said the Duke, very stately and magnificent, with his hand on his sword—my heart went out to him—looking hard at the Marquis.

“I am sure,” added the Queen in her silvery voice—and you would have thought she were conferring the greatest favor in her power upon the wretched du Trémigon—“that the Duke is right. Monsieur du Trémigon,” she went on, with a woman’s spitefulness—but indeed I could not blame her, “is no more desirous of marrying Mademoiselle de Villars than he is of pressing the charge of highway robbery against Monsieur Burnham.”

Du Trémigon could not trust himself to speak again. He clenched his hands and bowed low before the Queen.

“Furthermore,” continued the Duke imperturbably, “Monsieur du Trémigon wishes Your Majesty’s permission to withdraw from Paris and retire to his estates.”

“As the Marquis pleases,” said the King indifferently.

Had I been King I should have been consumed with curiosity to know what this was all about, but His Majesty cared little about it, apparently, for after turning his back on du Trémigon, who backed out of the room, he said to Dr. Franklin:

“Now that we have settled this affair, doctor, I want you to look at a lock in my cabinet that interests me greatly. Gamain brought it today. Its mechanism is curious and complex. It will interest a scientific man like yourself, I am sure.”

“I shall be glad to attend Your Majesty.”

“Give me leave, Sire,” again said the Duc de Rivau-Huet. “Your Majesty,” continued the old man, standing very erect, “the Marquis du Trémigon averred that he was in my granddaughter’s apartments until a late hour the other night.”

“It is false,” said the Queen.

“Madame, I know that. What I wish to know is, who was there?”

“Monsieur! Before them all!” exclaimed Mademoiselle, startled beyond measure by this surprising development. This unlucky speech in itself was a confession.

“The King is the fountain of nobility in the land,” continued the Duke, striving to regain his composure. “You are a maid of honor to the Queen, Mademoiselle. That gentleman”—he pointed to me—“heard the accusation and denied it. These are his friends. Here is some mystery. I wish an explanation.”

“But, Duke—” began the King, with a puzzled look.

“I crave Your Majesty’s pardon. Even royalty may give place to the feelings of a grandsire. Will you allow me to conduct this affair in my own way?”

“Go on,” said the King.

“I am satisfied that the Marquis du Trémigon, whom I shall see later, with the King’s permission——”

“I will give you a lettre de cachet to the Bastile for him, if you like.”

“Thank you, Sire. Monsieur du Trémigon was not there, but I insist someone was, and I demand to know who.”

No one spoke for a moment.

“Éspiau, you know?”

“I have nothing to say, Monsieur le Duc,” replied the old servant, turning pale.

“Will no one tell me?” cried the old man, grief in his heart, appeal in his tones, shame in his bearing.

“I will,” I said boldly; “I was there.”

“You, sir!”

“Even I, Monsieur.”

“How dared you? What do you mean?” He put his hand to his heart. I was nearest him. I stretched out my arm to help him, but he thrust me away. “Answer!” he cried, imperiously forgetful of the King, the Queen, everybody.

“It is very simple,” I replied quietly. “On my approach to Paris I had the good fortune to be of assistance to Mademoiselle.”

“In what capacity?”

“She was set upon by three ruffians. I drove them off.”

“Whereabouts?”

I was ignorant of the road, but Mademoiselle came to my rescue.

“Near Paris, on the Versailles road, Monsieur.”

“Where was your escort?” queried the Duke.

“I was alone.”

“Alone on the Versailles road?”

“In my service, Duke,” said the Queen softly.

“Pardon, Your Majesty. That is sufficient. Proceed, Monsieur.”

“I fell in love with your granddaughter.”

“How dared you, sir; a beggarly——?”

“Monsieur Burnham’s patrimony includes rich land enough to make a county in France,” deftly put in Dr. Franklin at this juncture.

“But in America—” said the Duke scornfully.

“The finest land the sun ever set on, Monsieur,” broke in Commodore Jones hotly.

The King waved his hand for silence, and the Duke turned to me again.

“I sought your granddaughter far and wide, and at last found her at the Hôtel de Rivau-Huet.”

I had a hard task to keep to the truth and yet make a satisfactory story.

“And was it at her invitation you entered her apartment?”

“Monsieur le Duc!” exclaimed the King hastily, in warning.

“Grandfather!” cried the girl, recoiling from the outrageous accusation.

“Sir!” I replied, with spirit, “the question is an insult to your blood! I came unexpectedly, unknown, unwelcome—like a thief in the night.”

“You dared——?”

“It was a prank, a foolish trick; I have no excuse but my passion.”

“And you were alone with my granddaughter?”

“I was there, Monsieur le Duc,” said Éspiau.

“Then tell me the truth now, unless you forget your ancient fidelity,” exclaimed the Duke, turning to the unhappy servant. “You saw this gentleman there?”

I shook my head at him, but he was looking at Mademoiselle. Disregarding my warning glance, she nodded. The seal upon the servant’s lips was broken.

“Yes, Monsieur le Duc,” he said.

“And where was he?”

“In Mademoiselle’s—” he hesitated.

“Speak!” thundered the old man.

“Bedchamber, Monsieur.”

“Mon Dieu!” cried the Duke, his composure giving way at last. He put his face in his hands with a movement singularly like that of Mademoiselle a short time before.

Is it that Master Shakespeare in great crises voices the universal cry of the human heart? For like the father of Hero in “Much Ado About Nothing”—and indeed the whole affair was somewhat similar in my mind—the Duke finally broke forth:

“‘Hath no man here a sword for me?’”

I have not the sentence exactly, but I give the sense of it, and I pitied him from the bottom of my heart. But the love of the young is often cruel to the old.

“My grandfather! my grandfather!” cried Mademoiselle, sinking to his feet, “think not bitterly of me! This gentleman has told the truth. I had but spoken a few words to him when you came. He did me a great service. I concealed him.”

“Why?” groaned the Duke.

“I was afraid that you would kill him.”

“Afraid? What is he to you?”

It was a dreadful situation for a young girl. She had never told me in so many words, although I was sure of it in my own mind, and to have to declare it before all these men was indeed hard. Yet with a heroism for which I can never be sufficiently grateful she said it.

“I love him!”

“You love him!” exclaimed her grandfather in amazement.

“Monsieur le Duc de Rivau-Huet,” I cried in my turn, springing to her side, lifting her up, and slipping my arm about her waist, “I have the honor to ask you to give me the hand of your granddaughter in marriage.”

“She is a countess of France,” replied the Duke. “The best blood in the land flows in her veins, Monsieur.”

“I have some indifferent good in my own veins, Monsieur le Duc,” I asserted, naming some of my mother’s people.

“Is this true, Monsieur?”

“I vouch for it,” said Paul Jones.

“Your Majesty,” said the Duke, turning to the King, but he got no help there.

“If you will give your consent, Duke,” said Louis, “I shall not withhold mine. Indeed, under the circumstances—”He paused significantly.

The Duke groaned and the gracious Queen came to our rescue again.

“Monsieur le Duc,” she said, stepping near him and laying her hand on his arm, “think! Monsieur Burnham is a gallant gentleman. As good blood as any in France flows in his veins. In America they have no kings, but they are all princes. His Majesty in his kindness consents. This will cement the union between the two countries against England, which is so dear to think of. Will you sacrifice your pride if I ask you, and bless the pair who love each other?”

“Madame, it is as you will,” he faltered. “I had cherished other dreams. Still, there can be no higher degree than that of gentleman, after all. No, though he sit upon a throne.”

“The royalty of virtue, the royalty of honor, the royalty of courage,” said Dr. Franklin kindly, “make this marriage not an unequal one.”

“I am an old man,” continued the Duke; “this has been hard on me. Let the young love have its way.”

“And you will forgive me?” pleaded Mademoiselle, approaching him nearer.

“Your Majesty will permit me?” asked the Duke. He took her in his arms and pressed a kiss upon her forehead and blessed her.

“Sir,” he said, turning to me and bowing, “I hope to know more of you before I commit this child to your keeping.”

“Now that all is settled for the second time,” said the King, greatly relieved. “Dr. Franklin, Commodore, and you, Duke, will you come with me?”

“We attend Your Majesty.”

The four gentlemen bowed low before the Queen. The King bowed to me, Dr. Franklin and Commodore Jones shook my hand. Our kindly minister made an appointment to meet me later in the palace.

“You were lucky,” he said.

Indeed I realized that, for I replied: “Thanks to you and the Commodore.”

“Nay,” said the Quaker, smiling, “thanks to Mademoiselle herself, and to your own ready wit.”

Then they left us alone with the Queen and Bucknall.

“It strikes me,” said Her Majesty, looking at the old sailor, “that nobody has said anything about the part you have played in this affair.”

“Aye, aye, mum,” began the sailor in great confusion, “w’ich I means yer honor——”

“‘Mum’ is delightful,” laughed Marie Antoinette.

“I was at me wit’s end wot course to lay this mornin’, an’ w’en as luck would hev it I run into Commodore Jones in the street, jist in from L’Orient—he never forgits a shipmate, ma’am, no matter how humble—an’ I ups an’ told him about Mr. Burnham. He fetched me to Dr. Franklin, an’ you knows the rest, Yer Ladyship.”

“I shall not forget you,” said the Queen, lifting a well-filled purse from the table and putting it in Bucknall’s hand. The old sailor was not without a streak of gallantry.

“It’s the hand wot gives it, lady,” he said, “wot makes me wally it more’n the gold pieces.”

“You will await Monsieur Burnham without the door,” she said, dismissing him graciously.

“Monsieur Burnham,” she began as we three were alone, “you are a thief after all. You have stolen the fairest jewel of my Court. I ought to be angry with you, but—I am not.”

“I thank Your Majesty.”

“You will be very good to this daughter of France in your own land?”

“Madame, I will cherish her as the King his crown. Nay,” I added quickly, “as I would cherish Your Majesty were I the King.”

“You pay me in pretty speeches.”

“They come, Madame, from my heart of hearts. After my country and my wife, my sword is yours.”

She was gone. Of course I took Mademoiselle in my arms, and this time there was no hesitation on her part in returning my ardent caresses. I do not know what we said or what happened. After a space—how long or how short I cannot tell, for I took no notice of time or place—I said that while we each had the gold pieces I regretted that I had no ring to slip on her finger, nothing of my own to give her to bind the engagement. Of course I could not give her the Queen’s diamond—yet! She was very close to me and doubtless could feel what was in my breast-pocket.

“You have one thing,” she replied demurely, “that you could slip on.”

“What is that?”

“Have you forgotten the talisman?”

“The talisman?” I cried.

I am stupid sometimes, not often, and I was thinking so hard of her that I did not catch her meaning at first.

“That which Master Bucknall brought you—that I gave back to you.”

“Oh!” said I; “the slipper saved my life; it gave me hope.”

“And hope gave you assurance?”

“And assurance won me you.”

She drew herself away and sat down in the Queen’s chair, and no royal person ever became it so well as she. Then she fumbled at her shoe a moment, and thrust out one dainty stockinged little foot at me.

“You might put it on,” she whispered, blushing vividly.

I am not ashamed to say that I kissed that foot before I covered it with my lady’s slipper.

Populism

BY CHARLES Q. DE FRANCE
Secretary People’s Party National Committee

POPULISM is a term at which many eminently respectable but sadly misinformed persons shy, like the staid old farm horse when he first encounters an automobile on the road to town. They regard it as synonymous with Socialism, anarchy, bomb-throwing, nihilism and half a dozen other real or fancied evils. That it is simply a short expression for progressive, radical or Jeffersonian Democracy has never occurred to them.

Populism is a term which well illustrates the growth of language, the evolution by which circumlocution is avoided and clearness of expression attained. Yet, at the same time, it is an apt illustration of the power of a subsidized press to create an erroneous public opinion.

Back in the early ’90s, when the People’s Party was being organized in a number of Western States, there was considerable discussion as to whether it should be regarded as a political organization on the usual lines, or whether it should be a sort of league of independent voters, free to choose and vote for such candidates, on any ticket, as might seem best fitted to represent the interests of the different organizations of farmers and wage-workers out of which the People’s Party finally evolved.

The Omaha National Convention in 1892 settled the question in favor of regular party organization. It is true that there were intended to be points of difference between the People’s Party machinery and that of either old party; but these points were minor rather than fundamental. The delegate convention was retained—which, to my mind, was the one mistake made at Omaha. Until some system of direct nominations is adopted, whereby every elector may have a vote direct—and not by delegate, who may misrepresent him—I fear that as our party grows in strength we shall more and more be called upon to combat the same influences which dominate both the old parties. However, this is digression.

With the advent of the People’s Party a difficulty was found in describing a member of that party. A member of the Republican Party is, of course, a Republican; and a member of the Democratic Party is called a Democrat—but how designate one affiliated with the People’s Party?

The omnipresent and omniscient newspaper reporter, as usual, solved the difficulty. His agnosticism applies to nothing except the word “fail.” And with him circumlocution and criminality are almost synonymous. It would never do to be ringing the changes on “an adherent to the People’s Party,” or “one affiliated with the People’s Party”; hence, it was not long before we began to see the word “Populist” used in verbal descriptions of what the cartoonist invariably depicted as a “one-gallus” man, armed with fork or rake, and blessed with a hirsute adornment truly Samsonian.

Applied as a term of reproach, yet responding to the inexorable law which compels men to follow along the lines of least resistance, the word “Populist” came to stay. It stuck, just as the term “Methodist” did—or “Christian,” for that matter. From “Populist,” descriptive of the man, to “Populism,” designating his political belief, was an easy step—and now, after fifteen years of abuse, ridicule, vituperation and gross misrepresentation, the great middle class is just beginning to get a clearer view and to discover that Populism is the only logical answer to the question, “What shall we do to be saved from economic ruin?”

Populism is neither Socialism nor anarchism. It is neither idealistic nor materialistic. It is neither collectivistic nor individualistic. It is essentially eclectic. It recognizes the good in all the schools of political and economic thought and attempts to eliminate the weak or bad—but refuses to be bound by any.

Populism recognizes the fact that we must work with the world as it is now—and not as some Utopian dreamer conceives it ought to be. It recognizes the fact that private ownership of productive property is not only the rule all over the world—but also that the people like it. It recognizes the Socialists’ “economic determinism”—that man’s economic needs usually dominate when they clash with his ideals—yet is not unmindful of the fact that all progress is the result of ideals forcing a change in the environment. Were it not so, man would still be an arboreal ape, chattering aloft in some palm tree.

Populism recognizes that man is a social animal, yet combats Socialism for subordinating the individual to the collectivity, and combats anarchy for subordinating the collectivity to the individual. It is the golden mean between these extremes.

Although Populism lays no claim to being either a “science” or a “philosophy,” yet it has the only definite program of any party today before the American people. It has a yard-stick by which all things may be measured, whether they be burlap, fustian, woolen, silk or some new weave of spider-web. This yard-stick is—

EQUAL RIGHTS TO ALL, SPECIAL PRIVILEGES TO NONE.

Every fair-minded man is willing to have his economic cloth measured by that yard-stick. Only avaricious rogues object.

The Republican Party is committed to the practice of giving special privileges to a favored few. It is essentially a party of paternalism. The protective tariff is paternalistic. The railroad franchise is paternalistic, and land grants, and bonds, and subsidies. The national banking laws are paternalistic—and so, too, deposits of public revenues, and rentals on public buildings sold but never paid for. The net effect of all Republican legislation is to arm the possessors of great wealth with some sort of taxing power, whereby they may absorb still more wealth without rendering an equivalent. Incidentally, it is true, some measure of prosperity may come to the more humble possessors of property—but the general trend is beyond question plutocratic.

The so-called Democratic Party need not be considered here. It has no fixed policy for more than eight years at a time—except to be “agin’ the government.” It is the party of negation.

The Socialist Party presents the anomaly of a party with an elaborate “scientific” system of societary evolution, an excellent interpretation of history, and forecast of the supposedly final form which society will assume—yet without a program or hint of the specific manner in which industry will be carried on under “the collective ownership of all the means of production and distribution, with democratic management by the workers engaged in each industry.” It is admitted that we have no right to ask for prophecies—but we have a right to see a rough draft at least of the new building which is to be erected after the social revolution has torn down the old edifice. It is true that a few so-called Socialist papers pretend to tell us what will be “under Socialism”—vague, Utopian—pardon the term—“pipe dreams”; but none of them will give even an outline sketch of how collective industry might be carried on, preferring to hide behind the excuse that “we’ll cross that bridge when we reach it.” Alas! The bridge might happen to be washed out by the floods of social revolution.

Being an extreme on the side of materialism as opposed to idealism, or collectivism as opposed to individualism, Socialism is quite impossible as a scheme of government. Besides, the “materialistic conception of history,” upon which Socialism bases its prediction of the co-operative commonwealth, is not wholly scientific, because it fails to consider what changes may be wrought by invention. In a general way, it may be said that the invention of gunpowder destroyed feudalism, and that the discovery of steam power and its application to manufacturing broke up the guild system of masters, journeymen and apprentices, and ushered in the present wage system. Who has the hardihood to prophesy what an Edison may not do in the years to come, or to foretell what the effect may be?

The program of Populism is at once radical and conservative. It is radical, because it goes to the root of the difficulty and will effect a profound change. It is conservative, because it will enable the great mass of wealth producers to conserve what they now have and what they produce in future, by exempting them from the legalized robberies committed by railroads, banks, trusts and other forms of predatory wealth.

Populism, recognizing the institution of private property, and the people’s veneration and love for it, looks back over history’s pages and sees two things which, up to the recent past, have always been regarded as prerogatives of the state. One is the coinage, issue and control of money; the other, the ownership and control of highways.

Under the term “money” we may properly include all those modern makeshifts which are armed with partial legal-tender power, or even those without such power, if they generally perform the offices of money. Without discussing it in detail—because thousands of volumes have been written upon the subject without exhausting it—it seems quite certain that if Congress is to really exercise its right—and undoubted duty—“to coin money and regulate the value thereof,” there can be no “free” coinage of either gold or silver; and the Government must go into the banking business.

Under the term “highways” we may properly include railroads, canals, telegraphs, telephones, expresses—in short, all means of transportation and communication.

Most of the trust oppressions grow directly out of private ownership of the means of transportation and transmission of intelligence—the highways—and the private issue of money. Populism asks that these great evils be corrected—and that the individual be allowed to conduct his own private business with the least possible interference by government. There will always be work for the reformer; but wisdom dictates that the greatest evils be first eliminated, so that many of a minor character may be allowed to correct themselves.

To Roosevelt

OUR hero is a man of peace, Preparedness he implores, His sword within its scabbard sleeps, But, mercy! how it snores!

The Regalia of Money

BY ALEXANDER DEL MAR

[Mr. Del Mar’s career as a financial writer covers a period of more than half a century. He was the financial editor of the Washington National Intelligencer, the New York Daily American Times, Hunt’s Merchants’ Magazine, The Social Science Review, The Leader, The Commercial and Financial Chronicle, and other journals of national importance. After filling the offices of Director of the Bureau of Statistics, Commerce and Navigation, Commissioner to Italy, Holland and Russia, member of the United States Monetary Commission, etc., he devoted his leisure to a “History of Money in the Principal States of the World,” “The Science of Money,” and other works relating to this great subject, all of which have secured the approval of the critical press of Europe and America and passed through repeated editions, both in English and other languages.—Editor.]

IN the recent Presidential election the People’s Party inserted in its platform a principle of such transcendent importance that, were it generally understood, had its operation been brought home to the great mass of the people, could its far-reaching consequences have been portrayed so that everybody might observe them, it would have dwarfed every other issue on that occasion presented to the country. As it was, nobody, except the few gallant leaders of the People’s Party, paid the least attention to it, and the election was decided upon other grounds.

That principle concerned the Regalia of Money, which the People’s platform demanded should be restored to its rightful owners, the Government, the people of the United States. It can be demonstrated that, had this been done, many of the vexed questions before the country, such as the Monopolization of Industries, the Financial Trusts, the Municipal Ownership of Public Utilities, etc., would have been placed in a fair way of settlement.

In a series of magazine articles, which contain much that has the appearance of being exaggerated, untrue and vindictive, but which also contain much that is true and susceptible of verification, Mr. Thomas Lawson has been arousing the public to a sense of the dangers of the Financiers’ System, the System by which the banks, the insurance companies, the trusts and the Stock Exchange are employed by so-called Captains of Industry to despoil the people. After explaining how the game is conducted, he shows that even those who refrain from gambling on the Stock Exchange, and who may have no financial transactions beyond keeping a bank account or insuring their lives, are drawn into it, against their knowledge and will, and robbed of all the fruits of their labor and abstinence.

Lawson began his articles by accusing certain persons and putting up bluffs; a mode of argument which he soon found was not convincing. He now perceives that the fault lies in the System, and that at the bottom of the System lies the subject of Money. The whole series of transactions which, he alleges, have in the course of a few years taken several thousand millions out of the pockets of the masses and transferred them into those of a few cunning and unscrupulous operators, hung upon this single question: Shall the Government of the United States exercise its Regalia of Money or not? Mr. Lawson keeps up the interest of his readers by promising them a remedy for the disorders he describes. Should the remedy not include the regulation of Money, I hazard nothing in predicting that it will prove an entire failure and delusion.

What is the Regalia of Money? Is it some new-fangled notion about the coinage, some argument which turns upon the obscure meaning of Value, some phase of the tiresome Silver Question? Nothing of the kind. The Regalia of Money is a prerogative of government, familiar to every jurisconsult; a well-known, clearly defined and necessary attribute of Sovereign Power. It is laid down in all the great law books, in Budelius, Grotius, Puffendorf, Vattel, Molinæus, Grimaudet, Wheaton, Martens, and a host of other authorities. It is described as “a power which the state reserves to itself, for its own safety and welfare”; the power to create money, give it denomination and control its issues. Like the power to make war, peace and treaties, and to establish uniform weights and measures, it is called regalia, because it belongs to and must be exercised alone by sovereign states, as a prerogative which is necessary to their welfare, and essential to their autonomy, dignity and authority.

When the American Republic was established the Regalia of Money was exercised by all of the Colonies which united to form the Federation, whereupon, and as a matter of necessity, they all surrendered it to the general Government, which, under the Constitution, alone has the power to issue money and regulate its value or denominations. It was a misfortune that when the Union was formed it was so poor that it was obliged to tolerate the issuance of money by a private corporation, the Bank of Pennsylvania. Out of that bank grew all of the so-called state banks of a subsequent period, and out of those state banks, during the Civil War, grew all of the so-called National banks. Every one of these banks, both “state” and “National,” were all, and are yet, private banks, their titles in every case being misnomers. It is not intended to say a word against banks as guardians and lenders of money; on the contrary, they are recognized as highly useful and even indispensable institutions. As a rule, they are conducted by respectable and honorable men, and it cannot be disputed that they have done much to promote the progress of industry and the prosperity of trade. Whether they would have done more or less in these directions had they not been permitted to usurp the Regalia of Money, which act forms no necessary part of a banking business, it is not proposed to discuss. Said Mr. Jefferson: “I have ever been the enemy of banks; not of those discounting for cash, but of those foisting their own money into circulation, and thus banishing our cash.” What influence, whether for good or evil, which this usurpation of the Regalia exercised in his day it is now too late to examine.

But the time has come when the relinquishment of the Regalia to the banks can no longer be tolerated. The bankers have had a century of profitable innings; the people now demand theirs. The state laws of incorporation are so contradictory, loose and pliable that there have grown up under them companies and institutions so constituted that, in combination with banks usurping the Regalia, it is in their power—and this is what Mr. Lawson has shown very effectively—to strip the nation over and over again of its earnings, and eventually to absorb its entire wealth. It is scarcely too much to say that unless the United States Government resumes this Regalia, and absolutely prohibits the circulation of any money, whether of metal or paper, not of its own immediate issuance, we will find ourselves in the course of very few years hopelessly in debt to a band of absentee millionaires, who, having shown us their heels, will next show us their teeth.

It is not alone the people who are in danger of being impoverished by the System, it is not alone that the Government will be jeopardized; it is also that the banks, the insurance companies and numerous other classes of trade corporations will themselves be drawn into the nets that are being spread for them, nets strewn with their own bird-lime, and delivered over to the scheming millionaires who are preparing to plunder them. Mr. Lawson wholly neglects this phase of the subject. His ardor is all for the dear people, to arouse whose righteous indignation, he informs us, he is expending a fortune. Such reckless munificence, on the part of a man who ostentatiously advertises himself as the manager or director of several corporations, goes far toward indicating the correctness of our position. It is not doubted that Mr. Lawson sympathizes with the people and is anxious to point out the dangers that threaten them. On the other hand, it cannot be supposed that he is indifferent to the fate of the banks and other companies with which he is connected. The fact is that, having thoroughly skinned the people, the Captains of Industry are now prepared to skin the corporations, and that it is going to skin them with weapons plucked from its victims. These weapons are the notes which the banks have issued in defiance of the Regalia of Money.

The banks will perhaps more fully appreciate the sort of people they are dealing with if we interpolate at this point a few words touching their humanity. The principal, almost the sole lever with which the Captains of Industry are “working” this nation, is the issue of “National” bank-notes, and the elastic feature conferred upon it by law. This system was established by Salmon P. Chase, ex-Governor of Ohio, ex-Senator of the United States, then Secretary of the Treasury, and afterward Chief Justice of the United States; a man of the highest integrity, and perhaps for that reason wholly incapable of coping with Mr. John Thompson and the other Chevaliers of Industry of the last generation. It will naturally be supposed that had this class of men the slightest taint of humanity they would at least have taken care to honor the memory of their principal benefactor. Well, we will show you how they did it. Judge Chase, after serving his country in many capacities during a long lifetime, expired in poverty and in debt; his daughter died of grief and starvation; his grandchildren are at present living in very humble circumstances; his personal effects, his books, even the petty keepsakes and trinkets of his children, were exposed to the gaze of the vulgar and sold at a public auction in New York to satisfy his creditors, the rapacious Captains of Industry; while the body of this great but guileless man lies today in an obscure churchyard, without a tombstone over it. Such is the humanity of the Captains of Industry.

It is an essential part of the merry game which these Captains are permitted to play that they shall always have in their hands the means alternately to inflate and contract the currency, at any given point, say, for example, New York. With the mints restricted to the coinage of metal for private persons, and the hands of the Government tied to a fixed issue of greenbacks, while their own hands are free, the mischievous elasticity which they employ for the success of their operations is easily acquired by getting command of the principal banks of issue. The moment they press their fingers on this button the market immediately responds by throwing its stocks overboard; and the moment they release the button, up rise the stocks again. It is by means of this simple mechanism that the public has been plundered, and that it is now planned to plunder the companies. That there is no longer any art in the trained motorman’s vocation is proved by the small wages he commands. The art is in providing the power and controlling the mechanism which drives the cars. In the Captains-of-Industry game the power is derived from the elastic bank issues: the mechanism consists of certain banks and insurance companies and the Stock Exchange. Given the power and mechanism which these establishments furnish, any bandit could work the game and have plenty of leisure to spare. The System is automatic.

In contemplating this scene of legalized robbery, euphemistically termed “finance,” it will not do to lose our heads. There are banks and banks, there are insurance companies and insurance companies, there are trade corporations and trade corporations. They are not all alike. Some are in the game, as vassals and creatures of the Captains; some are in it, hoping, alas! but vainly, to outlive the Captains and profit by their fall; while others are out of it altogether; good, sound companies, safely managed and cautious to avoid contamination. The banks and other companies last named will not suffer from collapse, they will always continue to be solvent; but they will suffer from a forced conservatism and from an unduly small share of business, until our deluded people wake up and smash some furniture, or until the banks themselves recognize the dangerous part which their own issues play in this pandemonium of rascality. They will then be glad voluntarily to surrender them into the hands of the Government.

If now it be asked in what manner will the opportunities of the Captains for robbing the community be restrained or curtailed by substituting Government money for bank-notes, the reply is that the beneficial effects of such restraint will not arise so much from a difference in the money as from a difference in the power to issue or retire it. And in a future article will be shown, by practical examples, the difference between the working of an elastic currency when such elasticity is controlled by the Government, and when it is controlled, as it now is, by the Chevaliers of Industry.

“MY agency in procuring the passage of the National Bank Act was the greatest financial mistake of my life. It has built up a monopoly that affects every interest in the country. It should be repealed. But before this can be accomplished the people will be arrayed on one side and the banks on the other in a contest such as we have never seen in this country.”

Hon. Salmon P. Chase.

“IF it is possible to inaugurate a greater system of robbery of the people’s money [than the state banks], that system has been inaugurated in the present system of national banks. The money lost by the people under the old system of state banks is a mere bagatelle when compared to that which has been and will be taken from them under the present system of national banks.”

Hon. James G. Blaine (1880).

“ATTEMPTS to monopolize wheat, copper, sugar and other commodities have been dealt with by writers and politicians as conspiracies against society.

“But the monopolization of money, the medium of exchange, is strangely regarded as essential to the welfare of society.

“And yet money monopoly is a monopoly of not merely one, but of all commodities.”

Arthur Kitson.

The Open Door of the Constitution

THE NECESSITY FOR AMENDMENTS AND OUR FAILURE TO REVISE THAT DOCUMENT BY THE METHOD SUGGESTED BY ITS FOUNDERS

BY FREDERICK UPHAM ADAMS
Author of “The Kidnapped Millionaires,” “John Burt,” “Colonel Monroe’s Doctrine” and “The Shades of the Fathers”

THE men who builded the Constitution were consumed by no senseless adulation of their own handicraft. They were not possessed of the delusion that they were inspired, neither did they dream that future generations would search the record of their quarrels and selfish compromises for the key which would enable them to solve problems as they arose. They planned a document for the regulation of a people whom they believed unfitted for more than a small share in the affairs of government. They were not blind to its imperfections, but they assumed that those who came after them would have the sense to remedy defects as they developed under the operation of the system then timidly launched.

There is this justification for the worship of the founders of the Constitution, viz., they had the common sense to revise and modify their governmental charter so as to conform to new conditions—a trait or an instinct of which hardly a trace remains in their descendants.

In the popular parlance of those days the proposed Constitution was called “The New Roof,” and its founders urged the people to get under it and keep out of the rain. It is difficult to address an appeal to a people which prefers to venerate that roof on account of its antiquity, rather than to repair the innumerable leaks and fissures due to decay and to the gales and storms of more than a hundred years.

The man who venerates any work of human origin is an ass. His asininity is exactly in degree with the smallness of the objects selected for his veneration. The man who humbly lowers his eyes in contemplation of a political constitution proclaims a lack of mental breadth fitted to comprehend humanity or to understand the plain lessons of history, and he has insulted the one entity worthy of veneration—the Maker of the Universe.

In a preceding article I proved that the framers of the Constitution distrusted the people almost to the point of hatred, and that they deliberately planned to design a document which would give them the semblance of popular rule but none of its substance. This is an unquestioned historical fact. Its declaration may seem startling to those who are confronted with the unvarnished truth for the first time, but they will find it refreshing to study the real history of those days, rather than ignorantly to worship demigods who never existed.

Immutable laws cannot be coexistent with progress. We should study the past, not for the purpose of supinely imitating it, but with a view of profiting by its mistakes. That government is best which avoids the pitfalls of the past, exists for those who live today, and erects no barriers for the generations that will follow.

For the benefit of those who still cling to the belief that constitutional wisdom had its birth with Washington and his compatriots, I take the liberty of quoting a few extracts from letters written by the Father of his Country before and after the constitutional convention had finished its labors. These utterances of Washington are trite and easily understood, and since their authenticity is unquestioned, they possess as much of inspiration as any wisdom coming from him or his colleagues.

These extracts are contained in letters written by Washington to leading men of that period, urging them to give their support to the adoption of the new Constitution, and he pinned his faith to one argument, as you shall see. I commend to all idolaters of that document a careful reading of Washington’s opinion of it, and his advice to them.

Shortly before the convention met he wrote a letter to John Jay, bearing the date of March 10, 1787. The convention assembled May 14 of that year. In that letter Washington said:

“Notwithstanding the boasted virtue of America, it is more than probable we shall exhibit the last melancholy proof that mankind are not competent to their own government without the means of coercion in a sovereign.”

There is no occult meaning hidden in these words. Washington had no faith in the capacity of the people to govern themselves, and did not hesitate to say so. In this, as I proved in a preceding article, he was in accord with the overwhelming majority of the delegates who composed that convention. The question I desire to ask is this: Was Washington inspired when he wrote those lines to John Jay, and if not, when did his inspiration begin?

Let us see what he wrote after the convention had finished its work. On January 12, 1788, he wrote to Mr. Charles Carter as follows:

“I am not a blind admirer (for I saw its imperfections) of the Constitution to which I have assisted to give birth; but I am fully persuaded it is the best that can be obtained at this day, and that it is it or disunion before us. When the defects of it are experienced, a constitutional door is open for amendments.”

There is nothing evasive about this, but those who now repeat such sentiments are suspected of treason by fools, and of a lack of patriotism by unthinking conservatives. On February 7, 1788, Washington wrote to Lafayette and said:

“Should the Constitution which is now offered to the people of America be found on experiment less perfect than it can be made, a constitutional door is left open for its amelioration.”

We have made that experiment. Have we found the Constitution perfect? Where is that “constitutional door,” and why do we not open it?

Writing from Mount Vernon in October, 1787, to Henry Knox, Washington said:

“Is there not a constitutional door open for alterations and amendments? Is it not likely that real defects will be as readily discovered after as before trial? Will not our successors be as ready to apply the remedy as ourselves, if occasion should demand it? To think otherwise will, in my opinion, be ascribing more love of country, more wisdom and more virtue to ourselves than I think we deserve.”

Dear Shade of Washington! You may have been inspired, but you were not able to foresee the bigotry, the ignorance and the cowardice of your descendants. In the language of Cicero, “we are so tied to certain beliefs that we are bound to defend even those we do not approve.” We are like the fools Montaigne describes, “who do not ask whether such and such a thing be true, but whether it has been so and so understood.” We know that the Constitution is full of errors, but all that we ask is that we may be given the wisdom so to interpret it as to suffer as few discomforts from its perpetual operation as possible. In the language of Seneca, we believe in “not only a necessity of erring, but we have a love of error.”

One more of the innumerable quotations of like purport from George Washington will be sufficient. On November 10, 1787, he wrote from Mount Vernon to Bushrod Washington and said:

“The people (for it is with them to judge) can, as they will have the advantage of experience on their side, decide with as much propriety on the alterations and amendments which are necessary as ourselves. I do not think we are more inspired, have more wisdom or possess more virtue than those who will come after us. The power under the Constitution will always be with the people.”

I have been a fairly zealous student of American history, yet I have never seen these quotations from the writings of George Washington in print outside of the huge compilation of his documents and letters to be found in well-ordered reference libraries. Certain it is that our school children are not taught that such characters as Washington doubted the absolute perfection of the Constitution. Certain it is that not one man in ten thousand in the United States ever has had an opportunity to consider our Constitution in the light of the facts presented in this paper and in the one which preceded it.

The truth is that the people of the United States are unfamiliar not only with the history of the formation of the Constitution, but the vast majority of them do not know what it contains. Many of them confound the Declaration of Independence with the Constitution. What is the “Open Door” in the Constitution to which Washington repeatedly refers?

Before considering that, let us list a few of the abuses which the more thoughtful admit exist under our Constitution. Ignoring all of lesser importance I will name four, any one of which constitutes a menace to the perpetuation of free government. These are as follows:

First, the election of a President and Vice-President under the absurd and antiquated method provided by the Constitution, in which citizens vote for electors, and the decision is made by the unit vote of states, irrespective of the majorities cast. Under this grotesque system it has repeatedly happened that candidates obtaining an actual majority of the votes cast have been defeated by the minority. There is not one valid argument in favor of the continuance of this unrepublican and undemocratic elective monstrosity.

Second, the election of senators by the state legislatures, a system which is the fountain-head of the corruption of American politics, and which has given us a Senate, a large percentage of whose members owe their selection to selfish private interests. The error of this system has been so conclusively shown that there is no honest defense for it. The founders of the Constitution designed it for the purpose of making the Senate the citadel of patriotic wealth; it has degenerated into a chamber in which the admitted representatives of vested interests defend their masters against fair legislative enactments, and force unfair compromises on the popular branch which constitutes the House of Representatives.

Third, the equal representation of unequal states in the Senate. This vicious compromise was made in the constitutional convention as the price of the perpetuation of slavery. There was no justification for it even at a time when this nation was no more than a federation of states. Washington, Madison, Randolph, Morris, Franklin and every broad-minded man in that convention protested against it, and their fame is tarnished because they finally submitted to so cowardly and unfair a compromise. Now that the logic of events has made this a nation, despite the restrictive clauses of the Constitution, the dual participation of an unrepresentative Senate is so grotesque that its continuance is fraught with a danger which at any time is likely to precipitate civil war, in the event that at some crucial moment this body shall exercise its constitutional powers combined with those it has arrogated.

Unless the Constitution be entirely repealed, there is no way by amendment to deprive any state of its equal representation in the Senate. It is too much to expect that all of the corrupt boroughs which now hold the undeserved dignity of statehood will relinquish the selfish advantage bequeathed them by the unwisdom of the forefathers, but it is possible to make amendments to the Constitution which will reduce the Senate of the United States to a state of harmless inefficiency. It is possible to preserve its form and extract its substance, and the people should set about the task with no qualms of conscience. Great Britain showed the way when she boldly reduced her House of Lords to a condition of docile vassalage to the popular branch of her Parliament, and she was aroused to this righteous act of retaliation by abuses which were of small consequence compared to those from which we have tamely suffered. It is possible, under the Constitution, to strip the Senate of its legislative power, permitting it to retain its feature of unequal representation, and reserving for it a chamber in which those who wish for the honor can keep up the pretense of governmental power and prestige.

Fourth, the specific enumeration and limitation of the powers and functions of the Federal Judiciary, including the Supreme Court of the United States and all other courts authorized by Congress. This is the paramount subject for constitutional amendment or revision. The founders of our Government did not contemplate any such grant of power as now is wielded by the courts. There is nothing in the document itself which warrants the prerogatives which have been assumed by the courts, and the records of the speeches and the proceedings in the constitutional convention when the judiciary was under consideration contain no hint that they were to be granted the power to annul a law passed by Congress and signed by the President of the United States. Years passed before the Supreme Court dared attempt such a step, and when it did Jefferson scornfully ignored its mandate. Presidents as late as Lincoln have declined to acquiesce in the interference of the Federal Courts, but slowly and insidiously this branch of the Government has reached out and grasped power, until today it is supreme in fact as well as in name.

The Supreme Court is the creature of the Presidents and is subject to the direction of Congress, yet it has arrogated to itself the power of overriding the will of the entire people as recorded by its Congress and affirmed by its chief executive. If they are doing this without warrant of the Constitution, the day will come when, in the inevitable conflict between the court and the Congress or the President, or both combined, there will be precipitated a question which will rend the country with civil war. If they do this under the implied authority of the Constitution, that document should be amended so as to preclude their future interference with laws passed by Congress and signed by the President.

As we exist today we are not a republic or a democracy, neither have we a representative form of government. We are a “judiciary”—if one may coin such a word. Ours is the only country on earth where an elective or appointed judge presumes to wield the most autocratic power of the absolute monarch, viz., the veto of a law passed and demanded by the people. We have become so accustomed to this that we do not properly realize what it means. We teach ourselves to acknowledge the “sacredness of the judiciary” and to bow in humble contrition to any mandate thundered from the Bench. We assent to the insane doctrine that there is not enough of wisdom in a House of Representatives elected by 17,000,000 voters, combined with the check of an ultra-conservative Senate chosen by forty-five state legislatures, and indorsed by the judgment and responsibility of a President, to incorporate for our government a law until such law has been affirmed by the majority of a Supreme Court.

If there be sense in this dogma, I am unable to see why it is not equally just that a minority of the Supreme Court should not be empowered to annul laws. Why does the Supreme Court cling to the inconsistent theory that its majority possesses as much wisdom as its minority?

In a series of articles which I am now preparing, I am attempting to discuss certain of these questions with as much frankness as I possess; but the purpose of this paper, and the one which preceded it, is to call attention to “the unopened door in the Constitution”—the one which Washington repeatedly referred to in the passages from which I have quoted. It is a difficult matter to arouse public attention to any single amendment, no matter how important the subject may be. There is a reason for this.

The people instinctively know that no one amendment can redress the ills which now exist. They do not know how to go about a crusade for constitutional reform, and most of them probably imagine that there is no way in which it can be done. There is a way, a simple, practical and legal way, and the political party which takes advantage of it and conducts an intelligent campaign in its behalf will sweep all before it.

Here is “The Open Door of the Constitution of the United States,” as contained in Article V of that document:

The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year 1808 shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses of the Ninth Section of the First Article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

There is a door as wide as that of a church. It is the most liberal and democratic feature of a document filled with restrictions, and Washington and others were justified in assuming that we would have the sense to walk through it, rather than to attempt to get in by scaling the walls and crawling through a steeple window.

Our alleged progressive political platforms are of no value without a demand for the revision of the Constitution of the United States along some such lines as I have attempted to outline. It is idle to expect the people to rally to the support of any reform, however badly needed, so long as they have valid reasons to believe there is likelihood that a bill in its behalf will meet the fate of the lamented income tax law. Why ask them to shoot in the air when so broad a target is before them?

The wise thing to do is to attack boldly the unfair provisions of the Constitution, and attack it with a fair weapon fashioned by the Constitution. Such a campaign possesses all the elements of strength and strategy. You are safe from the attacks of those who ever hide behind the alleged sanctity of that document. You can turn their own weapons against them. You are standing on the Constitution. You are following to the letter the advice and wishes of Washington and others of his day.

The bulls and excommunications of the courts need not dismay you. Are not they the creatures of the Constitution? Does anyone deny that there is a possibility that the courts have gone beyond their constitutional powers? Is it not within the province of the free people to amend a constitution by constitutional means?

Again, a movement for any one of the reforms which are now pressing to the fore would appeal with irresistible force to its advocates if they knew that success at the polls would incorporate its provisions in the organic law of the land. Those who believe that the best interests of the nation will be conserved by more just systems of taxation, by direct legislation, by the control or ownership of the means of transportation and other measures in line with the logic of events, would know that they were not fighting in vain if a victory with the ballot meant a legislative victory.

I hold that the “Open Door” offers not only the one way to popular triumph, but that success by it is certain and not difficult of attainment. Our national structure totters because of an antique and crumbling foundation. Rebuild it!

To One Departed

SITTING, apart in the café, under a glare of light, Surrounded by wealth and beauty, I ponder here tonight. ’Tis down in old New Orleans and the Carnival is in sway, There are music, jest and laughter—the revelry of the gay.

While sitting here alone, dear, midst all this merry throng, The band begins to play, dear, our old, best loved song; They call it, dear, “Love’s Old Sweet Song,” and oh, it brings to me A longing deep to lay me down and rest, sweetheart, by thee.

I listen to the music and hear the chattering throng, There steals o’er me a wondrous spell, again I hear the song As sung by you, in the long ago, whose sweetness was so brief, And now, alone, I sit here with your memory and my grief.

I have wandered over many lands in search of something true, And now I know, my darling, I found it but in you. I’ve searched afar for sweet content, and sought in vain for rest, I know I ne’er could find it, dear, save on thy faithful breast.

Amidst this scene of life and mirth it is for you I crave, I seem to stand a thousand miles away, beside your grave, And see the stars that o’er it, there, a gentle vigil keep, And kiss the flowers that wave o’er you, my sweetheart, in your sleep.

So, sitting here, surrounded thus by joy and beauty rare With much to bring me happiness, and much to banish care, I know that now and evermore, I’ll always love you best, And learn to lie beside you, dear, to sleep—to sleep and rest.

My eyes grow dim with longing; my heart grows numb with pain; I feel that you are waiting, dear, to clasp me once again. My soul pines for the journey’s end, when I, too, shall be free, And I’ll lie down to sleep, love, in the last long sleep, near thee.

Bernard P. Bogy.

According to Garfield

STELLA—Would you marry a poor man?

Bella—Yes, I would marry a beef magnate who only made two per cent.

Pole Baker

BY WILL N. HARBEN
Author of “The Georgians,” “Abner Daniel,” etc.