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EVENTS OF THE MONTHSource: American Advocate of Peace (1892-1893), Vol. 55, No. 1 (JANUARY, 1893), pp. 19-22Published by: World Affairs InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27899835 .

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AMERICAN ADVOCATE OF PEACE. 19

Em mettant, no person of the latter name being at the

Congress. The resolution which he introduced was in no wise connected with the fact that the Congress voted to go to Chicago next summer, but had been placed upon the programme long before the Congress met at Berne. Again, the resolution, though growing out of the New Or leans affair, was not at all in the nature of a petition to the United States Government to afford better protection to strangers within its borders. Here is the resolution in full as it was made by Mr. Mazzoleni and as it passed the

Congress unanimously : u The Congress affirms the necessity of supplying the

lack which exists in the legislation of a number of States

(nations) as to the maintenance of the rights guaranteed to foreigners by treaties. It expresses its very great sat isfaction with the declarations made on this subject by

President Harrison in his message to the Congress of the United States of America on the 9th of December, 1891.

" Having learned of the bill of Senator Dolph, it de

clares that it desires its adoption by the Congress of the United States, that it may become a part, as soon as pos

sible, of public law in the supreme interest of interna tional justice and international harmony. The Congress charges its bureau to bring this resolution to the attention of all the great powers interested, and so communicate it

officially to the Interparliamentary Conference which is soon to meet."

I have just received the full report of the Berne Con gress and have gone carefully through the speech which Signor Mazzoleni made on presenting this resolution. There is not a word of disrepect in it toward the United States. I am personally well acquainted with Mr. Maz zoleni and know that he cherishes the highest regard for our country and our institutions. He is an able lawyer of Milan, Italy, and discusses questions in a calm, judi cial way. He is greatly attached to the cause of peace and international harmony, and this resolution was intro

duced by him purely in the interests of international jus tice and through this of international concord. Hoping that you may find a place for this explanation in the col umns of the News, I am

Sincerely yours, BENJAMIN F. TRUEBLOOD,

Secretary of the American Peace Society.

BOSTON, Dec. 3. -N. Y. Baily News.

We are glad for all the various influences that go to soften the feelings and natures of men and women, and

to educate and enlarge pure affection. The various

societies which have for their object the promotion of kindness to dumb animals and the prevention of cruelty to children have not only bettered the condition of the

helpless and unfortunate, but have had reflex influence, for good, upon the moral natures of ali who have been enlisted in this work. They have become kindlier and

happier.

There are persons with abnormally vicious and blood

thirsty dispositions, as the Jesse Pomeroy of whom so much was said a few years ago, but all persons have a

tendency in the same direction which may be developed and intensified by untoward influences. But that ten

dency may also be largely overcome by the direction of the thought and life to exercises of a beneficent and

philanthropie nature. And it is an immeasurable bless

ing to any one to be so influenced. We believe that a time is coming when nations shall

learn war no more and when its exercise, even defensively, will be a lost art and an expired necessity. When that time shall come, as measured by years, we cannot tell, but we should, in love to God and our fellow-men, do all we can to bring about that blessed consummation. In

the name and in the Spirit of the Prince of Peace let us do all in our power to introduce, by means of the gospel and Christian education, the coming era of universal peace.- Herald and Presbyter.

PEACE AND WAR FORCES.

In calling for an appropriation of $1,000,000 for the national militia, Secretary of War Elkins observes that this sum is only five times greater than was appropriated in 1808. The United States are about nine times larger in popu

lation than in 1808, and many times larger in the extent of territory to ba covered. So vastly more expensive is the machinery of war now than it then was that the mere

firing off of a few pieces of modern improved heavy ord nance costs more than it did to equip the whole forces that stood on Bunker Hill.

Such facts as these will do us more honor at Chicago than all the terrible instruments of war that can be exhib ited. It underlies a perpetual guarantee of peace from

within more potent than Krupp guns, 13-inch dynamite rifles and the vast equipments of Europe.

Our chief honor is that war as a trade is not our

specialt}\-Boston Globe.

It is announced that Mr. Arnold Morley, M.P., the new

Postmaster-General, is giving every encouragement to the

arrangements for the drill of telegraph messengers, which are now taking permanent form. The Star (London) remarks that there is in this no special source of gratifica tion to Liberals. Last month Mr. Morley lent his patron age to the scheme for militarizing the Postal Service, by reviewing the telegraph battalion under the command of

Major J. P. Macgregor at the Tower. There is no objec tion to drilling the boys in order to give them a smart

appearance, but to arm them with Martini-Henry carbines,

and give them military drill in barracks, is detrimental to their interests, and demoralizing to the postal service.

The object of drilling the boys and associating them with barrack life is to graduate them as recruits for the army. There is a dearth of soldiers, but there is no difficulty in

getting telegraph messengers. The War Office and the Postal Office authorities have, therefore, decided to intro duce the demoralizing military element in the Civil Service, and to take away the boys from their duties or encroach upon their leisure to train them as soldiers. This is the system to which Mr. Morley

u is giving every en

couragement."-- Herald of Peace.

EVENTS OF THE MONTH.

France has not been so agitated since the days of the

Franco-German war and the Commune as during the past month by the Panama Canal scandal. It reminds one, ex

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20 AMERICAN ADVOCATE OF PEACE.

cept that it is on a larger scale, of the Credit Mobilier

commotion through which our country passed years ago. The French Ministry has been overthrown and it has been difficult to organize a new one. The investigation insti

tuted in the Chamber of Deputies has brought to trial

many prominent men who were connected with the Panama

Canal scheme. The Baron de Reinach has committed

suicide rather than face the trial. It has been shown that

many millions of dollars were spent in bogus advertising and in buying the influence of Deputies. This money came largely out of th3 pockets of the people who were

led by these false pretences to buy shares of the Panama

stock. The enterprise having collapsed and this failure

being shown to be due to the unscrupulous methods and in

competency of certain men of fortune and prominence in

the nation, the people who were fleeced have gone wild

with indignation and this feeling has manifested itself in

the Chamber of Deputies. Justice is likely to be meted

out swiftly to all who shall be found guilty. It has been

thought that the Republic itself would be endangered by this shock. This seems hardly likely, as the people are

deeply attached to their present form of government, and are not likely to confound the incompetency or rascality of certain leading men with the form of government itself.

The steamship "Spree" of the North German Lloyd line met with a disaster on the 26th of November, the

appalling nature of which only those who have been at sea can fully appreciate. When about a thousand miles

out from Southampton the shaft broke, bursting through the tunnel in the bottom of the ship, and letting the

water suddenly into two of the compartments. The

steerage passengers had just time to escape to the deck above. The mental distress through which the passengers

passed during the first twenty-four hours afterwards was

very great. Even the officers of the ship expected her to sink at any moment and had everything in readiness to launch the life-boats. One man jumped overboard and

was drowned and five were driven insane by fear. Mr.

D. L. Moody and Gen. O. O. Howard were among the

passengers, and did much for them by their Christian faith and action. Prayer services were held, in which all

joined the best they could. Finally the u Huron' ' came

in sight and took the disabled vessel in tow and brought her safe to Queenstown. Whether the ship would have

been lost or not but for the prayer offered, we have no means of knowing ; but of one thing we are quite sure, that the most of Mr. Moody's critics, if they had been on board, would have prayed with all their might.

Whittier's birthday, the 17th of December, was widely observed this year, in a number of places the exercises

taking the form of memorial services. Prominent among these was the memorial service held by the citizens of

Amesbury, at which a considerable number of prominent

New England people were present by invitation. The oration by Hon. J. W. Patterson gave a most excellent

delineation of Whittier's life, character and work both as a reformer and as a man of letters.

A memorial service of special interest was also held on the same day at the Friends School, Providence, R.I., at which were read a number of the poet's letters to the

Principal, Augustine Jones, and a short poem that had never been published. Dr. Wood of Johns Hopkins University gave an able and instructive address on Whittier as a poet.

In Brooklyn, William Lloyd Garrison spoke on Whit tier's anti-slavery career.

The chief features of Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Mea sure for Ireland have been made public and are as follows :

Let Ireland be divided into four provinces, viz. : Ulster, Munster, Connaught and Leinster.

Let each province have its own House of Representa tives, elected by manhood suffrage and equal electoral districts, and let each House of Representatives elect a number (proportioned to the population of the province) of life senators to meet in Dublin and there constitute an Irish Senate.

Let each province have a Governor, appointed by the crown, and let the Governor of Leinster be also the pres ident of the Irish Senate. Let all the acts of a provincial parliament or of the Irish

Senate be subject to the veto of the Governor until passed a second time by some stipulated considerable majority, and let each Governor have the power of dissolving and convoking the provincial parliament.

Let each provincial parliament have the full power of the government of an American State, and let the Irish Senate have the full powers of the United States federal government, with the following limitations :

A-No armed forces, fortresses, arsenals or ships of war to be created or maintained, other than such as may be appointed by the imperial parliament of Great Britain and Ireland.

B-No relations with foreign powers to be established except as arranged by the imperial parliament.

C-No taxes to be imposed upon commerce between Ireland and any other British country.

D-No legislation by either Senate or provincial parlia ment to take place in violation of personal liberty or per sonal freedom or religious belief and thought, or in con fiscation of private property.

E-The constitutionality or otherwise of any legislation, whether by the Irish Senate or any provincial parliament, to be subject to the adjudication of the judical committee of the privy council.

F-The sovereignty of the crown to be maintained, and any decision of the crowning council to be enforced by warrant addressed to the Governor of a province.

Let Ireland be represented in the imperial parliament by* say, 80 menbers, 20 being elected by the people of each province.

The plan shows that the Premier has carefully consid ered all the objections which have been made to Home Rule

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AMERICAN ADVOCATE OF PEACE. 21

for Ireland and has sought to devise a scheme which, while giving the country real self-government, will pre vent it from any of the disasters which it has been sup posed would grow out of any sort of government of Ireland

by the Irish people themselves.

James Gr. Blaine has been very ill for some time. There is probably no hope of his recovery, though at the

present writing he is holding his own with some signs of

improvement. He is so well known to every American and has been so long in public life that the sympathies of all naturally turn to his sick bed.

Two heresy trials have been going on in the Presby terian Church during the past month, which have assumed a national character on account of the eminence of the men called to answer before the courts of the church. The trial of Dr. Henry P. Smith, of Lane Seminary, before the Cincinnati Presbytery, has resulted in his

being suspended from the Presbyterian ministry by a vote of thirty-one to twenty-six. Dr. Briggs of New York has been acquitted on all the charges brought against him.

Heresy trials do little good either to the men tried or to the church. They could be largely prevented, if the

simple and reasonable principle of frequent revision of doctrinal statements were universally recognized. Creeds and confessions of Faith are human statements of truth and as such each generation has a right, with the Bible

open before it, to make its own. No other course is either safe or wise.

A new plot against the Czar of Russia has been dis covered. Its dimensions are not yet known, but many of the lower as well as superior officers of the army are

thought to be involved in it. Numerous arrests have been made at Kieff. The authorities at St. Petersburg are

greatly apprehensive and much excitement prevails. One of the chief causes of the conspiracy is said to be the pro longed peace of the Empire which does not offer to the

army officers opportunities of promotion. It is one of the evils of standing armies in all countries that men trained for war are sure to grow restless and dissatisfied, if they are long without opportunity to practise their profession. They are among the first to fan into a flame any pretext for war.

Russia is laying up for herself a harvest of fearful

vengeance, which is as sure to come as that God reigns, if she does not repent. The persecution of the peaceful Stundists continues with increasing severity. They are

plundered, imprisoned and assaulted by the police. Their women are violated with impunity, even by the authorities themselves or their minions. The cruel persecution of the Jews also is systematically carried forward under the direction of the Czar's brother, who seems determined to

drive every Jew from Moscow. And all this in the name

of religion ! When one reads such reports as have recent

ly come from that country he is almost persuaded to be lieve that we are still living in the days of Torquemada.

Jay Gould died on the second of December, leaving a for

tune of from $75,000,000 to $100,000,000. Of this vast sum nothing was left to benevolent objects. Not even

his servants received anything. The whole was given to

the immediate members of his family.

Violent storms and intense cold have recently pre vailed at sea. Many steamers have had passages of un

wonted roughness, and much damage has been done. Some of the ships have come into port heavily coated

with ice and looking like veritable ice palaces. The

Noordland which left New York on the 14th of December broke her shaft and was so damaged that she was only kept from sinking by twenty-four hours of incessant

pumping. The Umbria, which was due in New York on

the 24th of December, was kept on the ocean a week by a broken shaft, but came in finally with all safe. The ocean steamers with their water-tight compartments have

proved their ability to get safely through almost any kind of seas. The loss of life has been comparatively small.

In the municipal election in Boston on the 13th of

December, 4 4 no-license

" came interestingly close to

winning the day. The majority for license was only 1118 out of a total vote of 61,892. In 1891 the majority for license was 4096 and in 1890 it was 15,249. The no-license cause made distinct gains in the municipal elections in general throughout the State. It is not

likely that the 44 saloon in politics," as certain papers have claimed, has been the cause of these steady gains for no-license, and that the recent vote in Boston was

simply a protest against the failure of the saloons of the

city to come up to their usual standard of efficiency in the general election. The real factor is the growing dislike of all good people for this " enemy of all good," which not only goes into politics but into everything else into which it can set its unholy feet.

The annual report of the Secretary of War points out 46

that, in view of the possible necessity of rapidly trans

forming a large number of citizens into effective soldiers, it is a matter of vital importance that the regular army, in organization and personnel, shall represent as nearly as

may be a perfect model." It is also recommended that the grade of lieutenant

general be revived. On the ground that rank as well as

authority is essential to give proper effect to military authority, it is deemed necessary that the commanding general should be conspicuously superior in rank to all sub ordinates. The standard of qualifications has been raised until the test at recruiting rendezvous is so critical that

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22 AMERICAN ADVOCATE OF PEACE.

only 28 per cent, of the applicants for enlistment were

accepted during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1892. He suggests a small increase in compensation. "If

good men are wanted for the army they must be paid

something near what wage-earners receive in the ordinary

pursuits of civil life. " The army, under favorable conditions, should be one of

the most desirable trades of youth ; and there can scarce

ly be a doubt that bright and adventurous young men

would seek our colors in considerable numbers if it were

generally understood that courage and merit would be

suitably rewarded."

He proposes that small posts be abandoned and that

regimental posts be established in each of the larger States

now without them, near the large cities.

At present there are 96 posts garrisoned by United

States troops ; of these, 33 are east of the Mississippi and

the remaining 63 west of it.

The military academy at West Point, the artillery school

at Fort Monroe, the infantry and cavalry school at Leaven

worth, Kan., the cavalry and light artillery school at Fort

Riley, Kan., and the engineering school at Willet's Point, are reported to be in a flourishing condition.

An increased appropriation for the National Guard is

recommended. Recent appropriations have been entirely inadequate and at least $1,000,000 for the purpose is con

sidered a fair amount.

A new magazine gun of the best modern type has been

adopted and steps taken for its manufacture.

The plans for the war department exhibit at the World's

Columbian Exposition are as nearly perfected as time and

circumstances will permit. All sections of the proposed exhibit are well in hand. It is expected to be illustrative

of the advancement of the age in all that pertains to the

art of war and the relative standing of our government

among the great military powers of the world.

The expenditures for the fiscal year ended June 30,

1892, amounted to $51,218,970.59; the appropriations for the year ending June 30, 1893, amounted to $56,582, 933.54.

The annual report of the Postmaster General has just been issued. The development of our postal system under

Mr. Wannamaker's nearly four years of service has cer

tainlv been very remarkable. It has been brought as

nearly up to the demands of our time and the greatly

changed conditions of American life, social and business, as possible in the brief time and with the limited resources

at his command. Mr. Wannamaker's great aim, through his whole term of service, has been to make the Post Office serve the people. The enlargement of money order facil

ities, the extension of the free-delivery system, better

arrangements for distributing and collecting letters in the

suburbs of large cities, and a number of other valuable

improvements bear witness to the Postmaster General's

excellent business judgment and to his sincere desire to serve the people in the management of the Post Office

Department. The chief developments in the Depart ments for the past year are as follows :

Five million dollars have been added to the gross revenue, and the deficit reduced nearly a million ;

Money-order offices have increased from 10,070 to

16,689;

Eighty-two cities have been supplied with free delivery ;

Twenty-seven hundred and ninety new offices have been established ;

Two hundred and sixty-three offices have been advanced to the Presidential grade ;

Fifteen hundred and ninety new mail routes have been established ;

Ocean mail service has been extended and pneumatic tube service introduced.

The annual report of the Treasurer of the United States shows that the net ordinary revenues of the Government for the past year were $354,938,784, a decrease of $37, 674,663, as compared with the previous year. The net

ordinary expenditures were $345,023,330, a decrease of

$10,349,354. The amount of the public debt on June 30th was $1,588,464,144, as against $1,545,996,591 the previous year.

The cholera has reappeared in Hamburg and a number of fresh deaths have been reported. It is reported to be

spreading also in the north of France, and grave appre hensions are entertained of a general reappearance of the

plague as warm weather shall approach. Meanwhile, the

subject of suitable quarantine regulations, by the national

government itself, is being earnestly discussed at Wash

ington and at the different seaports.

On the 26th of December, a battle took place near Las

Animas, Mex., between three hundred Mexican soldiers and two hundred and fifty revolutionists. The Mexican

troops were defeated by the insurgents. Thirteen soldiers were killed and many wounded. Several of the revolu tionists were killed and a large number wounded. The revolution has assumed a more serious aspect than was at

first expected. In a later battle the insurgents have been defeated by the government troops.

An attempt was made early in December to assassinate President Hippolyte, of Hayti. When the assassin was discovered in the palace, he was secured after a struggle and boldly confessed his purpose. He was ordered shot at once and so were the delinquent sentinels who per mitted him to enter.

The figures from all the States show that the total pop ular vote for President in the late election was as follows :

Cleveland, 5,567,990; Harrison, 5,176,611; Weaver, 1,025,060; Bidwell, 258,347.

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