°o .**\.ii^%V cO*^..-.,V .,**\.i;^v'*<^^ *=*. ,#'^-^. few V» X^ ^-J^WM^yi^ * : -ov^' • THE PROGRESS OF A UNITED PEOPLE CENTURY READINGS IN UNITED STATES HISTORY A series, made up from the best on this subject in The Century and St. Nicholas, for students of the upper grammar grades and the first year high school. Profusely illustrated. EXPLORERS AND SETTLERS THE COLONISTS AND THE REVOLUTION A NEW NATION THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT THE CIVIL WAR THE PROGRESS OF A UNITED PEOPLE 12mo. About 225 pages each. $.50 net. THE CENTURY CO. The Oregon joins the fleet and salutes the flagship. (See page 78) CENTURY READINGS IN UNITED STATES HISTORY THE PROGRESS OF A UNITED PEOPLE EDITED BY CHARLES L. BARSTOW NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1912 t Copyright, 191 2, by The Century Co. PMblished May, jgi2 gC!.A3l6031 \ CONTENTS "{ Progress Since the War Reconstruction General Robert E. Lee A Yankee Teacher in the South Elizabeth G. Rice . The Ku Klux Klan . . . . D. L. Wilson . . Civil Service Reform .... George IV. Curtis . The Bosses and the People . . Joseph B. Bishop . jMr. Cleveland and the Civil Service Richard Watson Gild The Conquest of Arid America William E. Smythe On Conservation Theodore Roosevelt Indian Warfare G. W. Baird . . Custer's Last Battle . . . . E. S. Godfrey . . Brief Account of the Spanish War William McKinley The Oregon's Great Voyage . . Edzvard W. Eberle The Battle of Manila Bay . . Cutting a Hemisphere in Two . George E. Walsh . The Panama Canal .... William B. Parsons The Wright Brothers' Aeroplane Orville and Wilbur Wright The Western Railroad . . . Ray Stannard Baker . .. The Associated Press . . . Melville E. Stone . . . The Growth of the United States Francis A. Walker . The Twelfth Census (1900) . EI on. W. R. Merriam . . Civic Improvement ...... Sylvester Baxter . Peace Versus War Andrew Carnegie . . . Three Wars Prevented ... Contents PAGE An Early American Described . /. Hector St. John de Crevecocvir 194 New Americans Wardon A. Curtis .... 198 The American Business Man . A. Barton Hepburn .... 203 The American Spirit . . . . S. E. Forman 206 The American of the Future . Brander Matthezvs .... 210 Acknowledgment is made of the courtesy of Messrs. Houghton Mifflin Company in permitting the use of Whittier's " Centennial Hymn "; and of Messrs. Harper & Brothers for permission to use the article " Civil Service Reform." NOTE TO VOLUME VI This volume differs from the others of the series in deal- ing with the present and future as well as the past. In so far as it touches upon the problems and duties of the present-day American, it partakes of the nature of a civic reader, and supplies a kind of material for which there has been a wide demand. THE PROGRESS OF A UNITED PEOPLE "CENTENNIAL HYMN" (1876) By John Greenleaf Whittier Our fathers' God ! from out whose hand The centuries fall like grains of sand, We meet to-day, united, free, And loyal to our land and Thee, To thank Thee for the era done, And trust Thee for the opening one. Thou, who hast here in concord furled The war flags of a gathered world. Beneath our Western skies fulfil The Orient's mission of good-will. And, freighted with love's Golden Fleece, Send back its Argonauts of peace. For art and labor met in truce. For beauty made the bride of use. We thank Thee ; but, withal, we crave The austere virtues strong to save. The honor proof to place or gold. The manhood never bought nor sold ! Oh, make Thou us, through centuries long, In peace secure, in justice strong; Around our gift of freedom draw The safeguards of Thy righteous law: And, cast in some diviner mold, Let the new cycle shame the old ! By permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. THE PROGRESS OF A UNITED PEOPLE PROGRESS SINCE THE WAR The progress of our country since the early days of the Civil War has been so great in so many dififerent directions, that it can only be hinted at in the little space at our dis- posal. The following table, prepared for '' Forman's History of the United States " will be helpful in making comparisons along the lines of agriculture, manufacturing, mining and commerce : TABLE OF PROGRESS IN THE UNITED STATES SINCE i860. Items i860 1880 1900 1908 1. Farms and farm property .... $7,980,493,000 $12,180,501,538 $20,514,001,538 $28,000,000,000 2. Farm products. 1,910,000,000 2,212,540,927 3,764,177,706 7,778,000,000 3. Products of man- ufacturing .. 1,885,861,670 5,369.579.171 13.014.287,498 14,802,147,087 4. Imports of mer- chandise 353.616,119 667,594,746 849,941,184 1,194,341,792 5. Exports of mer- chandise 333,576,037 835.630,658 1,394,483,082 1,860,773,346 6. Miles of rail- „ ^ , road 30,626 93,267 198,964 236,949 7. Salaries for pub- , ^ o lie schools .. . 37,832,506 137,687,746 196,980,919^ 8. Population .... 3i,443,32i 50,i55,7o3 76,303,307 87,189,392* 9. Immigrants ar- „ g_ rived 150,237 457.257 448,572 782,8/0^ 10. Wealth 16,159,616,000 42,642,000,000 88,517,306,775 120,000,000,000* * Estimated. 3 4 The Progress of a United People Not only in amounts, which can be shown by figures, but in methods, has progress been marvelous. In agriculture the early machinery has been replaced by modern devices so that one man can do the work of many. The same is true in regard to nearly all kinds of manufac- The Santa Maria, The Mayflower, The Lusitania, The Savannah, 93 feet long. 70 feet long. 790 feet long. 100 feet long. An ocean steamship of to-day as compared with early ships. turing. We are the greatest mining nation in the world and we lead all others in the production of petroleum, lead and silver. Foreigners, who are not always ready to give us due credit for our progress, readily- admit that we are an in- ventive nation, and we may all be justly proud of the American genius and enterprise which united the Old World with the New by means of the Atlantic Cable (1866) and of our part in the invention of the telegraph, the telephone and the wireless message. Our progress in electricity is worthy of note. Electric lighting, electric cable-cars, the X-ray and many other applications of electricity to health and daily life have greatly increased the average comforts of living. The average American home is more convenient to live in than the average home abroad. Our bath-rooms and other con- veniences make life safer as well as more pleasant. The motor-car has changed the appearance of our streets and roads since i860, and though not an unmixed good it Progress Since the War 5 may be made so in the future. The Wright Brothers' aeroplane places America nearly on a par with other nations in the conquest of the air. In point of wealth we are the richest nation of the earth. For the most part we do not own the great vessels that carry us abroad and handle our commerce. But we use them freely and the contrast of the modern vessel with that of war-times is as great as any other contrast between the two epochs. But our railways are our own and we have more mileage than all Europe put together, two-thirds of it built since the War. In our material development, the addition of great areas to our national domain in the conquest of the arid West by means of irrigation is much more wonderful and credit- able than the addition of territory by conquest would be. By conquest, too, we have added in this same period many equatorial islands and at the same time many prob- lems as to their government and betterment, and unknown responsibilities for their future. In this the record of our sailors and soldiers is just cause for pride. Perhaps the longest feather in- our cap, in a material way, is the digging of the Panama Canal, one of the greatest works ever undertaken by man, and now being carried rapidly to a* successful conclusion. We might pause here and say that material progress is not everything. When you travel in Europe you will find plenty of people to tell you that Americans have been so busy getting dollars that they have no character, no art, no architecture, no literature, no philosophy, no real scientists, no honesty in business, no justice in the courts and no manners except bad ones; and that although the country has beautiful 6 The Progress of a United People scenery, it has only ugly cities, houses and villages. These Europeans will also tell you, or each other, that there is no such thing as an American. You will be surprised to find these opinions quite gen- erally held and by intelligent people who have visited these shores. There is at least a partial answer to all these reproaches : to some of them a full and complete answer. But it is a good thing to take a comparative view of such matters. And if we do this, we shall find ourselves obliged to admit that the Old World, with its hundreds or thousands of years of start has arrived at some results that are better than we can yet show in America. There is no more mis- taken '' patriotism " than the kind which simply shouts and boasts. There is no better kind than that which sets about to better what is wrong. The following pages will suggest some reasons for modesty and effort as well as for congratulation and praise. RECONSTRUCTION By General Robert E. Lee \ I have received your letter of the 23d lilt. [August, 1865], and in reply will state the course I have pursued under circumstances similar to your ov^n, and will leave you to judge of its propriety. Like yourself, I have, since the cessation of hostilities, advised all with whom I have conversed on the subject, who come within the terms of the President's procla- mations, to take the oath of al- legiance, and accept in good faith the amnesty offered. But I have gone recommended to those who were excluded from their bene- fits, to make application under the proviso of the proclama- tion of the 29th of May, to be embraced in its provisions. Both classes, in order to be restored to their former rights and privileges were required to perform a certain act, and I do not see that an acknowledgment of fault is expressed in one more than the other. The war being at an end, the Southern States having laid down their arms, and the questions at issue between them and the Northern States having been decided, I believe it to be the duty of every one 7 Robert E. Lee. further, and have 8 The Progress of a United People to unite in the restoration of the country, and the reestab- lishment of peace and harmony. These considerations gov- erned me in the counsels I gave to others, and induced me on the 13th of June to make appHcation to be included in the terms of the amnesty proclamation. I have received no answer, and cannot inform you what has been the de- cision of the President. But, whatever that may be, I do not see how the course I have recommended and practised can prove detrimental to the former President of the Con- federate States. It appears to me that the allayment of passion, the dissipation of prejudice, and the restoration of reason, will alone enable the people of the country to acquire a true knowledge and form a correct judgment of the events of the past four years. It will, I think, be admitted that Mr. Davis has done nothing more than all the citizens of the Southern States, and should not be held accountable for acts performed by them in the exercise of what had been con- sidered by them unquestionable right. I have too exalted an opinion of the American people to believe that they will consent to injustice ; and it is only necessary, in my opinion, that truth should be known, for the rights of every one to be secured. A YANKEE TEACHER IN THE SOUTH an experience in the early days of reconstruction By Elizabeth G. Rice Six weeks from the day that General Beauregard evacu- ated Charleston, a party of New England men and women, including myself, entered the city as volunteer teachers for the colored schools that had been organized under the superintendence of Mr. James Redpath. We had been sent out by a society in Boston, wdio paid us a small sum above our necessary expenses, the government providing, as far as possible, transportation, rations, and military protection. Everywhere were to be seen ruins, new and old; and the sense of disaster was greatly increased by the fires that took place the night that the city was evacuated. When the Union troops entered, their first effort was to extinguish these fires. Then the officers took possession of the vacant houses, which had already been emptied of everything of much value. Our party of twelve looked about to find a vacant house that pleased us, and soon selected a large brownstone mansion. Only a few large articles remained, such as sideboard and dining-table, and a few bedsteads and wardrobes. The fine library, which must have num- bered several thousand volumes, had been taken away by our troops only the day before, — so the colored people on the place told us, — and busts of Roman emperors still 9 10 The Progress of a United People stood surmounting the empty shelves. In the courtyard were two small brick houses for the servants, and a well- yard where half a dozen bloodhounds lived in kennels, con- tributing much to our sense of safety. A former steward, nearly white, was in charge of the place. He felt kindly toward us, as w^e were on a mission to his race, and was very glad to remain for wages. To complete the furnish- ing, we did as others — got a dray and foraged from house to house; if one seemed deserted, w-e roamed over it, and if we found a stray chair or table, we had it put on our dray. None of these articles were treasures, except in the sense that any table or chair was better than none. One day we mentioned to an officer that we had no mirror, and within a few hours he surprised us by sending an elegant glass in a massive frame, that rec[uired four men to carry it up the broad stairs. Dishes were particularly scarce, and some white-and-gold china sent us by an officer was a great luxury. After we had lived in the house two months we received a call from a member of the family that owned it, who told us of his satisfaction in knowing that his house was oc- cupied by teachers and ladies rather than by officers. He assured us that he should do nothing to molest us. He ended his call by asking permission to visit his garden and gather some flowers. Later we saw our steward go off with him, and not long after the steward came back in a state of intoxication. The next day, w^hile we were at school, two comfortable stuffed chairs, of which we were proud, disappeared from the parlor, and our steward said that this caller of the day before had sent for them. They had never belonged to him, but I suppose he shared our admiration for them. We never saw him or them again, A Yankee Teacher in the South ii but we left him an assortment of furniture when, several months later, we all returned North for the summer. All the available school buildings were put in use as fast as teachers, either Northern or native, could be found. Pupils who did not know a letter of the alphabet or a figure in arithmetic were separated from those who did, and those who could read from those who could not. Our places as teachers were assigned by lot, and the task that fell to me was a hard one. My school met in the third floor of the fine old State Normal School building. The room had formerly been used as a hall for lectures, and was fitted with settees for four hundred. There I never had a pupil who knew the alphabet or could count correctly to ten. Charleston was a great gathering-place for the suddenly freed people from plantations for miles and miles around. To them freedom meant liberty to rove about as they liked, and they wandered aimlessly into the city by hundreds and thousands, destitute of nearly everything. Pigs seemed to be a favorite possession, and many a freedman made his first tour of the city streets with a squealing pig under his arm. Government and the Freedmen's Bureau sent these homeless crowds to camps on James Island, and fed and cared for them as best they could. To them being free meant being educated like white men. One of their first impulses, therefore, was to go to school. ]\Iany among those who had been brought up in towns could read, but the great throng of plantation and rice- swamp workers were in the densest ignorance, and often spoke such bad English that it was impossible to get at their meaning. As they passed in crowds through the city, many would stop at the school doors and ask admittance. Any applicant, man, woman, or child, not knowing the alphabet, 12 The Progress of a United People was sent to my school; and when the four hundred seats were full, as they always were, subsequent comers had to be sent away. Consequently my room was filled each day with a constantly changing set of people. Many, probably, never came the second time. They had no idea of school life, and found sitting still and mental application the most laborious task they had ever been set to do. They wanted to talk, or to get up and walk round the room; and they fell asleep in their seats, even falling upon the floor, as easily as babes. My room was searched weekly for de- serters from the army, so many men were there among the women and children. My own rearing had been in a quiet New England town, and I hardly think I had ever seen a hundred colored people when I went South on this mission. My sense of helpless- ness was complete when I first stood on the platform and faced the dark crowd in motley apparel. I hardly knew whether to cry or laugh. There seemed to be no other individuality than sex. All the men looked just alike, and so did all the women and girls, except when some peculiar arrangement of the kinks of curls on their heads was dis- tinctive. A shell fired during the bombardment had torn an opening in the wall and shattered every pane of glass, but a less perfect system of ventilation would not have sufficed. The school session lasted only three hours each day, and that included a generous recess, for the confine- ment was as tedious to those grown-up children as to an ordinary three-year-old. A soldier was detailed daily to stand at the outer en- trance of the building to keep out unruly persons, and an- other was stationed by my door on the upper floor, and sometimes I had to call upon him for aid in ejecting dis- A Yankee Teacher in the South 13 tiirbers. There was a foolish colored boy of large size who used to slip in whenever he could. Usually he be- haved very well. One day, however, George Washing- ton (for that was his name) suddenly appeared in front of the school wuth a sword which he brandished at me. He had on epaulets and wore the red sash of an officer. The figure we cut as he dashed about waving his sword and I dodged round my desk evading it and screaming to the sen- tinel to come in, must have been very ludicrous. Finally George Washington was taken captive and removed, and I gave strict orders that he was never to pass the outer door again. I was given the assistance of eight colored girls who had had some schooling. One of them had been a teacher and was really helpful. To each of these eight assistants I assigned the care of fifty pupils. I printed the alphabet and a few numerals with chalk on blackboards in each of the four corners of the room, and four assistants alternated their sections in classes of twenty-five each, standing before these boards and trying to make them see the different shapes of the letters and learn their names. Two of the teachers heard their classes in two small anterooms, and two more on the broad landing of the staircase entry, while I tried to keep order among the two hundred who were resting in their seats, and conducted general exercises be- tween the changing of the classes. The problem of keeping order in such a body was serious. It is fair to say that, in a general way, all were anxious to please me and to learn; but they reasoned that, if they were free, they could talk when they wanted to, or they could go out and come in as they liked. The very first morning of my taking charge I was horror-stricken to see two big 14 The Progress of a United People boys rush at each other, and before the sentinel at the door could interfere, one had received a fearful cut in the face with a knife. I found it impossible to enforce authority without using punishments such as sitting on the floor in front of my desk with legs kept straight and feet turned up, or standing and toeing a line. They seemed to dislike having attention drawn to their feet, which were always bare. Occasionally I found use for a small ratan which some one had left in the teacher's desk. There were two brothers, Josiah and Tony, who came regularly to school, though I do not think they learned a thing. But no boys were ever more mischievous than these. They were evi- dently familiar with the uses of the rod, and would scream and writhe as if in agony, and beg for mercy, even before the first application was made. I found the efifect of their piteous cries very salutary on the general discipline, and that the measure of the awe inspired was more the result of their loud outcries than of my own control. So it came to be a joke in our building that when visitors of apparent consequence were seen coming, the outer sentinel would send the brief message, " Whip Josiah," as he, being the older and more practised in his howling, made consequently a larger impression on the school. If the message was simply, " Whip Tony," I knew that in the sentinel's estima- tion the visitors were of minor distinction. Of course the suggestion was not often adopted, though I doubt if there were, at any time, five consecutive minutes in which they both did not richly deserve a thrashing. One thing my pupils did admirably : they sang their plan- tation melodies with the strange words and plaintive choruses, swaying their bodies as they sang, in wonderful time and tune. There was a little peculiarity common to A Yankee Teacher in the South 15 them all. They would come to me and ask to go home, saying they had the stomachache. This complaint seemed to be so remarkably prevalent that finally I began to investi- gate, and found that it was a generic term for every kind of ailment from head to feet. The days grew steadily hotter, and the sleepy crowd grew sleepier as they sat wearily on their settees in school. It was no use to give them books, for they could not read a w^ord, and we had few picture-books or illustrated papers. We taught on with flagging courage till early in June, when we were very glad to avail ourselves of a government per- mit for transportation at half-rates to New York. Some teachers returned in the fall to continue the work, which went on under more usual and orderly conditions, until the military rule was over and the former civil authority was resumed in the city, and with it the care of its own school system. THE KU KLUX KLAN By D. L. Wilson No chapter in American history is more strange than the one which bears for a title : '' Ku Kkix Klan." The secret history of the Invisible Empire, as the Klan was also called, has never been written. The Klan disappeared from Southern life as it came into it, shrouded in deepest mys- tery. Its members would not disclose its secrets; others could not. Even the investigating committee appointed by Congress, after tedious and diligent inquiry, was baffled. The voluminous reports containing the results of the com- mittee's labors do not tell when and where and how the Ku Klux Klan originated. The writer does not profess to be able to reveal the secret signs, grips, and pass-words of the order. These have never been disclosed, and probably never will be. A wave of excitement, spreading by contagion till the minds of a wdiole people are in a ferment, is an event of frequent occurrence. The Ku Klux movement was pecu- liar by reason of the causes which produced and fed the excitement. It illustrates the weird and irresistible power of the unknown and mysterious over the minds of men of all classes and conditions in life; and it illustrates how men by circumstances and conditions, in part of their own crea- tion, may be carried away from their moorings and drifted along in a course against which reason and judgment protest. i6 The Ku Klux Klan 17 The Ku Klux Klan was the outgrowth of peculiar con- ditions, social, civil, and political, which prevailed at the South from 1865 to 1869. It was as much a product of those conditions as malaria is of a swamp and sun heat. Its birthplace was Pulaski, the capital of Giles, one of the southern tier of counties in Middle Tennessee. Pulaski is a town of two thousand five hundred to three thousand in- habitants. Previous to the war the people possessed wealth and culture. The first was lost in the general wreck. Now the most intimate association with them fails to dis- close a trace of the diabolism which, according to the popu- lar idea, one would expect to find characterizing the people among whom the Ku Klux Klan originated. A male col- lege and a female seminary are located at Pulaski, and re- ceive liberal patronage. It is a town of churches. There, in 1866, the name Ku Klux first fell from human lips. There began a movement which in a short time spread as far north as Virginia and as far south as Texas, and which for a period convulsed the country. Proclamations wxre fulminated against the Klan by the President and by the Governors of States; and hostile statutes were enacted both by State and national legislatures, for there had be- come associated with the name of Ku Klux Klan gross mistakes and lawless deeds of violence. During the entire period of the Klan's organized ex- istence Pulaski continued to be its central seat of authority, and some of its highest officers resided there. When the war ended in 1865 the young men of Pulaski who escaped death on the battle-field returned home and passed through a period of enforced inactivity. In some respects it w^as more trying than the ordeal of war which lay behind them. The reaction w^hich followed the excite- l8 The Progress of a United People ment of army scenes and service was intense. There was nothing to reHeve it. They could not engage in active business or professional pursuits. Their business habits were broken up. None had capital with which to conduct agricultural pursuits or to engage in mercantile enterprises. And this restlessness was made more intense by the total lack of the amusements and social diversions which prevail wherever society is in a normal condition. One evening in June, 1866, a few of these young men met in the office of one of the most prominent members of the Pulaski bar. In the course of the conversation one of the number said : " Boys, let us get up a club or a society of some descrip- tion." The suggestion was discussed with enthusiasm. Before they separated, it was agreed to invite a few others whose names were mentioned to join them, and to meet again the next evening at the same place. At the appointed time eight or ten young men had assembled. The club was organized by the election of a chairman and a secretary. There was entire unanimity among the members in regard to the end in view, which was diversion and amusement. The evening was spent discussing the best means of attain- ing the object in view. Two committees were appointed, one to select a name, the other to prepare a set of rules for the government of the society, and a ritual for the initiation of new members. Then the club adjourned, to meet the following week to hear and act upon the reports of these committees. Before the arrival of the appointed time for the next meeting one of the wealthiest and most prominent citizens of Pulaski went on a business trip to Columbus, Miss., taking his family with him. Before leaving he in- vited one of the leading spirits of the new society to take The Ku Klux Klan 19 charge of and sleep at his house in his absence. This young man invited his comrades to join him there; so the place of meeting was changed from the law office to his residence. The owner of the house outlived the Ku Klux Klan, and died ignorant of the fact that his house was the place where its organization was fully effected. This residence after- ward came into the possession of Judge H. M. Spofford, of Spofford-Kellogg fame. It was his home at the time of his death, and is still owned by his widow ( 1884). The committee appointed to select a name reported that they had found the task difficult, and had not made a selec- tion. They explained that they had been trying to dis- cover or invent a name which would be in some degree sug- gestive of the character and objects of the society. They mentioned several names which they had been considering. In this number was the name " Kukloi," from the Greek word kvkXo^ (kuklos), meaning a band or circle. At men- tion of this, some one cried out: " Call it Ku Klux!" " Klan " at once suggested itself, and was added to com- plete the alliteration. So, instead of adopting a name, as was the first intention, which had a definite meaning, they chose one which to the proposer and to every one else was absolutely meaningless. This trival and apparently acci- dental incident had a most important bearing on the future of the organization so singularly named. Looking back over the history of the Klan, and at the causes under which it developed, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that the order would never have grown to the proportions which it afterward assumed, or wielded the power it did, had it not borne this name, or some other equally as meaningless and mysterious. Had they called themselves the " Jolly 20 The Progress of a United People Jokers," or the " Adelphi," or by some similar appellation, the organization would doubtless have had no more than the mere local and ephemeral existence which those who organized it contemplated for it. The Klan was, at first, very careful in regard to the character of the men admitted. Rash and imprudent men, such as could not be fully relied upon to keep their obliga- tion to profound secrecy, were excluded. Nor were those received who were addicted to the use of intoxicants. Later on in the history they were not so careful ; but in the earlier period of its existence the Klan was composed of men of good character and good habits. In some instances persons of objectionable character were persistent, even to annoyance, in their efforts to gain admission to the order. During the fall and winter of 1866 the growth of the Klan was rapid. It spread over a wide extent of territory. Sometimes, by a sudden leap, it appeared in localities far dis- tant from any existing '' dens." A stranger from West Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, or Texas, visiting in a neighborhood where the order prevailed, would be initiated, and on his departure carry with him permission to estab- lish a " den " at home. In fact, it was done often without such permission. The connecting link between these " dens " was very fragile. By a sort of tacit agreement the Pulaski Klan was regarded as the source of power and authority. The Grand Cyclops of this " den " was virtually the ruler of the order; but as he had no method of com- munication with subjects or subordinates, and no way in which to enforce his mandates, his authority was more fancy than fact. But so far there had appeared no need for rigid rules and close supervision. The leading spirits of the Ku Klux were still contemplating nothing more seri- The Ku Klux Klan 21 Oils than amusement. They enjoyed the baffled curiosity and wild speculations of a mystified public even more than the rude sport afforded by the ludicrous initiations. Such is the account of the Ku Klux Klan in the first period of its history, from June, 1866, to April, 1867. Yet all this time it was gradually and in a very natural way taking on new features not at first remotely contemplated by the origina- tors of the order; features which finally transformed the Ku Klux Klan into a band of " Regulators." The transformation was effected by the combined opera- tion of three causes: (i) the impression made by the order upon the minds of those who united with it; (2) the im- pression produced upon the public by its weird and mys- terious ways; (3) the anomalous and peculiar condition of affairs in the South at this time. The mystery and secrecy with which the Klan veiled it- self made a singular impression on the minds of many who united with it. The most common conclusion reached by those whose attention was attracted to the Klan was that it contemplated some great and important mission ; its rapid extension was regarded as confirmatory of this conclusion; and, when admitted to membership, this impression was deepened rather than dispelled by what they saw and heard. There was not a w^ord in the ritual, or in the obligation, or in any part of the ceremony, to favor it ; but the impression still remained that this mysteriousness and secrecy, the high- sounding titles of the officers, the grotesque dress of the members, and the formidable obligation to profound secrecy, all meant more than mere sport. This conviction was ineradicable, and the attitude of many of its members continued to be that of expecting great developments. Each had his own speculations as to what was to be the 22 The Progress of a United People character of the serious work which the Klan was to do. It was an unheahhy and dangerous state of mind; bad re- sults very naturally followed from it. At that time the throes of the great revolution were set- tling down to quiet. The almost universal disposition of the better class of the people was to accept the arbitrament which the sword had accorded them. On this point there was practical unanimity. Those who had opportunity to do so engaged at once in agricultural, professional, or busi- ness pursuits. But there were two causes of vexation and exasperation which the people were in no good mood to bear. One of these causes related to that class of men who, like scum, were thrown to the surface in the great upheaval. Most of them had played traitor to both sides; on that ac- count they were despised. Had they been Union men from conviction, that would have been forgiven them. But they were now engaged in keeping alive discord and strife be- tween the sections, as the only means of preventing them- selves from sinking back into the obscurity from which they had been upheaved. They were doing this in a way not only malicious, but exceedingly exasperating. The second disturbing element was the negroes. Their transition from slavery to citizenship was sudden. They were not only not fitted for the cares of self-control and maintenance so sud- denly thrust upon them, but they entered their new role in life under the delusion that freedom meant license. They regarded themselves as freed men, not only from bondage to former masters, but from the common and ordinary obligations of citizenship. Many of them looked upon obedience to the laws of the State — which had been framed by their former owners — as in some measure a The Ku Klux Klan 23 compromise of the rights with which they had been in- vested. The administration of civil law was only partly reestab- lished. On that account, and for other reasons mentioned, there was an amount of disorder and violence prevailing over the country which has never been equaled at any period of its history. The depredations on property by theft, and by wanton destruction for the gratification of petty revenge, were to the last degree annoying. A large part of these depredations was the work of bad white men, who ex- pected that their lawless deeds would be credited to the negroes. Until the beginning of 1867 the movements of the Klan had been characterized in the main by prudence and discre- tion, but there were exceptions. In some cases there had been a liberal construction of orders. The limits which it had been agreed not to pass had been overstepped. The Klan had a large membership ; it exerted a vast and terrifying power; but its influence was never at any time dependent on, or proportioned to, its membership. It was in the mystery in which the comparatively few enshrouded themselves. It is an error to suppose that the entire male population of the South were Ku Klux, or even a majority of the people were privy to its secrets and in sympathy with its extremest measures. To many of them, perhaps to a majority, the Ku Klux Klan was as vague, impersonal, and mysterious as to the people of the North or of England; they did — do to this day — attribute to it great good. For a while after the reorganization of the Klan, those concerned for its welfare and right conduct congratulated 24 The Progress of a United People themselves that all was now well. Closer organization and stricter official supervision had a restraining influence upon the members. Many things seemed to indicate that the fu- ture work of the Klan would be wholly good. These hopes WQVQ rudely shattered. Before long official supervision grew less rigid, or was less regarded. The membership was steadily increasing. Among those who were added were bad men wdio could not be — at least, were not -— con- trolled. In the winter and spring of 1867 and 1868 many things were done by members or professed members of the Klan which were the subject of universal regret and con- demnation. In many ways the grave censure of those who had hitherto been its friends w^as evoked against the Klan, and occasion was given its enemies to petition for the in- tervention of the Government to suppress it. This was done. The end came rapidly. Tennessee was the first State to pass an anti-Ku Klux statute. In September, 1868, Governor Brownlow called the Legislature together in extra session to devise measures for the suppression of the order. A relentless and bloody statute was passed; and to enforce it the Governor was authorized, if he deemed it necessary, to declare martial law on the infected counties and to call out troops. The law passed, and the method of enforcing it increased rather than quieted disorder. The statute is long, and, as a wdiole, not worth quoting. Its leading provisions were the fol- lowing : (i) For association or connection with the Ku Klux a fine of five hundred dollars and imprisonment in the penitentiary not less than five years; and "shall be rendered infamous/' (2) Persons impaneled for jury service were required to answer under oath whether they were obnoxious to the first section of the act. (3) The Ku Klux Klan 25 Prosecuting attorneys and grand jurors were directed to summon persons whom they suspected " or had cause to suspect," and to force them to testify what they knew of the Ku Klux. If those so summoned failed to appear or refused to testify, the penalty was a fine of five hundred dollars. (4) Every " inhabitant " of the State was constituted an officer extraordinary, with power " to arrest without process " any one known or suspected to be a Ku Klux. (5) To feed, lodge, entertain, or conceal a Ku Klux exposed the offender to infamy, a fine of five hundred dol- lars, and imprisonment for five years. (6) It was made unlawful to publish any order emanating from the Klan. (7) There was but one clause in the law which bears the semblance of m.ercy. Its provisions are so odious as to be shocking. The one way by which a man could relieve himself of liability to this law was by turning informer. As additional inducement to do this a re- ward of half the fine was offered. (8) But, most remarkable of all, the statute was made penal against offenses committed pre- vious to its passage. The last section of it reads : " Nothing herein contained shall be so construed as to prevent or exempt any person heretofore guilty of any of the offenses herein con- tained from prosecutions under the law as it now stands." CIVIL SERVICE REFORM By George William Curtis A vital and enduring reform in administrative methods, although it be but a return to the constitutional intention, can be accomplished only by the commanding impulse of public opinion. Permanence is secured by law, not by in- dividual pleasure. But in this country law is only formu- lated public opinion. Reform of the civil service does not contemplate an invasion of the constitutional prerogative of the President and the Senate, nor does it propose to change the Constitution by statute. The whole system of the Civil Service proceeds, as I said, from the President, and the ob- ject of the reform movement is to enable him to fulfil the intention of the Constitution by revealing to him the desire of the country through the action of its authorized repre- sentatives. When the ground-swell of public opinion lifts Congress from the rocks, the President will gladly float with it into the deep water of wise and patriotic ac- tion. . . . The root of the complex evil is personal favoritism. This produces congressional dictation, senatorial usurpation, arbitrary removals, interference in elections, political as- sessments, and all the consequent corruption, degradation, and danger that experience has disclosed. The method of reform, therefore, must be a plan of selection for appoint- ment which makes favoritism impossible. The general feeling undoubtedly is that this can be accomplished by a From Gteorge William Curtis' s Orations and Addresses, Vol. II. Copyright, 1893. by Harper & Brothers. 26 Civil Service Reform 27 fixed limited term. But the terms of most of the offices to which the President and the Senate appoint, and upon which the myriad minor places in the service depend, have been fixed and limited for sixty years, yet it is during that very period that the chief evils of personal patronage have ap- peared. . . . If, then, legitimate cause for removal ought to be de- termined in public as in private business by the responsible appointing powder, it is of the highest public necessity that the exercise of that power should be made as absolutely honest and independent as possible. But how can it be made honest and independent if it is not protected so far as practicable from the constant bribery of selfish interest and the illicit solicitation of personal influence? The ex- perience of our large public patronage offices proves con- clusively that the cause of the larger number of removals is not dishonesty or incompetency; it is the desire to make vacancies to fill. This is the actual cause, whatever cause may be assigned. The removals w^ould not be made except for the pressure of politicians. But those politicians would not press for removals if they could not secure the appoint- ment of their favorites. Make it impossible for them to secure appointment, and the pressure w^ould instantly dis- appear and arbitrary removal cease. So long, therefore, as we permit minor appointments to be made by mere personal influence and favor, a fixed limited term and removal during that term for cause only w^ould not remedy the evil, because the incumbents w^ould still be seeking influence to secure reappointment, and the as- pirants doing the same to replace them. Removal under plea of good cause would be as w-anton and arbitrary as it is now, unless the power to remove were intrusted to some other 28 The Progress of a United People discretion than that of the superior officer, and in that case the struggle for reappointment and the knowledge that re- moval for the term was practically impossible would totally demoralize the service. To make sure, then, that removals shall be made for legitimate cause only, we must provide that appointment shall be made only for legitimate cause. . . . With the instinct of robbers w^ho run with the crowd and lustily cry '' Stop thief ! " those who would make the public service the monopoly of a few favorites denounce the deter- mination to open that service to the whole people as a plan to establish an aristocracy. The huge ogre of patronage, gnawing at the character, the honor, and the life of the country, grimly sneers that the people cannot help them- selves and that nothing can be done. But much greater things have been done. Slavery was the Giant Despair of many good men of the last generation, but slavery was over- thrown. If the spoils system, a monster only less threaten- ing than slavery, be unconquerable, it is because the country has lost its convictions, its courage, and its common-sense. " I expect," said the Yankee as he surveyed a stout antago- nist, " I expect that you 're pretty ugly, but I cal'late I 'm a darned sight uglier." I know that patronage is strong, but I believe that the American people are very much stronger. THE BOSSES AND THE PEOPLE By Joseph B. Bishop Nothing can be clearer than that boss government is destructive of popular government. It concentrates in one man, as soon as it reaches perfection, all the powers of the State, executive, legislative, and judicial, and this man is not chosen by the people for the position. He is an auto- crat, or despot, by self -election. He obtains his power by means which are not only not authorized by the people, but have been declared by them in their laws to be criminal. He rules by money corruptly raised and corruptly used. He extorts blackmail from corporations which fear his power, and with it he solidifies and extends that power. He goes with his money into the primaries and nominating conventions, and buys aw^ay from the people the selection of candidates for office, thus corrupting popular govern- ment at its source. His favor and his money are powerful enough to elect his candidates to office, and powerful enough to prevent the nomination of all whom he dislikes. He thus fills the public service with men w^hom he has bought to serve him rather than the State ; and they seldom or never fail him, for a man who is willing to accept a nomination for office under such conditions is not likely to be squeamish about his official conduct after election. The system acts, in fact, as a complete bar to men of character for the public service, and as a magnet for those of dull or lax morality. The blackmail revenue of a boss 29 30 The Progress of a United People has done for the latter what their own abihty and energy would never have accomplished, and they look naturally to him and his resources as the true source of power, and the only one to be feared. This accounts for the extraordinary indifference of a boss-controlled legislature to public opin- ion. Its members know that they owe their positions en- tirely to the boss; that the people who are objecting to their conduct would never have chosen them for office; and that their continuance in public life depends upon the continu- ance of the boss's favor. They know that when the time for a renomination comes round their critics will have little or no voice in the primaries, and that the blackmail of the boss will be the deciding force. Every aspirant for politi- cal honors, be it for a membership of the legislature, or for a governorship or a judgeship, knows that without the favor of the boss he has no hope ; and he cannot obtain that favor without giving assurances that, when elected, he will follow the wishes of the boss. Slowly but surely the boss extends his system till he gets possession of all the func- tions of the government. He gets control of the executive and the legislative first, and later of the judiciary, and then his deadly clutch upon popular sovereignty is complete. We have had instances in more than one State, during the past year, of the fatal advance upon this final stronghold. Not only has the boss been able to make the legislature and the governor do his bidding in the face of all opposition, while committing assaults upon the people in denying them their right to a voice in the conduct of their own aft^airs, but he has been able to get from the courts, because of new accessions to their benches of men whose nomination has been due to his favor, opinions which have sustained him in some of his most deadly attacks upon constitutional The Bosses and the People 31 government. If the bench shall really fall into the clutches of the blackmailing boss, popular government will cease to exist in the State over which he rules. The main purpose of this boss coml)ination is to regain possession of the offices by either repealing or nullifying the civil-service reform laws. All bosses have discovered that without the offices it is difficult to keep their machines in good running order, even with large amounts of black- mail money. They do not enjoy possession of the govern- ment unless they can fill its service with their own men. They believe that they made an unnecessary blunder when they allowed the civil-service reform laws to pass. Will the American people consent to allow this condi- tion of things to become permanent? Will they permit government by blackmail and corruption to be substituted for government by the people ? '' There is one thing which is worse than corruption," says Lecky, in his *' Democracy and Liberty," *' and that is acquiescence in corruption. No feature of American life strikes a stranger so powerfully as the extraordinary indifference, partly cynicism and partly good nature, with which notorious frauds and notorious corruption in the sphere of politics are viewed by Ameri- can public opinion." So long as this indifference of pub- lic opinion continues, just so long will the bosses rule. The cause of all the trouble is neglect of the duties of citizenship. It is this which enables the bosses to gain pos- session of the government, and it is this which enables them to continue in possession after the corrupt source of their power has been revealed. There is only one remedy, and that is resumption of the duties of citizenship. If we de- sire to have our public affairs managed in an honest and intelligent manner, we must take the trouble to bear our 32 The Progress of a United People part in their management. The bosses will not conduct them as we wish them to, save on compulsion, and we have been too indifferent or too indolent to exert that compul- sion. Occasionally we pass a law designed to put an end to some of the worst forms of corruption, and then sit back and wait for it to enforce itself. When it does not do this we despair of popular government, and doubt whether it is really worth while to attempt to do anything to save it. There is only one way by which we can get good govern- ment, and that is to work for it, not only one year, but every year, and to work for it harder than the bosses and their followers do. All remedies which have been devised for the cure of the ills which flow from neglect of the duties of citizenship have failed, and all those which may be de- vised hereafter will fail also. If our patriotism, our faith in popular government, and our desire for its success be not sufficient to induce us to bear our part in the work of carrying it forward properly, then it w^ill fail, and the blame for its failure will rest no more upon the blackmailing bosses than upon ourselves. MR. CLEVELAND AND THE CIVIL SERVICE By Richard Watson Gilder Just before going to Washington the President said to me: "Don't you suppose that if I did exactly what you Civil Service Reform people want, in every particular, and should fail in the great, important measures of policy, and let the country go to the dogs on the cur- rency, you people would be the first to say the President had no tact ? " I replied that I thought it would not come to that — that he " would probably do both." In the special train on the way to the inauguration, Mr. Cleveland said to me that nothing would please him more than immediately to take up matters of government ^ ^, , , , , 1, , • 1 r Grover Cleveland, and have all the appomtments left to a commission ; but he thought we were not ripe for that yet. He added that no one believed more completely than he in Civil Service Reform. I am sure he intended from the beginning to take up the extension of the merit system, as he actually did, in due order. That was his idea : " One thing at a time," Repeal of the Sherman Silver- Purchasing Law ; Tariff Reform ; Extension of Civil Service Reform. Independent leaders, 3 33 34 The Progress of a United People like Carl Schurz, thought this a mistake; that to keep up the old system at this time was merely to log-roll for legis- lation, to '' purchase votes by patronage." Whatever may be said in the way of criticism, and of the numerous ap- pointments of '' anti-Cleveland " men at the beginning of the second administration, I believe it was all in pursuance of the belief that this was the reasonable method — one reform at a time; no violent departure from political custom, thus creating at once an obstructive Congress. In detail this policy sometimes led to unfortunate results. It may even possibly have been mistaken as a whole. It led to some things that were certainly repugnant to the views and tastes of reformers. I am not intending any further defense than is implied in the record of the historic fact that Cleveland acted according to a well-considered plan, honestly adopted. NOTES MADE AT PRINCETON, TYRINGHAM, AND GRAY GABLES, 1899. " Some people, he said, said to him that if he had re- mained President, there would have been no war with Spain. He thought this was not quite fair, as we did not know just what had gone on below the surface. He deprecated the war, though, and especially the Philippine fighting. " With regard to the civil service, politicians used to come to him after he was elected and urge him to disre- gard the pledges of the party and his own personal pledges in this regard. He would say to them : ' There it is in the platform, and I have given my word. I would no more lie to an American public than to you.' Mr. Cleveland and the Civil Service 35 " He added : ' If a President yields to the demands of the spoilsmen, he can never satisfy them. As between satisfying them and seeing this great Government well ad- ministered, there ought to be no choice — and civil-service reform above all things is a relief to the Executive and a good thing in itself.' "In making his final extensions, he was, he said, guided, by the opinion of those who were administering details. If any of them recommended extensions with a view of protecting incumbents, they forgot how freely removals could be made." THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA By William E. Smythe The material greatness of the United States is the fruit of a pohcy of peaceful conquest over the resources of a virgin continent. The first movement of population sub- jugated the Atlantic seaboard to the uses of modern life. The next carried civilization across the Alleghanies, and ex- panded northward to the lakes, and southward to the gulf. The third peopled the Mississippi basin, largely with the veterans of the war for the Union. These three eras were intelligible and eventful. They made virtually complete the conquest and occupation of eastern America, and in eastern America more than ninety per cent, of a nation of seventy million people dwell to-day (1895). The lust for sudden riches, the opportunity for the development of a few sea- ports, the necessity for at least a sparse agricultural popu- lation to feed the mines and towns, have attracted a few millions into the Far West. But speaking in broad terms, and with a view to its ultimate capabilities, the conquest of the continent is only half accomplished. Beyond the line where the armies of civilization have bivouacked, if not laid down their arms, sleeps an empire incomparably greater and more resourceful than the empire those armies have conquered. Here lie the possibilities of a twentieth-century civilization — a civilization new, distinctive, and more luminous and potential than any which has preceded it in the world's long history. 36 Conquest of Arid America 37 Between the desert and the sown. The one-hundredth meridian divides the United States almost exactly into halves. East of that line dwell sixty- four million people. Here are overgrown cities and over- crowded industries. Here is surplus capital, as idle and burdensome as the surplus population. West of that line dwell four or five millions. Here is a great want both of people and of capital for development. Here is the raw material for another war of conquest, offering prizes far greater than those of the past, because natural resources are richer, and much more varied and extensive. The new em- pire includes, in whole or in part, seventeen States and Ter- ritories. It is a region of imperial dimensions. From north to south it measures as far as from Montreal to Mobile. From east to west the distance is greater than from Boston to Omaha. Within these wide boundaries 'there are g-reat diversities of climate and soil, of altitude 38 The Progress of a United People and other physical conditions. But everywhere the climate is healthful to an extraordinary degree, and in all, except the great plains region of the extreme east, the scenery is rugged and noble beyond description. The one-hundredth meridian is not merely the boundary line of present development. It is much more significant as indicating the beginning of the condition of aridity. To the popular mind *' arid " means only " rainless," and " rainless " is synonymous Avith " worthless." But " aridity," when properly defined and fully comprehended, is seen to be the germ of new industrial and social systems, with far-reaching possibilities in the fields of ethics and politics. It would be idle to attempt to predict how the American character will be modified and transformed when Artesian well in Yakima Valley. Conquest of Arid America 39 millions of people shall have finally made their homes in the arid regions, under conditions as yet untried by Anglo- Saxon men. But that millions will live under these con- ditions is inevitable, and that the new environment will produce momentous changes in methods of life and habits of thought is equally certain. This sounds now like mere assertion. But the truth will be revealed by a study of a few representative colonial undertakings on arid lands dur- ing the last fifty years, by a brief statement of the larger problems involved in the conquest of Arid America, and by a reference to the experience of foreign peoples, ancient as well as modern, with similar conditions. So far as can be learned, Brigham Young had no pre- vious knowledge of irrigation when he entered Salt Lake valley. He quickly realized that he had come to an arid country, which would be hopeless for agriculture unless artificially watered. With marvelous perception, he saw that irrigation was not a drawback, but an advantage of the most important sort. He realized that it meant free- dom alike from the dangers of the drought and of the flood. He discovered that, having a rich soil and ample sunshine, and adding moisture by the construction of ditches, it was actually an improvement upon nature to be able to turn the " rain " either on or off with equal facility. And there- fore he rightly concluded that he had found in these con- ditions the basis of the most certain worldly prosperity, and the most scientific agriculture. It remained for a later genius to remark : " Irrigation is not a substitute for rain. Rain is a substitute for irrigation — and a mighty poor one." But if the Mormon leader did not say so, he evidently felt it. He perceived, furthermore, that irriga- tion was much more than an insurance policy upon the 40 The Progress of a United People crops. It brought all the processes of agriculture within the realm of known facts, and that is science. It even ren- dered possible the control of the size of vegetables, and this became important many years afterward, w^hen the Mor- mon people added a great sugar-factory to their industrial system; for it is important to grow sugar-beets of about a standard size to get the best results. Moisture is required to give the beet a vigorous growth at the beginning; but when it is well started, weeks of uninterrupted sunshine are desirable in order to develop the saccharine qualities. Much sunshine at the wrong time dries up the crop, while much moisture at the wrong time produces a beet pleasing to look upon, but unprofitable at the factory. Typical home in farm village. Brigham Young also realized, almost at the first, that the necessity of careful irrigation largely increased the labor upon an acre of land; but he found that this labor was Conquest of Arid America 41 generously rewarded by the increased yield both in quantity and quality. And from this fact he drew the most im- portant principle of his commonwealth, which was the division of land into small holdings. Closely related to this is the other twin factor in Mormon prosperity — the diversification of farm products to the last degree. Next in importance to the Utah development is the story of the Union Colony at Greeley, Colorado. The under- taking had the cordial support of Horace Greeley, in whose honor it was named. The first call for this colony was Dublished in the New York Tribune in December, 1869. It outlined a scheme of cooperation, although it was pro- posed to have individual landholdings. The advantages of irrigation, of the farm-village system, and of the inde- pendence of agricultural life w^ere attractively set forth. Fully one thousand people made application within a week for membership in the colony, and the first meeting was so largely attended as to make it necessary to adjourn from the Tribune office to a room in Cooper Institute. Horace Greeley presided, and, although that was twenty-five years ago, complained in his speech that " New York is filled with people, yet there are thousands who want to come hither. I do not know that emigration is the best remedy, but I think so." He described the history of London- derry Colony in New Hampshire, founded by his ancestors, and entered upon a most interesting discussion of the pro- posed colony in Colorado. Among other things he said : I believe that there ought to be not only one, but one thousand colonies. Still, I would advise no one who is doing well to leave his business and go West, unless he is sure of bettering his con- dition. But there are many men working for wages who ought I dislike to see men in advanced life working for 42 The Progress of a United People salaries in places where, perhaps, they are ordered about by boyi I would like to see them working for themselves. If Greeley could come back and speak to-day upon existing conditions in the United States, he could say nothing more appropriate to the times. The Greeley Colony was composed of the best elements of Eastern citizenship. They made some serious miscal- culations. For instance, they estimated the cost of their canals at twenty thousand dollars, while the actual cost was more than twenty times as great. Fruit culture was men- tioned in the prospectus as certain to be an important in- dusti*y, but the soil and climate proved unsuitable. The dream of an improved household economy, based on a plan for cooperative bakeries and laundries, also proved delusive. There were other disappointments; but the fun- damental claims of irrigation were all vindicated at Greeley, as they have been whenever and wherever brought fairly to the test. A few years of intelligent labor brought a high degree of average prosperity, based upon substantial foundations. Even the severe panic of the summer of 1893 ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^'^~ terially disturb these foundations. During those trying weeks, when mines and smelters shut down, and banks and stores closed their doors, water, soil, and sunshine con- tinued to do their perfect work in the Union Colony. Greeley seemed like an oasis of prosperity in a desert of despair. The farmers received as the reward of the sum- mer's labor more than a million dollars in cash for the single item of potatoes. Probably the public is more familiar with the orange- colonies of southern California than with any other insti- Conquest of Arid America 43 tutions in the arid West. The story of these colonies is very interesting, but it possesses less value to the American people than the experience of Colorado and Utah, because southern California is semi-tropical, and therefore not y Stone aqueduct watering fields and orchards : A typical scene in southern California. 44 The Progress of a United People fairly representative of average possibilities. In southern California institutions are almost ideal because of the peculiar climatic conditions. These beautiful valleys, nar- rowly restricted, but well-nigh perfect within their limita- tions, constitute the private box in the theater of Arid America; but the vast majority of people must always sit in the parquet and gallery. It would be utterly unfair and untrue, for this reason, to build hopes of average develop- ment upon the experience of this small but charming corner of the Western empire; but it teaches some lessons that may be generally applied. Southern California furnishes an extreme illustration of the value of water in an arid country. Land assessed at seventy-five cents per acre w^ithout water, being useful only for the pasturage of sheep, when brought under irrigation sells in the raw state for $ioo per acre and upward, with an extra price for water-right. Improved with orange- groves at the stage of maturity, it ranges in selling value from $500 to $2000 per acre, and has sometimes paid fifty per cent, interest per annum on the latter figure. Perhaps the most perfect type of these communities is Riverside, founded less than twenty-five years ago by Eastern colonists of the same class as the settlers of Greeley. Here land- ownings are divided into five- and ten-acre lots, and the homes are a long succession of beautiful country villas, surrounded by lawns, trees, and glowing flower-beds. Magnolia Avenue, a boulevard bordered for eighteen miles with double rows of palms, and intersected in the middle by a third row, is lined throughout its entire length by homes of this kind. It is impossible to attempt at this time even a meager outline of the physical basis of Arid America. It can only Conquest of Arid America 45 be said that this neglected and often derided half of the continent is full of the potentialities of greatness. If the traveler would leave the main line at Maricopa, the train Sweetwater Dam, California. would carry him in an hour into the heart of the real Arizona. Here he would behold the miracle of irrigation. The Salt River valley has felt the touch of living water, and its deserts have been transformed into green pastures, gardens, and orchards. The productiveness of the gray soil when watered surpasses description. Phoenix, the capital, is surrounded by tens of thousands of acres of ir- rigated land; and here the flag of civilization has been planted in the heart of the primeval desert. Ten acres of this soil will bring a higher reward to labor than one hun- dred acres cultivated under the old conditions in the Eastern States. The possibilities of derided Arizona beggar the 46 The Progress of a United People imagination. The day will come when the proudest State will not blush to stand under the same flag with the Terri- tory which sheltered the ancient civilization of the Aztecs. THE OUTLOOK : [A prophecy fulfilled.] The work of reclamation has been going forward silently, but gradually and surely, for the better part of a genera- , ..JW*^^IP%'<« r The desert before and after irrigation. Conquest of Arid America 47 tion. Between ten and twenty millions of acres are now (1895) under ditch, and some slight rivulets of population have begun to trickle in upon the lands. But the threshold is scarcely passed. The arid region as a whole comprises more than 800,000,000 acres. Of this empire more than half a billion acres is still the property of the Government. It is the priceless heritage of the children of America. The work of scientific discovery of water-supply has not yet gone far enough to furnish a reasonable basis for an esti- mate of the amount of this land open to ultimate reclama- tion. But no one disputes that the entire present popula- tion of the United States could be accommodated in the arid region. If the present greatness of the American people is in any large degree the fruit of continental conquest, then the restoration of the national prosperity may cer- tainly be sought by a renewal of the policy of national development. Inconceivable sums of money and incalcula- ble human energy will be required to overcome the natural difficulties of the situation ; but man thrives on struggle, and waxes great on conquest. The time seems ripe for the advance. But if this is to be longer delayed, there are certain things which the nation ought to do, and which en- lightened statesmanship ought not to postpone. The arid region is full of great and peculiar problems which require to be studied from a national standpoint. Water is the foundation of all. The forests are nature's storage reservoirs. They are being constantly destroyed I:)y fire and avarice. The forest reservations made by the last and the present administrations are wise steps, but they cannot be effective unless accompanied by some compre- hensive system of patrol. If public sentiment would rally to the support of this demand for an enlightened policy of 48 The Progress of a United People forest preservation, there is no doubt that legislation could be obtained at an early day. And if public opinion realized the vast interest at stake, it could not and would not hesitate. The most valuable irrigable lands are being steadily ac- quired for speculative purposes, under laws inadequate, if not infamous, in an arid country. The pasturage lands are the prize of lawless elements who fight and shed blood in the struggle for possession. The interstate streams are becoming entangled in rival appropriations, and developing a state of affairs that in any country but this would involve civil war. International questions have already arisen over waters common to the United States and to Mexico, and are certain to arise in the future with Canada. Here is a class of large problems which will call for the Winter flood in Salt River, Arizona, showing loss of water which should be stored in mountams. Conquest of Arid America 49 i^:iSif -'5i«*5'»-j" Irrigating a young orchard by the furrow method, Arizona. highest statesmanship, and which already merit careful pre- liminary study and investigation. And beyond these lies the great practical question as to the manner of reclaiming the lands. This involves many nice questions between the nation and the States, and between the States and private companies and individuals. But nothing can he hoped for until the American people have had their eyes opened to the importance of the stu- pendous national asset comprehended in Arid America. It is civilization that pleads for progress. It is humanity that cries aloud for more room in which to build its habitations. To say that the national valuation will be enhanced by un- told millions is merely to mention a sordid fact. But to say that the voiceless desert will blossom with the homes of men, and that these homes will rest upon social and in- dustrial systems better and purer than any the past has 4 50 The Progress of a United People known, and that the future population will be ruled under a nobler code of ethics — these are considerations that can- not appeal in vain to the American spirit. The new cen- tury will invite us to a new task of transcendent possibilities to the human race. An irrigation canal through the desert in Arizona. ON CONSERVATION By Theodore Roosevelt {From the message communicated to the Fifty-seventh Congress, November, ipo^.) Wise forest protection does not r mean the withdrawal of forest resources, whether of wood, water, or grass, from contrihuting their full share to the welfare of the people, but, on the contrary, gives the assurance of larger and more certain supplies. The fundamental idea of forestry is the perpetuation of the forest by use. Forest pro- tection is not an end of itself; it is a means to increase and sustain the resources of our country and the industries which depend upon them, our forests is an imperati\'e business necessity. We have come to see clearly that whatever destroys the forest, except to make way for agriculture, threatens our well-being. The practical usefulness of the national forest reserves to the mining, grazing, irrigation and other interests of the regions in which the reserves lie, has led to a widespread demand by the people of the West for their protection and extension. The forest reserves will inevitably be of still 51 Copyright, 1904, by Pach Bros. Theodore Roosevelt. The preservation of 52 The Progress of a United People greater use in the future than in the past. Additions should be made to them whenever practicable, and their usefulness should be increased by a thoroughly business- like management. The wise administration of the forest reserves will be not less helpful to the interests which depend on water than to those which depend on wood and grass. The water supply itself depends upon the forest. In the arid region it is water,, not land, which measures production. The western half of the United States would sustain a popula- tion greater than that of our whole country to-day if the w^aters that now run to waste w^re saved and used for irri- o-ation. The forest and water problems are perhaps the most vital internal questions of the United States. In cases where natural conditions have been restored for a few years, vegetation has again carpeted the ground, birds and deer are coming back, and hundreds of persons, especially from the immediate neighborhood, come each summer to enjoy the privilege of camping. The forest reserves should be set apart forever for the use and benefit of our people as a whole and not sacrificed to the short- sighted greed of a few. The forests are natural reservoirs. By restraining the streams in flood and replenishing them in drought they make possible the use of water, otherwise wasted. Forest conservation is, therefore, an essential condition of water conservation. The forests alone cannot, however, fully regulate and conserve the waters of the arid region. Great storage works are necessary to equalize the flow of streams and to save the flood waters. Their construction has been con- clusively shown to be an undertaking too vast for private On Conservation ^3 effort. It is properly a national function, at least, in some of its features. The storing of the floods in reservoirs at the headwaters of our rivers is but an enlargement of our present policy of river control. The reclamation of the unsettled arid public lands pre- sents a different problem. Here it is not enough to regu- late the flow of streams. The object of the government is to dispose of the land to settlers who will build homes upon it. To accomplish this object water must be brought within their reach. The reclamation and settlement of the arid lands will enrich every portion of the country, just as the settlement of the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys brought prosperity to the Atlantic States. Our people as a whole will profit, for successful home-making is but another name for the up- building of the Nation. -.^^«r*^^-- X^' INDIAN WARFARE By G. W. Baird. Major, U. S. A. General Sherman has called the twenty years of constant Indian warfare following the war of the Rebellion, '' The Battle of Civilization." That battle, on this continent, of course, began earlier, but certain facts made that period an epoch by itself. A chief fact to be noted is that the m^ .. «i^ --^ ^O-' Indians shooting. Indians during that time were always well armed, often much better than the troops. At the battle of Bear Paw, for instance, the Indians used magazine rifles of the best 54 Indian Warfare 55 patterns, while nearly fourteen years afterwards, the army still has to do without them. The field of " The Battle of Civilization " was the vast trans-Missouri region, and civilization did not, during that period, satisfy itself with a gradual advance of its line, as formerly, but became aggressive, pierced the Indian country with three trans-continental railways and so ultimately abolished the frontier. A very large portion of the army (including nearly all of the cavalry and infantry and a small portion of the artillery) was at one time or another occupied with the task and many heroic deeds were done, but the conspicuously suc- cessful leaders were few. Even prior to the inception of the movement, the scope of this Indian Territory Expedition, as it was called, dif- fered from some of the notable Indian campaigns in the particular that General Miles waged Indian warfare ac- cording to the well-known principles of the art of war, so far as applicable. In too many cases expeditions against Indians had been like dogs fastened by a chain; within the length of the chain irresistible, beyond it powerless. The chain was its wagon train and supplies. A command with thirty days' supplies could inflict a terrible blow if only it could within thirty days come up with the Indians, deliver its blow, and get back to more supplies — otherwise it re- peated the historic campaign : The King of France went up the hill, with twenty thousand men ; The King of France came down the hill, and ne'er went up again. Or if perchance it delivered its blow successfully, it could not, for lack of time, follow up its success and attain the only object of just war, which is peace. 56 The Progress of a United People A CONFLICT WITH SITTING BULL. More than once, in derogation of laurels won in warfare against other Indians, it was said, " Wait till you meet the Sioux." Simultaneous with the arrival at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, of the news of the Custer catastrophe on the Little Big Horn, Montana, came orders to General Miles and the 5th Lifantry to pro- ceed to the scene of hostilities to form a subordinate part of the large command already there. The task assigned him was to build log huts for his troops and stores, bring forward the winter supplies, by wagon, from the mouth of the Yellowstone, and then the com- mand was expected to hibernate, protecting themselves from attack and holding the ground for a basis of campaign in the following year. Two cantonments were built, one at the mouth of the Tongue River, and the other on the left bank of the Yellowstone, nearly opposite the present city of Glendive, but there was no hibernating, for the disposi- tion of the commander did not favor it, and he was so iso- lated that action on his own judgment was necessary under the circumstances. Immediately on assuming command General Miles began, as in the Indian Territory Expedition, to plan for a systematic campaign. A wounded war-pony. Indian Warfare 57 The hostiles belonged on the large reservations far to the south and southeast of the Yellowstone, and the Gen- eral took means of getting the earliest possible informa- tion of their absenting themselves therefrom. He became satisfied, early in October, that a very large number of the hostiles were in his vicinity, and this fact, added to a pro- longed delay in the expected arrival at the cantonment on Tongue River of a supply train coming up from the canton- ment at Glendive, induced him to march out with the 5th Infantry and proceed down on the left bank of the Yellow- stone. On the 1 8th of October he met the train under escort of a battalion of the 226. Infantry commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel E. S. Otis of that regiment. The train had been once obliged to return to Glendive by the strong force of Indians, its teamsters so demoralized that their places were filled by soldiers. When advancing the second time Otis received, October 16, the following note, left on a hilltop by an Indian runner: Yellowstone. I want to know what you are doing traveling on this road. You scare all the buffalo away. I want to hunt in this place. I want you to turn back from here. If you don't I will fight you again. I want you to leave what you have got here and turn back from here. -I am your friend, Sitting Bull. I mean all the rations you have got and some powder. Wish you would write as soon as you can. Otis sent a firm reply by a scout and proceeded with the train surrounded by the Indians, who, for a considerable time, kept up firing but gradually fell to the rear. When 58 The Progress of a United People General Miles learned the situation from Colonel Otis he started after Sitting Bull and overtook him near the head of Cedar Creek, a northern affluent of the Yellowstone. Sitting Bull sent a flag of truce to General Miles desiring to communicate, and General Miles met him with Chief Gall and several others between the lines. Sitting Bull shrewdly wished for an '' old-fashioned peace " for the winter (when warfare is most difficult), with permission to hunt and trade for ammunition, on which conditions he agreed not to molest the troops. But General Miles's ob- ject was permanent peace and the security of the territory then and before dominated by the Sioux, and he told Sit- ting Bull plainly that peace could come only by absolute submission. When the interview closed the troops were moved with the intention of intercepting the Indians should they try to move northward, and on the 21st of October another similar interview between the lines occurred. The Indians undoubtedly intended to emulate the act of bad faith by which General Canby lost his life at the hands of the Modocs, April 11, 1873. Several of their younger warriors, with affected carelessness, gradually moved for- ward in position to surround the party under the flag of truce. General Miles, observing this, moved back a step or two and told Sitting Bull very forcibly that those men were too young for the council, and that the '' talk " would end just there unless they returned to their lines. One of them had slipped a carbine up under his buffalo robe. Another muttered to Sitting Bull, ''Why don't you talk strong?" and he replied, " When I say that, I am going to shoot him." Meantime the troops were held in readiness to attack, had any act of bad faith been attempted ; even the accidental dis- charge of a firearm would have precipitated an attack in Indian Warfare 59 which all between the lines would have fallen. It became evident, at last, that only force could settle the question, and General Miles said to Sitting Bull, " I will either drive you out of this country or you will me. I will take no advan- tage of you under flag of truce and give you fifteen minutes to get back to your lines ; then, if my terms are not accepted, I will open fire." With an angry grunt the old Medicine Man turned and ran back to his lines; the whole country was alive with Indians, not less than a thousand warriors swarmed all about the command, which, in a slender line extended to protect front and flanks and rear, pushed vigorously forward and drove the Indians from the deep valleys at the source of Cedar Creek, compelling them to leave some of their dead on the field, which they never willingly do, and then pursued them so hotly for forty-two miles to the Yellowstone that they abandoned food, lodge poles, camp equipage, and ponies. On October 2.y, more than four hundred lodges, about two thousand Indians, surrendered to General Miles, and five chiefs were taken as hostages for the execution by the Indians of their terms of surrender, i. e., to go to their vari- ous agencies. Sitting Bull and his immediate following, his family and connections by marriage, broke away from the main body during the pursuit and escaped northward, where he was later joined by Gall and other chiefs with some followers. The estimated number of warriors in this engagement was one thousand. To General Miles and to the 5th In- fantry, three hundred and ninety-eight rifles, is due the honor of this important victory, which had far-reaching consequences. Not since the battle of Little Big Horn had the followers of Sitting Bull been attacked by the troops 6o The Progress of a United People in offensive battle. This was the first of a series of engage- ments in which the command of General Miles, or some detachment therefrom, vigorously assumed the offensive, and here began the successful battles and combats which re- sulted in breaking the power of the dreaded Sioux and bringing security and prosperity to a vast territory which is now penetrated by railways, occupied by hardy and pros- perous settlers, dotted over with towns and cities, and al- ready so developed and so permeated by the influences of our civilization that, in the form of new States, or portions thereof, it augments the glory and dignity of the nation. Returning to the cantonment at Tongue River, General Miles organized a force — four hundred and thirty- four rifles — made up of the 5th and a portion of the 22d Infan- try and pushed northward in pursuit of Sitting Bull, but the trail was obliterated by snow near the Big Dry, the broad bed of that which at times becomes a southern affluent of the Missouri. A winter of great severity, even for that region, opened early, and the command suffered intensely but kept the field and scoured the country along the Missouri River above and below old Fort Peck. On December 7, a detachment of the command, — Com- panies G, H, and I, 5th Infantry — one hundred officers and men, commanded by First Lieutenant F. D. Baldwin, 5th Infantry, overtook Sitting Bull's camp, one hundred and ninety lodges, and drove it across the Missouri, and on the 1 8th the same force surprised the camp near the head of Redwater, a southern affluent of the Missouri, and captured camp and contents with sixty animals, the Indians scattering out south of the Yellowstone. As Sitting Bull did not for a considerable time thereafter enter as a factor into the campaign, it will be permitted to Indian Warfare 6i anticipate for a little and describe his subsequent move- ments. With a small following he shortly after moved northward and camped on the left bank of the Missouri; thence, near the end of the winter, poor and with scarcely any ammunition, he and his scanty following sought refuge north of the international boundary. As a war was raging of which he was an important factor — not so much from military prowess as from his position as a " Medicine Man " and an extreme and inveterate savage Indian, wdiich made him the nucleus of all the disaffected and hostile Sioux — his band ought to have been either disarmed at the boun- dary or interned. General Miles made repeated and urgent appeals to the higher authorities that action to that end be taken, but unfortunately it was not taken. Sitting Bull's position and character, as before indicated, and the freedom for a considerable time accorded him and his followers, north of the line, induced a large number of the hostile and disaffected to steal away to him, and so the NorthwTst Territory of the Dominion became the ren- dezvous and supply camp of a threatening force. But for the time Sitting Bull was eliminated from the problem of conquering a peace, and the closing months of 1876 saw the beginning of the end of the great Sioux War. The in- tense cold of a Montana winter did not chill the ardor nor lessen the activity of Miles and his indomitable infantry, and the winter was to witness, on their part, almost inces- sant and markedly successful campaigning. Doubtless one of Sitting Bull's own race would call him an unbending patriot. '' The Great Spirit made me an Indian and did not make me an Agency Indian," he proudly asserted to General Miles under a flag of truce, in the fall of 1876, when backed up by a thousand braves. There are. 62 The Progress of a United People however, but two goals for the Indians — civihzation or an- nihilation ; Sitting Bull has the latter, as doubtless he would have preferred. He was kihed December 15, 1890, by men of his own race who were enforcing against him the orders of the whites, whom he hated. Captain Fechet, of the 8th Cavalry, who brought a force to the support of the Agency police, took charge of the body, which was not mutilated nor scalped ; he had it carried to Fort Yates, North Dakota, where it was decently buried in a coffin. Whatever the opinion entertained as to Sitting Bull and his taking off, inasmuch as his influence tended always to embroil his fol- lowing with the dominant race his death will doubtless re- sult in benefit to his own people. For every Indian war there is a cause; too often that cause has been bad policy, bad faith, bad conduct, or blun- dering on the part of the whites. Given the fact of war, whatever the cause, the soldier must secure peace, even if he fights to win it. For the savage of to-day, as for civilized man not so many centuries ago, an enemy and his wife and children have no rights. The recognition of this fact would prevent much misconception as to the character of Indians. If I have not indicated sufficiently the friendly feeling which, in common with nearly all army men, I feel for the Indians, not only friendly feeling but admiration for many of their qualities, I cannot hope to do so in a brief para- graph. The American people, those who really wish and hope to save the Indians from extinction or degradation, must be prepared to use great patience and summon all their wisdom. Indians (the men) naturally look upon the arts of peace very much as the knights of the past ages did. War is their pastime; by it come glory, honor, leadership. It is unlikely that the place of the Indians as peaceful citi- Indian Warfare 63 zens will approach their place as warriors. ''Justice and judgment," the one to protect, the other justly to punish them, have been too greatly lacking. CUSTER'S LAST BATTLE By E. S. Godfrey, Captain yrn Cavalry Tuesday morning, June 27, we had reveille without the '' morning guns," enjoyed the pleasure of a square meal, and had our stock properly cared for. Our commanding officer seemed to think the Indians had some " trap " set for us, and required our men to hold themselves in readi- ness to occupy the pits at a moment's notice. Nothing seemed determined except to stay where we were. Not an Lidian was in sight, but a few ponies were seen grazing down in the valley. About 9.30 a. m. a cloud of dust was observed several miles down the river. The assembly was sounded, the horses were placed in a protected situation, and camp-kettles and canteens were filled with water. An hour of suspense followed ; but from the slow advance we concluded that they were our own troops. " But whose command is it? " We looked in vain for a gray-horse troop. It could not be Custer; it must then be Crook, for if it was Terry, Custer would be with him. Cheer after cheer was given for Crook. A white man, Harris, I think, soon came up with a note from General Terry, addressed to General Custer, dated June 26, stating that two of our Crow scouts had given information that our column had been whipped and nearly all had been killed ; that he did not believe their story, but was coming with medical assistance. The scout said that he could not get to our lines the night before, as the 64 Custer's Last Battle 65 Indians were on the alert. Very soon after this Lieutenant Bradley, 7th Infantry, came into our Hues, and asked where I was. Greeting most cordially my old friend, I immedi- ately asked, ''Where is Custer?" He replied, ''I don't know, but I suppose he was killed, as we counted 197 dead bodies. I don't suppose any escaped." We were simply dumfounded. This was the first intimation we had of his fate. It was hard to realize; it did seem impossible. General Terry and staff, and officers of General Gibbon's column soon after approached, and their coming was greeted with prolonged, hearty cheers. The grave countenance of the general awed the men to silence. The officers assembled to meet their guests. There was scarcely a dry eye ; hardly a word was spoken, but quivering lips and hearty grasping of hands gave token of thankfulness for the relief and grief for the misfortune. On the morning of the 28th we left our intrenchments to bury the dead of Custer's command. The morning was bright, and from the high bluffs we had a clear view of Custer's battle-field. We saw a large number of objects that looked like white boulders scattered over the field. Glasses were brought into requisition, and it was announced that these objects were the dead bodies. Captain Weir ex- claimed, " Oh, how white they look ! " All the bodies, except a few, were stripped of their cloth- ing. According to my recollection nearly all were scalped or mutilated, but there was one notable exception, that of General Custer, whose face and expression were natural; he had been shot in the temple and in the left side. Many faces had a pained, almost terrified expression. It is said that " Rain-in-the-face," a Sioux warrior, has gloried that he had cut out and had eaten the heart and liver of one of 5 66 The Progress of a United People the officers. Other bodies were mutilated in a disgusting manner. The bodies of Dr. Lord and Lieutenants Porter, Harrington, and Sturgis were not found, at least not rec- ognized. The clothing of Porter and Sturgis was found in the village, and showed that they had been killed. We buried, according to my memoranda, 212 bodies. The killed of the entire command was 265, and of wounded we had 52. The question has been often asked, " What were the causes of Custer's defeat ? '' I should say : First. The overpowering numbers of the enemy and their unexpected cohesion. Second. Reno's panic rout from the valley. Third. The defective extraction of the empty cartridge- shells from the carbines. Of the first, I will say that we had nothing conclusive on which to base calculations of the numbers — and to this day it seems almost incredible that such great numbers of In- dians should have left the agencies, to combine against the troops, without information relating thereto having been communicated to the commanders of troops in the field, fur- ther than that heretofore mentioned. The second has been mentioned incidentally. The Indians say if Reno's posi- tion in the valley had been held, they would have been com- pelled to divide their strength for the different attacks, which would have caused confusion and apprehension, and pre- vented the concentration of every able-bodied warrior upon the battalion under Custer; that, at the time of the dis- covery of Custer's advance to attack, the chiefs gave orders for the village to move, to break up; that, at the time of Reno's retreat, this order was being carried out, but as soon as Reno's retreat was assured the order was counter- Custer's Last Battle 67 manded, and the squaws were compelled to return with the pony herds; that the order would not have been counter- manded had Reno's forces remained fighting in the bottom. Custer's attack did not begin until after Reno had reached the bluffs. Of the third we can only judge by our own experience. When cartridges were dirty and corroded the ejectors did not always extract the empty shells from the chambers, and the men were compelled to use knives to get them out. When the shells were clean no great difficulty was ex- perienced. To what extent this was a factor in causing the disaster we have no means of knowing. A battle was unavoidable. Every man in Terry's and Custer's commands expected a battle; it was for that pur- pose, to punish the Indians, that the command was sent out, and ^v•ith that determination Custer made his preparations. Had Custer continued his march southward — that is, left the Indian trail — the Indians would have known of our movements on the 25th, and a battle would have been fought very near the same field on which Crook had been attacked and forced back only a week before; the Indians never would have remained in camp and allowed a concentration of the several columns to attack them. If they had escaped without punishment or battle Custer would undoubtedly have been blamed. COMMENTS BY GENERAL FRY ON THE CUSTER BATTLE. The Sioux War of 1876 originated in a request by the Indian Bureau that certain wild and recalcitrant bands of Indians should be compelled to settle down upon their res- ervations under the control of the Indian agent. Sitting Bull, on the Little Missouri in Dakota, and Crazy Horse, 68 The Progress of a United People on Powder River, Wyoming, were practically the leaders of the hostile Indians who roamed over what General Sheridan called '' an almost totally unknown region, com- prising an area of almost 90,000 square miles." The hos- tile camps contained eight or ten separate bands, each hav- ing a chief of its own. Authority was exercised by a council of chiefs. No chief was endowed with supreme authority, but Sitting Bull was accepted as the leader of all his bands. From 500 to 800 warriors was the most the military authorities thought the hostiles could muster. Sitting Bull's camp, as Custer found it, contained some 8,000 or 10,000 men, women, and children, and about 2,500 warriors, including boys, who were armed with bows and arrows. The men had good firearms, many of them Winchester rifles with a large supply of ammunition. War upon this savage force was authorized by the War Department, and was conducted under the direction of Lieutenant-General Sheridan in Chicago. Having marched leisurely from Fort Lincoln on the Missouri to the Rosebud on the Yellowstone, the men and horses were well seasoned but not worn, and Reno has stated that when the regiment moved out on the 22d of June '* the men and officers were cheerful," the " horses zvcre in best condition." After Custer " caught " the Indians, their " escape," against which he was warned in Terry's written instructions, could be prevented only by attack. The trouble was their strength was under-estimated. Terry reported July 2: "He (Cus- ter) expressed the utmost confidence he had all the force he could need, and I shared his confidence/' Believing, as he and Sheridan and Terry did, that he was strong enough for victory, if Custer had not attacked, and the Indians had Custer's Last Battle 69 moved away, as they did when Gibbon's column approached on the 26th, Custer would have been condemned, perhaps disgraced. With his six hundred troopers he could not herd the Indians, nor, in that vast, wild, and difficult region, with which they were familiar and of which we were ignorant, could he by going further to his left, " south," drive them against Gibbon's column. His fight was forced by the situation. Believing, as Custer and his superiors did, that his 600 troopers were opposed by only 500, or at most 800 warriors, his attack shows neither desperation nor rash- ness. General Sherman said that when Custer found him- self in the presence of the Indians he could do nothing but attack. BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE SPANISH WAR By President William McKinley The first encounter of the war in point of date took place April 27th, when a detachment of the blockading squadron made a recon- naissance in force at Matanzas, shelled the harbor forts, and de- molished several new w^orks in con- struction (1898). The next engagement was des- tined to mark a memorable epoch in maritime warfare. The Pacific William McKinley. tieet, under Commodore George Dewey, had lain for some weeks at Hong-Kong. Upon the colonial proclamation of neutrality being issued and the cus- tomary tw^enty-four hours' notice being given, it repaired to Mirs Bay, near Hong-Kong, whence it proceeded to the Philippine Islands under telegraphed orders to capture or destroy the formidable Spanish fleet then assembled at Manila. At daybreak on the ist of May the American force entered Alanila Bay and after a few hours' engage- ment effected the total destruction of the Spanish fleet, consisting of ten warships and a transport, besides captur- ing the naval station and forts at Cavite, thus annihilating the Spanish naval power in the Pacific Ocean and com- pletely controlling the Bay of Manila, with the ability to 70 Brief Account of the Spanish War 71 take the city at will. Not a life was lost on our ships, the wounded only numbering seven, while not a vessel was materially injured. For this gallant achievement the Con- gress, upon my recommendation, fitly bestowed upon the actors preferment and substantial reward. . . . Following the comprehensive scheme of general attack, powerful forces were assembled at various points on our coast to invade Cuba and Porto Rico. Meanwhile naval demonstrations were made at several exposed points. On May nth the cruiser Wihnington and torpedo boat IVinslow w^ere unsuccessful in an attempt to silence the batteries at Cardenas, a gallant ensign. Worth Bagley, and four sea- men falling. These grievous fatalities were, strangely enough, among the very few which occurred during our naval operations in this extraordinary conflict. Meanwhile the Spanish naval preparations had been pushed with great vigor. A powerful squadron under Ad- miral Cervera, which had assembled at the Cape Verde Islands before the outbreak of hostilities, had crossed the ocean, and by its erratic movements in the Caribbean Sea delayed our military plans while baffling the pursuit of our fleets. For a time fears were felt lest the Oregon and Marietta, then nearing home after their long voyage from San Francisco of over 15,000 miles, might be surprised by Admiral Cervera's fleet, but their fortunate arrival dispelled these apprehensions and lent much needed reinforcement. Not until Admiral Cervera took refuge in the harbor of Santiago de Cuba, about May 19th, was it practicable to plan a systematic naval and military attack upon the Antil- lean possessions of Spain. Several demonstrations occurred on the coasts of Cuba and Porto Rico in preparation for the larger event. On 72 The Progress of a United People May 13th the North Atlantic Squadron shelled San Juan de Porto Rico. On May 30th Commodore Schley's squadron bombarded the forts guarding the mouth of Santiago har- bor. Neither attack had any material result. It was evi- dent that well-ordered land operations were indispensable to achieve a decisive advantage. The next act in the war thrilled not alone the hearts of our countrymen but the world by its exceptional heroism. On the night of June 3d, Lieutenant Hobson, aided by seven devoted volunteers, blocked the narrow outlet from Santiago harbor by sinking the collier Mcrrimac in the channel, under a fierce fire from the shore batteries, escaping with their lives as by a miracle, but falling into the hands of the Spaniards. It is a most gratifying incident of the war that the bravery of this little band of heroes was cordially appreciated by the Spanish admiral, who sent a flag of truce to notify Admiral Sampson of their safety and to compli- ment them on their daring act. They were subsequently exchanged July 7th. By June 7th the cutting of the last Cuban cable isolated the Island. Thereafter the invasion was vigorously prose- cuted. On June loth, under a heavy protecting fire, a landing of 600 marines from the Oregon, Marhlchcad, and Yankee was effected in Guantanamo Bay, where it had been determined to establish a naval station. This important and essential port was taken from the enemy after severe fighting by the marines, who were the first organized force of the United States to land in Cuba. The position so won was held despite desperate attempts to dislodge our forces. By June i6th additional forces were landed and strongly intrenched. On June 22d the ad- Brief Account of the Spanish War 73 „ 1 ■- ■ AH MEXICO ^"^ / ^^ (/ BAHAMA 50 100 200 300 400 60^ Statute Miles 11 II ^/_v ex ISLANDS KeyWest.....,-r ^ 1 Havana -^NS^^''^ ^'n" A T L A N T I C C E A 2f ^-J ^r-^ ^ ^' '•'' '■■ ^ c=> - San Juan /= / ^ >- «'" Ijaiti'v Santo^ -, ^ i^-,^.' -* JarfiaicaVv^ "--n> W) v- Domingo ^ Kingston -^-.^^ ^ ^ A Hondhcas M.-N. WORKS The Spanish-American War in the West Indies. vance of the invading army under ]\Iajor-General Shafter landed at Daiquiri, about 15 miles east of Santiago. This was accomplished under great difficulties but with marvel- ous despatch. On June 23d the movement against Santi- ago was begun. On the 24th the first serious engagement took place, in which the First and Tenth Cavalry and the First United States Volunteer Cavalry, General Young's brigade of General Wheeler's division, participated, losing heavily. By nightfall, however, ground within 5 miles of Santiago was won. The advantage was steadily increased. On July ist a severe battle took place, our forces gaining the outworks of Santiago ; on the 2d El Caney and San Juan were taken after a desperate charge, and the investment of the city was completed. The Navy cooperated by shelling the town and the coast forts. On the day following this brilliant achievement of our 74 The Progress of a United People land forces, the 3d of July, occurred the decisive naval com- bat of the war. The Spanish fleet, attempting to leave the harbor, was met by the American squadron under command of Commodore Sampson. In less than three hours all the Spanish ships were destroyed, the two topedo boats being sunk, and the Maria Teresa, AUnirante Oqucndo, Vizcaya, Winfield Scott Schley. William Thomas Sampson, and Cristobal Colon driven ashore. The Spanish admiral and over 1,300 men were taken prisoners, while the enemy's loss of life was deplorably large, some 600 perishing. On our side but one man was killed, on the Brooklyn, and one man seriously wounded. Although our ships were repeat- edly struck, not one was seriously injured. Where all so conspicuously distinguished themselves, from the com- manders to the gunners and the unnamed heroes in the boiler rooms, each and all contributing toward the achieve- ment of this astounding victory, for which neither ancient nor modern history affords a parallel in the completeness of the event and the marvelous disproportion of casualties, it Brief Account of the Spanish War 75 would be invidious to single out any for especial honor. Deserved promotion has rewarded the more conspicuous actors — the nation's profoundest gratitude is due to all of these brave men w^ho by their skill and devotion in a few short hours crushed the sea power of Spain and wrought a triumph whose decisiveness and far-reaching consequences can scarcely be measured. Nor can we be unmindful of the achievements of our builders, mechanics, and artisans for their skill in the construction of our warships. With the catastrophe of Santiago Spain's effort upon the ocean virtually ceased. The capitulation of Santiago followed. The city was closely besieged by land, while the entrance of our ships into the harbor cut off all relief on that side. After a truce to allow of the removal of noncombatants protracted negotiations continued from July 3d until July 15th, when, under menace of immediate assault, the preliminaries of surrender were agreed upon. On the 17th General Shafter occupied the city. The capitulation embraced the entire eastern end of Cuba. . . . With the fall of Santiago the occupation of Porto Rico became the next strategic necessity. General Miles had previously been assigned to organize an expedition for that purpose. Fortunately he w^as already at Santiago, where he had arrived on the nth of July with reinforcements for General Shafter's army. With these troops, consisting of 3,415 infantry and artillery, two companies of engineers, and one company of the Signal Corps, General Aliles left Guantanamo on July 2 1st, having nine transports convoyed by the fleet under Cap- tain Higginson with the Massachusetts (flagship), Dixie, Gloucester, Columbia, and Yale, the two latter carrying 76 The Progress of a United People troops. The expedition landed at Guanica July 25th, which port was entered with little opposition. On July 27th he entered Ponce, one of the most impor- tant ports in the island, from which he thereafter directed operations for the capture of the island. With the exception of encounters with the enemy at Guayama, Hormigueros, Coamo, and Yauco, and an attack on a force landed at Cape San Juan, there w^as no serious resistance. The campaign was prosecuted with great vigor, and by the 12th of August much of the island was in our possession. The last scene of the war was enacted at Manila, its start- ing place. On August 15, after a brief assault upon the works by the land forces, in which the squadron assisted, the capital sur- rendered unconditionally. The casualties were comparatively few. By this the conquest of the Philippine Islands, virtually accomplished when the Spanish capacity for resistance was de- stroyed by Admiral Dewey's victory of the ist of May, was formally sealed. To General Merritt, his officers and men for their uncomplaining and devoted service and for their gallantry in action the nation is sincerely grateful. Their long voyage was made with singular success, and the soldierly conduct of the men, most of whom were without pre- vious experience in the military service, deserves un- measured praise. The Philippines. Brief Account of the Spanish War 77 The total casualties in killed and wounded in the Army during the war with Spain were : Officers killed, 2;^ ; en- listed men killed, 257; total, 280; officers wounded, 113; enlisted men wounded, 1,464; total, 1,577. Of the Navy: Killed, 17; wounded, 67; died as result of wounds, i; in- valided from service, 6; total, 91. Morro Castle from the southwest. Mr. Hcjbs.iirs eel directly under the flag on the left. The flag on t!ie extreme right is at the eastern battery. THE OREGON'S GREAT VOYAGE By Lieutenant Edward W. Eberle, U. S. N. ( See Frontispiece.) The battle-ship Oregon was hauHng out of dry-dock at the United States naval station on Puget Sound on the i6th of February, 1898, as we received the startling news of the destruction of the Maine in Havana harbor. It was a mat- ter of congratulation that, come what might, the Oregon was in excellent condition, that she had her bilge-keels com- pleted, and that she was ready to sail at high speed to any part of the globe. We were soon hurrying down the coast to San Francisco, where we received orders to prepare immediately for a long- cruise. Here Captain Charles E. Clark came on board and took command. Everybody was happy over the prospect of going either to Cuba or Manila, and our crew worked day and night taking on board sixteen hundred tons of coal, five hundred tons of ammunition, and . stores to last six months. In the early morning of March 19, 1898, after working all the previous night, the Oregon sailed proudly out of San Francisco, the harbor of her christening, on what proved to be the most renowned cruise in modern naval his- tory. The ship was deep in the water, displacing nearly twelve thousand tons; but she seemed to be animated with the same enthusiastic and eager spirit that filled the hearts of our men as she started on the four-thousand-mile run to her first port, Callao, Peru, at a good speed, which she steadily maintained for sixteen days. The Oregon s Great Voyage 79 After clearing the headlands of San Francisco Bay, a course was set to the southward, and we had started on our long passage. In the early morning of the sixteenth day out, we anchored in the harbor of Callao, and found our coal-barges awaiting us, together with orders to leave port as soon as possible. We eagerly asked for war news, and found that there had been little change in the situation since our de- parture from San Francisco; our relations witH Spain were still much strained. In the hope and belief that we were to continue on around the Horn, our men began the dis- agreeable task of coaling ship with light hearts and merry songs. The coal simply poured on board day and night, and at the end of fifty hours we had taken in eleven hun- dred tons, which gave us seventeen hundred on board. The Peruvians were very friendly indeed ; but as wx had heard that members of the Spanish colony in Lima had made threats against the ship, we took means to prevent attack or surprise. All sentries and lookouts were doubled and supplied with ammunition; the steam-cutters were armed and sent out to patrol around the ship all night, with orders to stop any boat that should approach within five hundred yards of the ship, and to fire or ram if necessary. The search-lights and six-pounders were kept ready for in- stant use. Although war had not been declared, we were taking no chances. These precautions were taken in every subsequent port, and our arrival in Callao really marks the date when the ship was placed on a war footing. At Callao secret orders were received from Washington, and only the captain knew what our future movements were to be. While in port we received warning of the presence on the Atlantic coast of South America of the Spanish torpedo- 8o The Progress of a United People gun-boat Tcmcrario, and the Peruvian papers were filled with reports of terrible things that she was expected to ac- complish in the Straits of Magellan. Although the Tenie- rario was the bugaboo of many future cable messages, and we were continually on the watch for her, she caused us little uneasiness, as we were prepared to give her a warm reception. On the morning of April 7, after fifty hours in Callao harbor, — fifty hours of continuous hard, hot work, — the Oi^egon set sail. The ship was now on an absolute war footing; no lights were carried, guns were kept loaded and search-lights ready for use, and the men slept at their battle-stations on deck and in the fighting-tops. We exercised frequently at subcaliber target practice with all the guns of the main and the secondary batteries, the Marietta throwing barrels and boxes overboard for us to fire at as w^e steamed along. During good weather the Marietta maintained a speed of ten knots, but head winds and seas often reduced her speed to seven or eight knots. After getting clear of Magellan Straits and well north in the Atlantic, we had successfully passed through the stormy region of our long trip — the region of heavy seas and severe gales, where European wiseacres had predicted disaster for our 11,000-ton battle- ship. Now, however, began other dangers, and a long- period of anxious days and sleepless nights for the dear ones at home ; but as our ship plowed her way north through the Atlantic, straining every nerve to reach Cuba in time for the war, our enthusiastic crew had little thought that the nation's eyes were upon us. At 4:30 a. m., April 30, we signaled the Marietta to follow us to Rio de Janeiro, and then we went ahead at a fifteen-knot gait in order to yw^w^ 82 The Progress of a United People reach Rio in the afternoon, so that we could see what vessels were in port, cable to \\'ashington, select a secure an- chorage, and get coal alongside before dark. When we steamed into the beautiful bay of Rio at 4 p. m. on the last day of April, we found there the Nictheroy (purchased from Brazil by the United States and renamed the Buffalo). All hands were very anxious for news, and memorable were the cheers that greet- ed the news 1 that war had been declared. In a few moments our band was on deck, and between the rounds of cheers the strains 1 of the Boiler-room of the Oregon. '' Star-Spangled Ban- ner " and of '' Hail, Columbia " floated over to the Brazilian fleet and the crowds that lined the wharves. The crew uncovered and stood at attention during the playing of the national anthem, and then followed more cheers and the inspiring battle-cry, "Remember the Maine!'' a Avatchword often heard about the decks as the men turned to the coal-barges and worked as they had never worked before. The intense heat and the long and trying work-hours of those days and nights were The Oregon s Great Voyage 83 borne without a murmur. In view of the warning despatches concerning the Temerario, we took every precaution against any treacherous manceuver in a friendly port. The Oregon steamed far up the bay, and took an unusual anchorage in mid-harbor, so that no vessel could have an excuse for ap- proaching us. Then we informed the Brazilian govern- ment and the Brazilian admiral that we expected them to prevent any hostile acts by Spanish vessels within neutral waters, and warned them that in self-protection we should sink any Spanish vessel that should attempt to approach within half a mile of our anchorage. The Brazilian gov- ernment proved very friendly indeed; and realizing the jus- tice of our demands, the admiral promised to prevent any Spanish vessel from entering the harbor at night, or from approaching our anchorage during the day. Our steam- cutters patrolled all night, the search-lights were in use, and the rapid-fire guns were always manned. The Marietta anchored as a picket-vessel in a position covering the harbor entrance. Her orders were: "If a suspicious-looking ves- sel is sighted entering the harbor, and if she answers to the description and to the picture furnished by the department, inform her that if she approaches the Oregon within half a mile she will be sunk. Blow siren; turn on search-light, and keep it on her all the time. If she is being escorted to an anchorage by a Brazilian man-of-war, turn on search- light and flash it several times to attract attention. The of- ficer of the deck will answer either signal by three blasts of the whistle, and immediately sound the call for general quarters." At night the Brazilian admiral sent a cruiser outside to patrol the harbor entrance, and with her search-lights and those on the forts it would have been impossible for a 84 The Progress of a United People Spanish vessel to enter the port unseen. It was even nec- essary to place sentries over our coal-barges, as Spanish sympathizers with bombs in their possession had been ap- prehended near them. All the coal was carefully ex- amined as it came on board. The Spanish minister pro- tested against our taking coal and remaining in a neutral port longer than twenty- four hours, but the Brazilian government allowed us ample time for coaling and for making necessary repairs. On the afternoon of the second day of May came the news of Commodore Dewey's superb victory in Manila Bay. The scene that followed the publication of this news might be likened to an Indian war-dance. Our black, coal- begrimed men fairly went wild. They cheered ; they danced in the coal-barges and on the decks, and made the harbor ring; and then the coal came on board more rapidly than ever, while the band played patriotic airs. All afternoon and well into the night there was a combination of music, cheers, and shoveling coal. There were cheers for Com- modore Dewey, for the Asiatic Squadron, and for our cap- tain and officers. Our minister and the American colony came on board and joined in the love-feast. While the crew kept up their rejoicing, the captain and officers were secretly and carefully considering this important despatch from the Navy Department : '' Four Spanish armored cruisers, heavy and fast, three torpedo-boat destroyers, sailed April 29 from Cape de Verde to the west, destina- tion unknown. Beware of and study carefully the situa- tion. Must be left to your discretion entirely to avoid this fleet and to reach the United States by West Indies. You can go when and where you desire. Nicthcroy and the Marietta subject to the orders of yourself." The Oregon! s Great Voyage 85 The Rio papers were filled with startling rumors about Admiral Cervera's fleet and the little Tcmerario, and each day reported the enemy's fleet awaiting us outside the har- bor. On May 3 the official despatch, " Inform the depart- ment of your plans. The Spanish fleet in Philippine Is- lands annihilated by our naval force on the Asiatic station," caused a repetition of the preceding day's enthusiasm. Our reply to the department was as follows: "The receipt of telegram of May 3 is acknowledged. Will proceed in obedience to orders I have received. Keeping near the Brazilian coast as the Navy Department considers the Spanish fleet from Cape de Verde Islands superior, will be unsuitable. I can coal from the N tether oy, if necessity compels it, to reach the United States. If the Nietheroy delays too much I shall hasten passage, leaving her with the Marietta. Every department of the Oregon in fine condition." Then, at seven o'clock in the morning of May 4, the Oregon and the Marietta steamed majestically out of the harbor of Rio. Many of the good people of Rio were con- fident that we were going to certain destruction, for the papers had led them to believe that Admiral Cervera was awaiting us outside, and the Brazilian admiral even sent a cruiser out ahead of us in order to prevent an engagement in neutral waters. At the request of the government of Brazil, we had agreed to sail twelve hours in advance of the Nietheroy. We steamed about fifty miles from Rio, and then back again to meet the Nietheroy. We lay off the harbor en- trance all night, steaming away before daylight in order to prevent detection ; but, to our dismay, the Nietheroy did not come out, and so we sent the Marietta back in the direc- 86 The Progress of a United People tion of Rio to wait another twelve hours. After waiting thirty-six hours in all, we sighted the Nictheroy coming out with the Marietta; but as she could not make more than seven knots, the question arose whether we should remain with this slow vessel or continue northward at high speed. The Oregon would be an important addition to Admiral Sampson's fleet; the department had been urging us to make a quick passage ; the enemy's fleet was supposed to be seeking us, and we felt that we could make a better fight single-handed than if accompanied by slow vessels that would have to be protected. All these considerations were weighed, and our gallant captain decided to part company with the two vessels, and to proceed north at full speed. So in the middle of the night we signaled the Marietta: " Proceed with the Nictheroy to Bahia, and cable the de- partment," which message she answered with " Good-by and good luck." Then we went ahead full speed. The following day, when upon the high seas, all hands were called aft on the quarterdeck, and the captain read to the men a portion of the message, which told that the Spanish fleet was supposed to be in search of the Oregon. This was followed by a scene of great enthusiasm, five hun- dred men joining in an outburst of cheers for the Oregon, her captain, and her officers. Every preparation was made to meet the enemy's fleet. The ship was " cleared for ac- tion." All woodwork was torn out. Even the expensive mahogany pilot-house was reduced to a skeleton In order to prevent its being set on fire by Spanish shell. The ship was painted the dull gray war color, and the graceful white vessel that had steamed out of Rio harbor was transformed into an ugly lead-colored fighter. To lessen the danger of conflagration, preparations were made to throw overboard The Oregon s Great Voyage 87 all our boats upon sighting the enemy's fleet. Everybody was eager for active duty at any odds. Before leaving Rio, our men had purchased a large sup- ply of red ribbon, of which they made cap-bands, bearing in letters cut out of brass the inspiring words, " Remember the Maine " ; and this legend the cap of every Oregon man bore throughout the war. We now steamed to the northward along the coast of Brazil, intending to touch at Bahia or Pernambuco to com- municate with the Navy Department. One forenoon was spent at target practice, all the guns being fired, and the shooting being excellent. On May 8, after dark, we anchored in the harbor of Bahia, and early next morning sent the following cable message to Washington : '' Much delayed by the Marietta and the Nictlieroy. Left them near Cape Frio, with orders to come home or beach, if necessity compels it, to avoid capture. The Oregon could steam fourteen knots for hours, and in a running fight might beat ofif and even cripple the Spanish fleet. With present amount of coal on board will be in good fighting trim, and could reach West Indies. If more should be taken here I could reach Key West; but, in that case, belt-armor, cellulose belt, and protect- ive deck would be below water-line. Whereabouts of Spanish fleet requested." \\'e made arrangements for coal, but in the evening this answer to the captain's message w'as received : " Proceed at once to West Indies without further stop Brazil. No authentic news the Spanish fleet. Avoid if possible. We believe that you will defeat it if met." And then in the middle of the night the ship went to sea, standing well off the coast in order to make a wide sweep around Cape St. Roque, where Admiral 88 The Progress of a United People Cervera's fleet was supposed to be awaiting us. Captain Clark's plan of battle was as follows: Upon sighting the Spanish fleet, we were to sound to general quarters, go ahead full speed under forced draft, and head away from the enemy. The purpose of this manoeuver was to " string- out " the enemy's vessels in their chase after us. When their leading vessel should approach within close range, we were to turn on her and destroy her with our terrific broad- sides, and then devote our attention to the other vessels in succession. We were confident that not more than two of these vessels could equal our speed ; and by making a running fight we expected to eliminate the possibility of the enemy's surrounding us or either ramming or torpedoing the ship. How well this plan would have succeeded is clearly shown by the Oregon's work on July 3 ; for on that historic day this very manoeuver was, by chance, executed, with the difference that we chased and overtook, in turn, several of the enemy's vessels, instead of their chasing us. About eight o'clock in the evening of May 12, when off Cape St. Rocjue, w^e sighted a number of lights, which had the appearance of a fleet sailing in double column. Not a light was burning on the Oregon, and she passed right through the midst of the vessels undetected, for she could not have been seen a hundred yards away. What those lights were we have never been able to ascertain, but, ac- cording to the log of the Colon, the enemy's squadron was not Off Cape St. Roque at that time. We passed several sailing-vessels, among them the little sloop Spray, and in answer to our inquiries all stated that they had seen no Spanish ships. On May 15 the Oregon made her best run of three hundred and seventy-five miles, and at daylight on May 18 she came to anchor in the harbor Coaling. 90 The Progress of a United People of Bridgetown, Barbados. Having been in two yellow- fever ports, the ship was placed in quarantine, although no one had been allowed on shore in those ports, and all on board were in good health. Her Majesty's officials were Announcement of the supposed proximity of Cervera's fleet. The Oregon s Great Voyage 91 most friendly, and gave us a cordial welcome, but rigidly enforced the neutrality laws. The white inhabitants of Barbados were strongly American in their sentiments, and boat-loads of them pulled around the ship, cheering and wishing us success. We were allowed sufficient coal to reach a home port, but could remain only twenty- four hours; and neither of the belligerents was supposed to send or receive cable messages until twenty-four hours after our departure. As the American consul had managed to send a despatch to the State Department announcing our arrival before the government censor reached the cable office the Spanish consul was permitted to cable our arrival to his govern- ment. We here heard the rumor that a Spanish fleet of sixteen vessels was at Martinique, only ninety miles away, and that Spanish vessels had been seen cruising off Barbados the previous day. We seemed to have the enemy's vessels all around us, and none of our ships was near at hand. We began coaling as soon as possible, and to the anxious inquiries of a few shore people, supposed to be Spanish emissaries, we stated that we should probably sail next morning. But about nine o'clock that night we suddenly cast off the coal-barges and steamed out of the harbor. We kept all lights burning brightly, and set a course direct for Key West, so that the Spanish spies could see our lights and report to the Martinique fleet the direction in which we had sailed. But when we were five miles from the harbor we suddenly extinguished every light, turned about, made a sweep around Barbados, and laid a course well to the east- ward of all the islands, thus by a strategical move frustrating any night attack by the enemy's torpedo-boats and armored vessels which we believed to be at Martinique. We passed 92 The Progress of a United People around to the northward of the Bahamas, and after dark on May 24 anchored off Jupiter Inlet, Florida, and sent the following despatch : "' Oregon arrived. Have coal enough to reach Dry Tortugas or Hampton Roads. Boat landed through surf awaits orders." As we learned afterward, the announcement of our safe arrival sent a thrill of joy and thanksgiving throughout the country. About two in the morning came this answer: " If ship is in good condi- tion and ready for service, go to Key West, otherwise to Hampton Roads. The department congratulates you upon your safe arrival, which has been announced to the Presi- dent." Our anchor was hove up in a hurry, and with light and happy hearts we were soon on our way to Key West to join Admiral Sampson's fleet in Cuban w^aters, ready for duty. We reached Key West on the morning of May 26, and anchored off Sand Key, having made the run of four- teen thousand miles in just sixty-eight days, having passed through two oceans and circumnavigated a continent, hav- ing endured most oppressive heat and incessant toil, having demonstrated to the skeptics of Europe that heavy battle- ships of the Oregon class can cruise with safety under all conditions of wind and sea, and at the end of this remark- able voyage having had the pleasure to report the ship in excellent condition and ready to meet the enemy. Our noble and beloved captain, who had so ably executed his trying task, received congratulatory messages from every part of the country, including this telegram from the Secretary of the Navy : " The department congratulates you, your officers and crew, upon the completion of your long and remarkably successful voyage." THE BATTLE OF MANILA BAY The naval battle of Manila Bay on May-day, 1898, will l^e ranked by historians of the American navy with Perry's victory on Lake Erie and Farragut's attack on the forts of Mobile Bay. Splendid as an example of American daring and skill on the part of Admiral Dewey, it is unique be- cause of the terrible loss inflicted on the Spanish, without the death or serious injury of a single man on the American fleet. Like the shot of the '* embattled farmers" of 1775, the roar of Admiral Dewey's guns at Manila has gone round the world, and has shown to the nations the efficiency of the American navy. The guns of the American fleet were heavier than those of the Spanish squadron, but the Spaniards, in addition, had several shore batteries with formidable guns. On the lunette in front of the city of Manila were several ten-inch Krupp guns, and on Cavite fortress, which guarded the harbor, were batteries of six- and eight-inch guns. The battle was fought mainly at a distance of from twenty-five hundred to thirty-five hundred yards, or, roughly, between a mile and a half and two miles. At this range ac- curate marksmanship was imperative. Even at the lesser distance the Spanish fire was ineffective. The simple truth is that the Spaniards had had no target practice, while on most of the American ships target-firing was a regular monthly duty. The absolute lack of skill of the Spanish gunners was demonstrated by their waste of ammunition 93 94 The Progress of a United People while the American fleet was drawn off for breakfast. They kept up a continual fire from the Cavite batteries, although their glasses should have shown them that all their shells fell short. At close quarters they were equally powerless to inflict damage, for both the Baltimore and the Olympia approached very near to Cavite in the second en- gagement, and succeeded in silencing the guns of the for- tress without suffering the loss of a man, and without material damage to either ship. And after this the little gun- boat Petrel dashed up and down close inshore, destroying the Spanish gunboats, and silencing the remaining shore batteries; and she also escaped unscathed. NARRATIVE OF COLONEL GEORGE A. LOUD. Who witnessed the battle from the revenue cutter Hugh McCiiUoch. In the gray dawn of the coming day we found ourselves in front of and about four miles distant from Manila. It was Sunday, May i, at about 5:15, that a puff of white smoke was seen on the Manila shore, and a shot struck the water a mile short of our ship; then from the opposite shore, at Cavite, seven miles distant from Manila, came heavy reports, and their shots also fell short of us. The McCiillocli, with the transports, stopped in the middle of the bay, not so far distant but that shots fell about us during the entire fight. Our fighting ships, without making reply to either attack, steamed rapidly up the bay, which terminates several miles beyond the city. After thus passing, they swung round toward the Cavite side, and steamed straight toward the forts and the Spanish ships which were anchored there, and which now added their rapid fire to that of the forts. The Battle of Manila Bay 95 Cavite is the government arsenal and navel depot, and there the Spanish admiral had chosen his fighting-ground. As the flag-ship came on she opened fire at 5 135 with her forward eight-inch rifles, and, swinging round in front of the fort, sent in broadside after broadside from her rapid- fire five-inch guns of the port battery. Tlie other ships, in usual order, followed in and opened fire, and now the battle was fast and furious. Never, it seemed to us on the McCiilloch, did spectators watch a more desperate game; for from the continual rain of shot we saw poured into our ships it seemed certain that there would be heavy loss of life, and some of our ships probably crippled or sunk, before the fight was over. As we watched with breathless interest, we saw that our ships had passed and had turned a half-circle. Slowly back they went past the forts, now working their starboard bat- teries as rapidly as possible, the fire from tlie shore showing no signs of abatement. Again they wheeled and came down the line. We saw a large white ship move out to meet the Olympia. We suspected it was (and it afterward proved to be) the Spanish admiral's flag-ship, the Reina Christina. She was met by such a storm of shot, all the fleet which were in range joining in, that she could not reach the Olympia at close quarters, and, wheeling about, tried to make back for the little harbor at Cavite from which she came; but at the instant when her stern swung in line, one of the big eight-inch rifles in the for- ward turret of the Olympia hurled a 250-pound percussion shell, which, true to its aim, raked her from her stern for- ward, exploding her boiler, and completely wrecking the ship and setting her on fire. This shot, the Spanish sur- geons told us, killed the captain and sixty men ; and the 96 The Progress of a United People entire loss on this ship in the admiral's desperate sally was one hundred and forty killed and more than two hun- dred wounded. The admiral changed his flag to another ship, the Isla de Cuba, but fared no better, being driven back and the ship sunk at the entrance of the little harbor. It was at this time that the Olympia had her moment of greatest peril. We could see two black boats, which turned out to be tor- pedo-launches, coolly awaiting her approach; and as the Olympia came on they started for her at full speed. Tlie Olmypias gunners realized the danger to their ship, but were not '' rattled " for an instant. Failing to hit the small targets with the large guns, as the launches rapidly ap- proached within eight hundred yards the secondary battery of rapid-fire six-pounders poured in their shells with such deadly efifect that the first launch blew up, one of our shots either exploding its boiler or the torpedo, for with our glasses we could see a huge column of water go up, and the boat instantly disappear, with all her crew. The second launch was riddled with shot, and was beached. It was afterward found by us with a dozen or more shot-holes through it, and all bespattered with blood. It was a brave effort on the part of the Spaniards, but American marks- manship checkmated their bold move. Back a fourth time, and then a fifth, went the fleet past the batteries and ships; and then, at 7:45, we saw the Olympia heading towards us instead of starting for her sixth time down the line. What did it mean ? It looked to us until the last half-hour as though we had stirred up a hornet's nest and our fleet had met its match. Why were they coming out of the fight? Was it because they had been disabled or badly injured, or had the loss of life been The Battle of Manila Bay 97 such that we were repulsed? What could it mean? It was a quarter of an hour of terrible anxiety and suspense to us all, until the Olympia neared us. No signs of serious damage could we see, and as our crew gave them three hearty cheers, they came back to us with such a happy ring that it boded well. All commanders were summoned on board the flag-ship, and our anxiety was relieved, on Captain Hodgsdon's re- turn, by the happy new^s that not a man had been killed, and on the Baltiuiovc only six slightly wounded; and not a shot had done our ships serious damage. We learned that the ships had come out only to give our men a little much-needed rest, and breakfast, of which they also stood greatly in need. The sun had come up in a cloudless sky, the air perfectly calm, and the heat of this tropical climate, with the stifling powder-smoke (which much of the time settled around the ships in a dense cloud), made it imperative that the men have a few moments' rest in purer air. While the interval or cessation of battle, as we now know, was from no serious cause, the Spaniards thought, as w^e afterward learned, that we had retired to bury our dead, and, in fact, that they had repulsed us. They w^re, however, quickly undeceived. At 10:45 ^^^^ Baltimore was ordered to go at her highest speed in front of the forts. Slie disappeared in a dense cloud of smoke from her two huge funnels, and shortly after we could hear the quick, ringing reports from her six- and eight-inch guns, and the battle was on again. The forts bravely replied at first, but soon their fire slackened. For two hours past we had seen several ships burning fiercely, and it was now plain that their naval force was out of the fight. The Olympia, after an interval of twenty minutes, fol- 7 98 The Progress of a United People lowed the Baltimore, pushing the latter on, and the other ships, following each in turn, stopped or slowed down in front of the Cavite forts, and rained their broadsides into them. Two of our ships, now that resistance had weak- ened, lay idle in the bay beyond the forts wdiile the other four were pressing the fight to a finish. With our glasses we watched as shot after shot struck the huge sand em- bankment, bursting, and sending clouds of sand a hundred feet in the air. The fighting plan was now different from the morning work. The ships moved into proper distance, stopped, got accurate range, and then, with deliberation, sent in shot after shot, with the obvious determination that every shot should count. The saucy little Petrel, with her main battery of four six- inch guns, being of light draft, steamed in nearer than any of the rest, and coolly banged away as though she were an armored battle-ship. Quiet Captain Wood won the admira- tion of the whole fleet, and the Petrel was on the spot re- christened the Bahy Battle-ship. At 12:45 the Spanish flag was still flying, and the Petrel, Boston, and Raleigh were at the front, the other three resting. At i 105 p. m. the three ships at the front rattled in a continuous fire, which finished the fight and the Petrel signaled that the enemy had " struck," or hauled down their flag. We cannot fail, however, to give justice to our enemy, for all agreed that the Spaniard is a tough fighter, even if he cannot shoot straight. It was a most astounding re- sult of four to five hours' shooting, partly from the finest Krupp rifled cannon, that no harm worthy of mention was done to our ships, and only six men were slightly wounded on the Baltimore from flying splinters. There was no ex- The Battle of Manila Bay 99 cuse for such bad marksmanship, as we gave them the full broadsides of our ships at short range for targets. The conduct of our men in this their first fight was beyond praise. Not a man flinched, but each remained at his post, doing his duty coolly and well. As to the loss of the enemy, it is impossible to learn with accuracy, for the dead on the burning Spanish ships were not removed, but were burned with them. From what can be learned from the Spanish surgeons, there were upward of eight hundred killed, and double that number wounded. The McCulloch having anchored in Cavite harbor on the day after the fight, we saw hospital-flags, the Geneva cross of red in a white field, flying over the cathedral, the hospital, and another large building. The writer was with Lieutenant Hodges, who had command of the side-wheel steamer Isabella I, one of our prizes, when on Tuesday afternoon he started to convey the wounded from Cavite across to Manila. On the one trip made that afternoon two hundred and one were taken over, which did not comprise one half the number to be transferred. We were not allowed to enter the river Pasig at Manila with these wounded, but steam-launches came out and transferred them from our 1)oat to the shore. NARRATIVE OF DR. CHARLES P. KINDLEBERGER, JUNIOR SUR- GEON OF THE FLAG-SHIP " OLYMPIA. " When seven miles away puffs of smoke and roar of guns showed that the forts had begun their fire on us. But the shells did not reach, and the fleet sailed on without reply. Still silent, the Olympia drew near until she was only forty- four hundred yards away from fort and fleet. Then the roar of one of her forward eight-inch guns was the signal 100 The Progress of a United People that the fight had opened. Ahnost instantly — it seemed to me Hke an echo — • came the sound of the guns of the other ships. First would come the flash, then the puff of smoke, and then the mighty roar. We fired our port bat- teries in turn, and then, swinging round, discharged the starboard guns. During this fight and the one later I watched the spec- tacle from the six-pounder guns forward of the sick-bay. There was very little for me to do, and as these guns were fired only when the ship was at short range from the shore, my position was an ideal one. Early in the fight I saw what looked like a ten-inch shell coming toward the ship with frightful velocity. It seemed inevitable that we should be destroyed. The shell struck the water ten feet from the bow and ricochetted clear over the vessel, with a screech that was indescribable. Had it struck five feet higher I should not tell this tale. Other shells fell as near, and the impact sent the water splashing over us. Soon after two torpedo-boats put out from the fleet. They came straight for the Olympia, w^ith the manifest pur- pose of sinking the flag-ship. When the foremost boat reached close range a perfect storm of steel burst upon it. The surface of the ocean burst into foam under the hail of shot, and the doomed boat went down with all her crew. The other, seeing -the fate of her companion, turned and made for the shore. With riddled sides she managed to float until the few surviving members of her crew escaped. As we neared Cavite a mine field exploded, but as we were fully a thousand yards off, the ship was not hurt. Five times the fleet ranged up and down before Cavite, each vessel pouring in broadsides upon the Spanish fleet and the batteries of Cavite. As soon as the Spanish ad- The Battle of Manila Bay loi miral could get up steam on his flag-ship, the Reina Chris- tina, he came boldly out to give us battle. It was magnificent, but in his case it certainly was not war, for his flag- ship was hit again and again and his men were driven from their guns by the fierce fire of the Olynipia and the other vessels. I saw the vessel turn and begin an attempt to re- treat ; but as she swung about, an eight-inch shell from one of our guns raked the ship fore and aft. We learned later that this single shell killed the captain and sixty men, hope- lessly crippled the ship, and set her on fire. Several other ships were burning fiercely as at 7 130 the signal was given and our fleet drew off. This was the signal that the Spaniards misconstrued as a sign that the Americans had retreated to repair damages. The truth is that Commodore Dewey desired to consult his captains and also to give all hands breakfast. The men had been" fighting in the fierce heat for two hours, and they were worn with fatigue and hunger. Looking over to Cavite, the sight was one that no one who beheld it will ever forget. The forts of Manila and batteries at Cavite were throwing tons of shot and shell across the water; but all were wasted, as they fell short of the fleet. Along near the shore the Rcina Christina was in a blaze and the Castilla was burning. At 10:45 the attack was resumed. Nothing in the whole engagement showed more nerve than the dash made by the Baltimore and the Olynipia up to the Cavite batteries. It was vitally necessary that these batteries should be silenced, as the fleet lay behind them, and the forts mounted big guns that could sink any of our ships with one well-planted shot. Both ships steamed full speed straight for the fort. We saw the Baltimore disappear in a cloud of smoke. Then 102 The Progress of a United People we entered it and delivered a broadside. Nothing human could stand such a fire, well delivered at close range, and the Spaniards were forced to abandon their guns. Then all the ships turned their guns on the remnant of the Spanish fleet, and under the terrible fire the Don Antonio de Ulloa sank with her colors flymg. The big American ships did not dare venture far inside the harbor, but the Concord and the Petrel steamed in and shelled forts and ships. The Concord drove the crew of one hundred men from the transport Mindanao and set her on fire, while the Petrel burned all the ships she found afloat. At five minutes after one o'clock the white flag went up on Cavite fort. When our men caught sight of this flag cheers went up which stirred one's blood. The sailors were beside them- selves with joy, and cheered, shouted, hugged one another, and indulged in many other signs of rejoicing. Then came the report that no lives had been lost, and the cheering was redoubled. At noon the day after the battle the Spanish evacuated Cavite. I was sent ashore to bury eight Spaniards, and landed at the hospital on the point near Cavite. I went through all its wards. The sight was terrible. It is a good hospital, with detached wards in little pavilions grouped about the central buildings. Everything was in good order and cleanly. I conversed with several of the doctors in French, as I do not speak Spanish and they had no English at command. They were extremely courteous, but to my question, *' How many Spanish w^ere killed and wounded? " they replied sadly that they did not know. In the wards I saw over eighty wounded. The horrors of war were seen at their worst. Some of the men were fearfully burned, The Battle of Manila Bay 103 some with limbs freshly amputated, others with their eyes shot out, their features torn away by steel or splinters — every kind of injury that surgery records. The shrieks and groans of the wounded were appalling. I could not stay to hear them, though my profession is calculated to harden one against such scenes. Had I been working, I should have endured it, but as an onlooker it was unbearable. We had received urgent messages from these doctors saying for God's sake to send Americans to guard the hospital against the insurgents, who, they feared, would murder them and their patients. We had posted guards as soon as possible, but not before the insurgents had robbed them of all the clothing not on their backs and all their food except enough for twelve hours. It seemed incredible to us, after the smoke and excite- ment of battle had cleared away, that we had lost not a single man, and that not a single ship had been seriously damaged. Primarily- to the wretched gunnery of the Spanish we owed our escape; but there was an element of luck also in the escape of so many vessels from random shots. Many of their guns were old, but still they had enough good guns afloat and ashore to have made a destruc- tive fight had they had the skill to handle them. Of am- munition and torpedoes also they had an ample store. No one who witnessed the Spaniards in action could say that they lacked courage. In fact, they exposed themselves, yet their valor was wasted in this long-range fighting. It was the oft-told story of the man behind the gun. NARRATIVE OF JOEL C. EVANS, GUNNER OF THE " BOSTON." I was in charge of the forward ammunition supply on the Boston during the battle of Manila Bay. I can only 104 ^^^ Progress of a United People tell of the battle as I saw it and heard of its incidents at the time from officers and men aboard the American men-of- war. About five o'clock, just as daylight brightened the horizon, we were rushed to cjuarters without breakfast except a bite of hardtack and some cold meat. My station was on the forward berth-deck. My duties were to see that the am- munition called for from above was sent on deck wath the utmost despatch and without mistakes in the size and kind desired. All the ammunition is stored in the lower hold, or the part of the ship next to the keel, there being dif- ferent compartments for the powder, the shells, and the fixed ammunition. Technically, I had charge of the " forward powder division," and under me were twenty-five men. They were firemen and coal-heavers, off duty in the engine- room and trained to man the whips. They were used "to their work, as this was their regular battle station, and even in practice the same discipline was deforced as when now we were fighting for country and life. Nothing had been neglected, and we were in perfect readiness when at daybreak we descried a line of merchant vessels at anchor, and soon afterward the Spanish men-of- war. Nine were counted drawn up in battle array. Now began our work in earnest. The most exciting incident of the battle, perhaps never ex- ceeded in its audacity and its fearful results for the attack- ing party, was the attempt of two torpedo-boats to destroy the Olympia. They waited as she approached, and then came at her full speed. The Olympia poured a storm of big shells about them, but they presented such a small target at the distance of several miles that they were not hit, and each moment of their nearer approach was filled with sus- The Battle of Manila Bay 105 pense and dread for all on our ships. Insignificant as they were, they might send the flag-ship to the bottom of the bay, and every shot directed at them carried a prayer for its success. When within eight hundred yards the Olympia used her secondary battery, and almost drowned the torpe- do-boats in a rain of projectiles. The one which led sud- denly paused, and then, coming on a few feet, blew up and sank with her crew. The other fled for the beach, and was found there the next day, a mere sieve, battered and blood- stained. The engagement was a general one by this time, and forts and ships fired at one another with the fury of despera- tion on one side and perfect confidence on the other. It was a lesson to see how quickly we relapsed into the routine of ship life after firing had ceased. Decks were washed and galley fires lighted. The big events that came later are better told by those who were in authority. It w^as related to me by an officer on the Olympia that when the token of surrender had been shown, Dewey turned to his staflf and said : " I 've the prettiest lot of men that ever stepped on shipboard, and their hearts are as stout as the ships." After the first flush of victory there w^as much work to be done, and we were all busy for several days. Incidents of the hot hours of fighting were recalled, and at mess the heroic and the ludicrous were mingled in the talk. Among the gunners the favorite discussion was the marksmanship of the Spanish. They lacked only skill to make a good fight. They had had scarcely any target practice. We of the Boston had had thirteen practice shoots in a twelve- month. We husbanded our ammunition during the bat- tle, while they poured it prodigally into the bay. They io6 The Progress of a United People seemed to fire at random during the engagement of our en- tire fleet, whereas each American gunner had his target and concentrated his fire upon it. The British naval officers in Hong-Kong knew the difference between us and the Spanish in this particular, and when we were leaving port for Manila the captain of the Imrnortalite shouted to Cap- tain Wildes : " You will surely win. I have seen too much of your target practice to doubt it." The British in China were confident of our victory when we sailed, but I believe that the Russian, German, and French naval officers thought Spain would conquer. / \ "-'*..,. The Dewey Medal. Provided by act of Congress for those who took part in the battle of Manila Bay CUTTING A HEMISPHERE IN TWO By George Ethelbert Walsh Before the present generation of children has grown up, an important feature of their geographies will be changed to describe North and South America as two great islands instead of one continuous continent. As the work of cut- ting the Western Hemisphere in two is in charge of the American government, there is little question about its final success. Modern machinery and methods of engineering work can accomplish what the French people failed to do a quarter of a century ago, and with American genius and enterprise back of the undertaking, the Panama Canal will doubtless soon be an accomplished fact. This great " dream of the navigator " is almost as old as the discovery of America. It was when the conviction spread abroad in Europe that Columbus had only discovered a new continent, and not a new western passage to the wealth of the Indies, that men of science and travel began to think of opening a navigable channel from the Atlantic to the Pacific. As early as 1581, a survey was made to see if North and South America could not be cut in two. Captain Antonio Pereira, Governor of Costa Rica, explored a route by way of the San Juan River, the lake of the same name, and the rivers which empty into the Gulf of Nicoya, Costa Rica. This early survey was the first actual begin- ning of the story of Panama, which now promises to reach a conclusion wuthin the next ten years. Diego de Mercado, 107 io8 The Progress of a United People about thirty-nine years later, made a survey of the Nicara- gua route, and recommended to King Philip of Spain the construction of an interoceanic canal along the lines de- scribed by him. From that time to the year when the French company, under the famous French engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps, Las Cruces, a typical village of the Republic of Panama. essayed to cut the Isthmus of Panama in two, the Nicaragua and Panama routes have been periodically surveyed and re- surveyed until probably no other out-of-the-way corner of the earth has received half as much examination and geo- graphical attention. Many schemes of constructing the canal were proposed. Navigators of all parts of the world realized the importance of the canal or of some other method of transportation across the isthmus. One of the boldest conceptions was made by an American engineer, James B. Eads, who proposed to construct at Tehuantepec Cutting a Hemisphere in Two 109 a railroad from ocean to ocean, or rather from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, capable of carrying the largest ships. Gigantic engines and flat-cars were to be built to run on double track. These cars were to run down an in- cline into great locks, so that ocean steamers could be floated upon them. Then the engines would cross the nar- row tongue of land and launch the steamers in the ocean op- posite. In this novel way the journey around the world, or from Europe to the East Indies, would not be inter- rupted, and passengers could go to sleep on the Atlantic and wake up the next morning on the Pacific. But the great ship railroad was never built, and the agi- tation for digging the canal to cut the Western Hemisphere in two was continued. The great scheme possessed a pecu- liar fascination for men of science and commerce; but it was not until 1879 that the first positive step was taken to realize the dream of the ages. In that year an interna- tional congress was held in Paris, and before it appeared Ferdinand de Lesseps to espouse the cause of a French en- gineering company, organizing to undertake the work of separating North and South America by a ship-canal. The Isthmus of Panama is a narrow strip of land, scarcely twenty-one miles wide at its narrowest point; but the canal, owing to the character of the land, would have a total length of about forty-six miles. To cut a ship-canal of this length, the early French company estimated, would cost 843,000,000 francs, which later was reduced by De Lesseps to 600,000,000 francs, or about $120,000,000 of our money. This huge cost did not deter the people of France from buying the bonds and stocks of the Panama Canal Company, and the money was soon raised. The genius of the company was the man who had constructed 110 The Progress of a United People the Suez Canal, and his presence at the head of the under- taking was sufficient to give faith and confidence to all. De Lesseps himself was so confident of his success that he extended invitations to prominent men all over the w^orld to attend the opening of the canal in 1888. The first shipment of machinery and workmen arrived in Colon on February 21, 1881, and almost immediately be- gan one of the most dramatic stories of modern times. Fraud, incompetency, mismanagement, and lack of knowl- edge of the grave conditions that confronted the contrac- tors on the Isthmus combined to delay the work, and in time to wreck the company. The inside history of the story may never be made perfectly plain to the world. Millions of dollars' worth of machinery that was never used was shipped to the Isthmus. The whole length of the proposed canal is marked by these monuments to man's mis- management and greed. Extensive camps and hospitals were built on the route of the canal, and thousands of work- men were sent down, only to die in the fever-ridden climate or to return home disgusted. The second chapter in the story of the Isthmus of Panama opens with the United States. Up to this time American engineers had favored the Nicaragua route; but with the failure of the second French Panama Canal Com- pany public attention in this country was directed to the Isthmus. The United States government sent several com- missioners to the Isthmus to report on the feasibility of buying up the French rights and property. The first American commission reported that a canal could be completed at an expenditure of $67,000,000 by way of Nicaragua, but later this estimate was raised to $140,000,000. Cutting a Hemisphere in Two ill In 1889 President McKinley sent another commission south to study the problem of cutting the hemisphere in two. Negotiations were begun with the directors of the old French Panama Company, and after years of fruitless work it was decided to transfer the rights of France to America. Ac- cording to this agreement, the United States government is to pay to the French Panama Canal Company $40,000,- 000 for all its rights and privileges. It is further estimated by the American Panama Canal Company, which receives the property and concessions, that $184,233,358 will be re- quired to complete the forty-six miles of canal. Since the ratification of this agreement by the two coun- tries, events have moved rapidly on the Isthmus, and every boy and girl must be familiar with the changes that created the new Republic of Panama. The third chapter of the story of the canal begins wath the events of to-day,* and will end when our country will throw open the canal to the commerce of the world. Will American control of the canal complete wnthin this time one of the most important engineering schemes the world has ever faced? In paying to the French shareholders $40,- 000,000, the American company acquires the right to all the machinery and plant equipments on the Isthmus; but the engineers in calculating the cost took no note of this neglected property. Of the $20,000,000 worth of ma- chinery on the Isthmus, including miles of steel rails, scores of steamers, dredges, scores bf machine-shops, and acres of dump-cars, probably not more than one tenth will ever prove of any actual value. So injurious to iron and steel is the effect of the tropical climate that much of the machinery is rusted beyond repair. Some of it, it is said, has become * Written in 1904. 112 The Progress of a United People so rotten that one can push a hat-pin through almost as easily as if it was so much cheese. There are nearly 2,500 buildings on the Isthmus belong- ing to the company, and accommodations for nearly 20,000 laborers. The hospitals are valued at a million dollars, and the machine-shops at half as much more. But everything is in a sad state of decay and neglect. On all sides stand monuments to the criminal folly and mismanagement of the early company. The canal route is to-day covered over with a luxuriant growth of plants, vines, and trees; but V- -#->.. Houses for workmen along the line ot the Canal scratch the surface anywhere and there come to light the most unexpected signs of French workmanship. Every sort of article, from kitchen utensils to locomotives and dump-carts, appears half embedded in the soil. Engineering science and sanitary science have both ad- Cutting a Hemisphere in Two 113 vanced with wondrous strides since those early days of ac- tivity on the Isthmus, and it may be that the problem of digging the canal is not now so formidable an undertaking as many imagine. For one thing, engineers know how to fight fevers and disease in the tropics as never before, and the workman will be safeguarded from the climate in every possible way. Numerous hospitals and sanitary camps will be established among the first things, and those who go to dig the canal will not leave behind them all hope of surviv- ing their work. The value of the canal to the commerce of the world can be readily understood by any girl or boy who will refer to a common map of the world. Both the United States and Europe will reap great benefits from it. By the pres- ent route, steamers sailing from New York to San Fran- cisco by way of the Strait of Magellan must cover some 13,090 miles, including the usual stops required for coal- ing. When the canal across the Isthmus of Panama is opened, the distance will be shortened to 5,294 miles — a saving of nearly 8,000 miles. Steamers bound from Euro- pean ports would find almost equal advantages. Those sailing from Hamburg to San Francisco would have their present route shortened by 5,648 miles. Steamers sailing from New York to Australia and New Zealand now go by the way of Cape of Good Hope. By going through the new canal this route would be shortened between 3,500 and 5,175 miles, according to the port they were bound for. Our ships from the Atlantic seaboard must now pass through the Suez Canal to reach China and Japan in the most direct way. The total distance from New York to Yokohama, Japan, is 13,040 miles, and through the Panama Canal it would be reduced to 10,088 114 The Progress of a United People miles. From New York to Shanghai, China, the saving in distance through the canal would amount to 1,339 miles. To the Oriental countries the saving is thus not so great as along our own coast and to our Pacific Ocean possessions, owing to the fact that China and Japan are nearly opposite us on the globe. But to Hawaii there would be a distinct saving of 6,581 miles. Saving in time and distance does not mean so much to sailing vessels, but it is very important to ocean steamers. With coal at three or four dollars per ton wholesale, the saving in money from a trip through the Panama Canal would quickly mount up into thousands of dollars. It is estimated that from New York to San Francisco the actual saving in coal for the average freight steamer would be $3,000. The saving in time would be even more important. A steamer on this line makes only about two round trips a year through the Strait of Magellan, but through the Panama Canal at least five round trips a year probably could be made. It might be interesting to go further into figures to show how much the Panama Canal would benefit the world, such as the total tonnage that would be likely to pass through the narrow waterway each year, and the extra number of pass- enger ships that would ply between New York and San Francisco ; but sufficient has been said to convince any one of the great need of this new waterway. By dividing a hemisphere, man will create a new commerce of the world, and bring the countries of both sides of the globe into closer relationship. Next to girdling the globe with submarine cables, therefore, this work of cutting through the Isthmus of Panama will prove, it is hardly too much to say, the most important commercial event of the age. ATLANTIC ^x^ PAC 1 ri C Map of the route of the Panama Canal. THE PANAMA CANAL By William Barclay Parsons Member of the Isthmian Canal Commission of 1904-1905 ]\Iember of the Board of Consulting Engineers The story of a transisthmian canal begins on that day when Balboa, after struggling through a tropical jungle and up the steep flank of a mountain-range in what is now Darien, saw, to his astonishment, another great and un- known ocean. Since then there has been a steadily in- creasing pressure to complete the quest of Columbus and find, or, if it could not be found, then to make, a passage from the West to the Far East. AA'ith the indomitable will of the freebooter of the Spanish Main, who balked at no 115 li6 The Progress of a United People obstacle, Balboa solved the difficulty so far as he was con- cerned by carrying his ships piece by piece, spar by -spar, across the Isthmus and fitting them out on the Pacific. The modern ship cannot be treated so lightly ; and since nature has failed to pierce the narrow neck of land separa- ting the two great seas, it is left to the men of the twentieth century, not to carry their ships as did he of the sixteenth, but to provide an artificial river through which the modern leviathans can be navigated in safety. As soon as Balboa's discovery had been followed up so as to prove the unbroken continuance of land between the main continents of the two Americas, the attention of the early explorers was drawn to the possibility of constructing a waterway, and even Cortez made surveys for one at Tehuantepec. But the great task of cutting through the Continental Divide was quite beyond the powers of any appliances then existing, or even of such as were developed during the next three hundred and fifty years. THE ATLANTIC END OE THE CANAL IS THE WEST END. Before considering the canal and its details, it is well to fix in the mind the geographical location of Panama; for, extraordinary as it may appear, but few grasp the singular features of its position. The ordinary conception of North and South America is, that the two great continents are situ- ated directly north and south of each other, and that Panama lies on about the median axis of the United States, or, say, south of the Mississippi Valley. A glance at a map, how- ever, will show that South America does not lies due south of North America, but wholly to the east of the meridian of Florida, so that the eastern coast of Brazil lies more The Panama Canal 117 Abandoned French dredge. nearly south of London than of New York. The result is that the Isthmus of Panama is not only east of Havana and Key West, but is about on a line with Buffalo. As the Isthmus of 'Panama lies east and west and not north and south, as it is popu- larly pictured ; and as the canal runs from northwest to south- east, the Atlantic end of the canal lies west of the Pacific end, so that the west end becomes the east end. These apparent geographical para- doxes have a most important bearing upon the commercial aspects of the canal, especially as they are related to the Pacific coast. The shortest distance between any two points on a sphere is by a " great circle," that is, a line cut on the surface of the sphere by a plane passing through the two points in question and the center of the sphere itself. The great circle connecting Panama with Japan and China or any point on the eastern Asiatic coast passes through the Carib- bean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, Galveston, Denver, strikes the Pacific coast of the United States north of Seattle, and skirts the Aleutian Islands. The navigator will keep his ship as close to the above route between the Isthmus and any port in the Far East as land permits. That is, after passing through the canal, he will first go south, then north- west along the coast of Central America and Mexico, and, after clearing Cape St. Lucas, the southern end of Lower Ii8 The Progress of a United People California, he will take the great circle from there to Asia, and this great circle will carry him about 1,700 miles to the east of Hawaii and only 300 miles west of San Francisco. As the ordinary tramp freight-steamer cannot, or will not wish to, carry enough coal to take her from the Isthmus to Asia, Excavator at work in the Culebra Cut. she will have to stop at the most conv-enient in- termediate point for coal and supplies. This point will be San Francisco, distant 3,277 miles from Panama and 4,536 miles from Yokohama ; and in order to make such call, she will be lengthening her passage only no miles, or less than half a day in time, over the shortest possible course in a total distance of 7,813 miles. The extraordinary re- sult — one apparently not generally understood by the American public — is that San Francisco will become the The Panama Canal 119 " key " and gateway of the Pacific, where all vessels going to the Far East, not only from the Atlantic seaboard, but from Europe as well, will stop for coal and supplies. This American excavator at work. coal, if it be not found of satisfactory quality on the West- ern coast, will be brought in special vessels from Ala- bama and West Virginia and stored, awaiting consumption, as Cardiff coal is now stored at various points along the Suez route in the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. At no place will the existence of the canal be more in evidence than at San Francisco, where a continuous pro- 120 The Progress of a United People cession of east- and west-bound steamers will be stopping daily. THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT IN CONTROL. The conditions confronting the United States government differ radically, how- ever, from those which confronted the French com- panies, or that would confront any private com- pany that can be ' irganized. For I he outlay made l)y the American government, act- ual property or a full equivalent in work has been Inspection car. obtained, and no unnecessary capital of wasted money weighs down the enterprise. By the cession to the American government, by the new Republic of Panama, of a strip of territory ten miles wide from ocean to ocean, in perpetuity, all question of a concession life is permanently removed; and, finally, inasmuch as the American government will not have to consider a canal from the point of view of returning a large profit on an investment, and as it can obtain the necessary The Panama Canal 121 funds at an interest charge certainly one half of what would have to be paid by a private organization, it is obvious that plans can be considered that will involve a much larger capital investment, and that will require more time for completion. In short, the American government is free from ordinary limitations. CHANGE IN CONDITIONS. The question is frequently asked, How are conditions so radically changed since the French failure to build a sea- level canal as to permit the United States to undertake it now with any hope of success? In the first place, the first French management was incompetent and extravagant al- ^> -«4a^^ ^ , siei^aar^. ,'y>'^:' " te ^r^-^^^^-^^' ^ The condition of the Culebra Cut, Christmas eve, 1904. 122 The Progress of a United People most beyond conception. Secondly, both it and its succes- sor, the New Company, were private corporations working for a commercial profit, and obliged to pay at least six per cent, for their capital ; whereas the American government, being able to borrow at almost one third that rate, can invest nearly three times the same capital without placing any greater annual burden on the enterprise. Thirdly, great progress has taken place in machine-excavators, by which the material can be handled more cheaply, while the pre- viously unrealizable development of electric power at Gamboa will pay for that portion of the construction. Finally, as a justification if not a reason, ships have in- creased so greatly in size that what would have sufficed twenty years ago would be inadequate now. A CANAL FOR AMERICA. The greatest beneficiary of the canal will be the people of the United States, so that the Panama Canal will be essen- tially an American canal, except that until our navigation ATLAfJTir OrCAN ...iiM^^J' Cross-section of the Isthmus on canal route. laws are either increased or decreased the American flag from vessels' peaks will not be seen as often as those of other nations. From north European ports to India, China, and Japan the distance by either Suez or Panama will be substantially the same; and therefore vessels will probably The Panama Canal 123 continue to use the established trade route, except in the case of very large ships that cannot pass over the restricted depth of the Suez Canal, which limits them to a draft of twenty-eight feet. From Great Britain and Germany to Australia and New Zealand there will be a saving in dis- tance of about fifteen hundred miles over Suez — sufficient probably to be a determining factor. For American trade the shortening will be all-important. From New York to Manila the difference is small ; but to Yokohama it amounts to 3,729 nautical miles; to Shanghai, 1,629 miles; and, as against the route via the Straits of Magellan, to Callao, 6,343 miles ; and to San Francisco, 7,640 miles. It will bring the grain-fields of the northwestern Pacific States 6,000 miles nearer Liverpool ; and it will bring the iron and coal of the Gulf States shipped from New Orleans and Pensacola, 9,500 miles nearer San Francisco; giving to the former a new great market not now open, and to the latter a cheap supply of the raw materials of manufacturing. In the past the great bulk of our foreign trade has been w^ith Europe. Great as is the transatlantic trade, the transpacific presents greater possibilities. On the far shores of this ocean there are 400,000,000 persons eager to do business, and rapidly awakening to an appreciation of the benefits of foreign commerce. The Panama Canal will be second only to the transcontinental railways in developing American trade, both internal and foreign. It has been announced that the American government is to give all nations equal terms and equal rights, and to levy toll without regard to commercial profit. Such a course, in bringing nearer the ends of the earth and drawing closer the peoples thereof, is the greatest promise of universal peace, and a long step toward the time when disputes be- 124 ^^^ Progress of a United People tween nations, like those between individuals, will be ad- justed without an appeal to arms. When at last the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific are commingled there will be gathered the full fruits of the dis- covery by Balboa, who not only lost his life upon the Isthmus, but would also have been robbed of the glory of the discovery, in favor of Cortez, if the poet Keats could have had his way when he said : Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific, and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise, Silent, upon a peak in Darien. - '^, — •rr The old water department of Panama, THE WRIGHT BROTHERS' AEROPLANE By Orville and Wilbur Wright With Pictures from Photographs Supplied by the Authors Though the subject of aerial navigation is generally con- sidered new, it has occupied the minds of men more or less from the earliest ages. Our personal interest in it dates from our childhood days. Late in the autumn of 1878, our father came into the house one evening with some object partly concealed in his hands, and before we could see what it was, he tossed it into the air. Listead of falling to the A gliding flight. (October 21, 1903.) 125 126 The Progress of a United People floor, as we expected, it flew across the room till it struck the ceiling, where it fluttered awhile, and finally sank to the floor. It was a little toy, known to scientists as a helicop- tere, but which we, with sublime disregard for science, at once dubbed a '' bat." It was a light frame of cork and bamboo, covered with paper, which formed two screws, driven in opposite directions by rubber bands under torsion. A toy so delicate lasted only a short time in the hands of small boys, but its memory was abiding. Several years later we began building these helicopteres for ourselves, making each one larger than that preceding. But, to our astonishment, we found that the larger the '' bat," the less it flew. We did not know that a machine having only twice the linear dimensions of another would require eight times the power. We finally became dis- couraged, and returned to kite-flying, a sport to which we had devoted so much attention that we were regarded as experts. But as we became older, we had to give up this fascinating sport as unbecoming to boys of our ages. In the field of aviation there were two schools. The first, represented by such men as Professor Langley and Sir Hiram Maxim, gave chief attention to power flight; the second, represented iDy Lilienthal, Mouillard, and Chanute, to soaring flight. Our sympathies were with the latter school, partly from impatience at the wasteful ex- travagance of mounting delicate and costly machinery on wings which no one knew how to manage, and partly", no doubt, from the extraordinary charm and enthusiasm with which the apostles of soaring flight set forth the beauties of sailing through the air on fixed wings, deriving the motive power from the wind itself. The balancing of a flyer may seem, at first thought, to The Wright Brothers' Aeroplane 127 be a very simple matter, yet almost every experimenter had found in this the one point which he could not satisfactorily master. The period from 1885 to 1900 was one of unexampled activity in aeronautics, and for a time there was high hope that the age of flying was at hand. But Maxim, after spending $100,000, abandoned the work; the Ader machine, built at the expense of the French Government, was a fail- ure ; Lilienthal and Pilcher were killed in experiments ; and Chanute and many others, from one cause or another, had relaxed their efforts, though it subsequently became known that Professor Langley was still secretly at work on a ma- chine for the United States Government. The public, discouraged by the failures and tragedies just witnessed, considered flight beyond the reach of man, and classed its adherents with the inventors of per- petual motion. We began our active experiments at the close of this period, in October, 1900, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Our machine was designed to be flown as a kite, with a man on board, in winds ^^.^^^^ November 9, 1904. of from fifteen to twenty miles an hour. But, upon trial, it was found that much stronger winds were required to lift it. Suitable winds not being plentiful, we found it necessary, in order 128 The Progress of a United People to test the new balancing system, to fly the machine as a kite without a man on board, operating the levers through cords from the ground. This did not give the practice anticipated, but it inspired confidence in the new system of balance. In the summer of 1901 we became personally acquainted with Mr. Chanute. When he learned that we were inter- ested in flying as a sport, and not with any expectation of recovering the money we were expending on it, he gave us much encouragement. At our invitation, he spent several weeks with us at our camp at Kill Devil Hill, four miles south of Kitty Hawk, during our experiments of that and the two succeeding years. He also witnessed one flight of the power machine near Dayton, Ohio, in October, 1904. We then turned to gliding — coasting down hill on the air — as the only method of getting the desired practice in n Flight, November 16, 1904. balancing a machine. After a few minutes' practice we were able to make glides of over 300 feet, and in a few days were The Wright Brothers' Aeroplane 129 safely operating in twenty-seven-mile ^ winds. In these experiments we met with several unexpected phenomena. We found that, contrary to the teachings of the books, the center of pressure on a curved surface traveled backward when the surface was inclined, at small angles, more and more edgewise to the wind. We also dis- covered that in free flight, when the wing on one side of the machine was pre- sented to the wind at a greater angle than the one on the other side view, showing the machine traveling to qiVIp thp wino- with ^^^ "S^"'^' '^^'^^^ double horizontal rudder Siae, tne wmg Wltn .^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^j^ vertical rudder be- the greater angle de- hind. SCended and the ma- This flight was made September 29, 1905, and the ' distance covered was twelve miles. chine turned in a di- rection just the reverse of what we were led to expect when flying the machine as a kite. The larger angle gave more resistance to forward motion and reduced the speed of the wing on that side. The decrease in speed more than coun- terbalanced the effect of the larger angle. The addition of a fixed vertical vane in the rear increased the trouble, and made the machine absolutely dangerous. It was some time before a remedy was discovered. This consisted of movable rudders working in conjunction with the twisting of the 1 The gliding flights were all made against the wind. The difficulty in^ high winds is in maintaining balance, not in traveling against the wind. 9 130 The Progress of a United People wings. The details of this arrangement are given in our patent specifications, pubHshed several years ago. The experiments of 1901 were far from encouraging. Although Mr. Chanute assured us that, both in control and in weight carried per horse-power, the results obtained were better than those of any of our predecessors, yet we saw that the calculations upon which all flying- machines had been based were unreliable, and that all were simply groping in the dark. Having set out with abso- lute faith in the existing scientific data, we were driven to doubt one thing after another, till finally, after two years of experiment, we cast it all aside, and decided to rely entirely upon our own investigations. Truth and error were everywhere so intimately mixed as to be undistin- guishable. To work intelligently, one needs to know the effects of a multitude of variations that could be incorporated in the surfaces of flying-machines. The pressures on squares are different from those on rectangles, circles, triangles, or ellipses ; arched surfaces differ from planes, and vary among themselves according to the depth of curvature; true arcs differ from parabolas, and the latter differ among them- selves; thick surfaces differ from thin, and surfaces thick- er in one place than another vary in pressure when the posi- tions of maximum thickness are different ; some surfaces are most efficient at one angle, others at other angles. The shape of the edge also makes a difference, so that thousands of combinations are possible in so simple a thing as a wing. We had taken up aeronautics merely as a sport. We reluctantly entered upon the scientific side of it. But we soon found the work so fascinating that we were drawn into it deeper and deeper. Two testing-machines were The Wright Brothers' Aeroplane 131 built, which we beheved would avoid the errors to which the measfirements of others had been subject. In September and October, 1902, nearly one thousand gliding flights were made, several of which covered dis- tances of over 600 feet. Some, made against a wind of thirty-six miles an hour, gave proof of the effectiveness of the devices for control. With this machine, in the autumn of 1903, we made a number of flights in which we remained in the air for over a minute, often soaring for a consider- able time in one spot, without any descent at all. Little wonder that our unscientific assistant should think the only thing needed to keep it indefinitely in the air would be a coat of feathers to make it light ! With accurate data for making calculations, and a system of balance effective in winds as well as in calms, we were now in a position, we thought, to build a successful power- flyer. The first designs provided for a total weight of 600 pounds, including the operator and an eight horse-power motor. But, upon completion, the motor gave more power than had been estimated, and this allowed 150 pounds to be added for strengthening the wings and other parts. We had not been flying long in 1904 before we found that the problem of equilibrium had not as yet been entirely solved. Sometimes, in making a circle, the machine would turn over sidewise despite anything the operator could do, although, under the same conditions in ordinary straight flight, it could have been righted in an instant. In one flight, in 1905, while circling around a honey locust-tree at a height of about fifty feet, the machine suddenly began to turn up on one wing, and took a course toward the tree. The operator, not relishing the idea of landing in a thorn- tree, attempted to reach the ground. The left wing, how- 132 The Progress of a United People ever, struck the tree at a height of ten or twelve feet from the ground, and carried away several branches; but the flight, which had already covered a distance of six miles, was continued to the starting-point. The causes of these troubles — too technical for explana- tion here — were not entirely overcome till the end of Sep- tember, 1905. A practical flyer having been finally realized, we spent the years 1906 and 1907 in constructing new machines and in business negotiations. It was not till May of this year that experiments (discontinued in October, 1905) were resumed at Kill Devil Hill, North Carolina. The recent flights were made to test the ability of our machine to meet the requirements of a contract with the United States Gov- ernment to furnish a flyer capable of carrying two men and sufficient fuel supplies for a flight of 125 miles, with a speed of forty miles an hour. The machine used in these tests was the same one with which the flights were made at Simms Station in 1905, though several changes had been made to meet present requirements. The operator as- sumed a sitting position, instead of lying prone, as in 1905, and a seat was added for a passenger. A larger motor was installed, and radiators and gasolene reservoirs of larger capacity replaced those previously used. No attempt was made to make high or long flights. In order to show the general reader the way in which the machine operates, let us fancy ourselves ready for the start. The machine is placed upon a single rail track facing the wind, and is securely fastened with a cable. The engine is put in motion, and the propellers in the rear whir. You take your seat at the center of the machine beside tlie opera- tor. He slips the cable, and you shoot forward. An as- The Wright Brothers' Aeroplane 133 sistant who has been holding the machine in balance on the rail, starts forward with you, but before you have gone fifty feet the speed is too great for him, and he lets go. Before reaching the end of the track the operator moves the front rudder, and the machine lifts from the rail like a kite supported by the pressure of the air underneath it. The ground under you is at first a perfect blur, but as you rise the objects become clearer. At a height of one hundred feet you feel hardly any motion at all, except for the wind which strikes your face. If you did not take the precaution to fasten your hat before starting, you have probably lost it by this time. The operator moves a lever : the right wing rises, and the machine swings about to the left. You make a very short turn, yet you do not feel the sensation of being thrown from your seat, so often experienced in auto- mobile and railway travel. You find yourself facing to- ward the point from which you started. The objects on the ground now seem to be moving at much higher speed, though you perceive no change in the pressure of the wind on your face. You know then that you are traveling with wind. When you near the starting-point, the operator stops the motor while still high in the air. The machine coasts down at an oblique angle to the ground, and after sliding fifty or a hundred feet comes to rest. Although the machine often lands when traveling at a speed of a mile a minute, you feel no shock whatever, and cannot, in fact, tell the exact moment at which it first touched the ground. The motor close beside you kept up an almost deafening roar during the whole flight, yet in your excitement, you did not notice it till it stopped ! Our experiments have been conducted entirely at our own expense. In the beginning we had no thought of recover- 134 The Progress of a United People ing what we were expending, which was not great, and was limited to what we could afford for recreation. Later, when a successful flight had been made with a motor, we gave up the business in which we w^re engaged, to devote our entire time and capital to the development of a ma- chine for practical uses. Maxim's jfirst aeroplane. THE WESTERN RAILROAD By Ray Stannard Baker We of the unstirred East are accustomed to look upon the railroad as a mere feature of the landscape, a natural phenomenon to be enjoyed or suffered, as the case may be, a convenience subject to inconveniences. We may know the conductor of our favorite train and the station-agent, who also looks after our express packages; but the presi- dent of the road — who could be more distant and imper- sonal? For in the East the railroad is an incident; in the West, a destiny. You will not remain long in this new land before you feel the intimate, personal, paternal presence of the railroad, advising, beguiling, influencing, offering you largess here, blocking your pet purposes there, until you acquire a new idea of the meaning and function of the road. I shall not forget the surprised exclamation of a general agent when I innocently suggested that his road might be interested in Western development. " Why," he replied, '' the West is purely a railroad en- terprise. We started it in our publicity department." It was a remark that contains more than the usual grain of truth. The West was inevitable, but the railroad was the instrument of its fate. In the East, the railroad was built to connect important towns; it was amiably subservient to an old civilization; it 135 136 The Progress of a United People accepted the dictates of the alderman and the legislator, it came to town meekly, glad to find an unoccupied spot where it might plant its station, allowing small matters like streets to force it up in the air on bridges or bury it deep in tunnels ; but in the West the road developed the full stature of in- dependence. It pushed its way across States, counties, plains, mountains, consulting only the dictates of its own pleasure. Towns came because of the road, not the road because of the towns. Some official put an inky finger on the map. '' There," he said, '' is a good place for a city. Call it Smith's Coulee, after our master-mechanic." And the railroad, having thus a sort of automatic gift of prophecy, acquired all the land in the immediate neighbor- hood, reserved every possible privilege for itself, and of- fered corner lots to future inhabitants. First Smith's Coulee was a tank-stop, then a place on the map, then a post-office, then a town, then perhaps a city, with electric lights and telephones. Except the mining-camps, which grew up where they willed in spite of the road, this is the history of nearly all the towns of the West, even some of the most important. More than one Pacific coast port des- tined to become a great city ow^es its existence to the fact that an engineer found this particular spot the easiest ap- proach for his road. American towns have been denied individuality. " You see one," says the critic, " and you see all." But these Western railroad towns are peculiar unto themselves. The Montana town is the ^Montana town, and very different in- deed from the Ohio or the Alichigan town. Smith's Coulee lies close at the side of its parent, the railroad, as if fearing to venture out into the open plain — a single long, wide street, the grimy red station, freight-house, and water- The Western Railroad 137 tank on one side, and a row of square-front, unpainted wooden stores on the other, with saddled cayuses standing, check-rein down, in front of the Gem Saloon. There is a general store, which is also the post-office, a feed stable, an agricultural-implement emporium, a barber shop, and numerous saloons, all in a row. The dust swirls in at one end of the street and out at the other, and twice every day the limited express goes streaking through. As the town grows, they plant a brick schoolhouse — the school is al- ways the best building in a Western town — on a fenced square of the desert, a little way out; then a bare wooden church with silent steeple rises on a corner — probably the first corner, geographical or moral, that the town ever had. Presently a side street appears, and a residential part, though it is difficult enough even for the homes to get away from the railroad. Then the road builds a coal-bin be- yond the water-tank, paints it red, and another street opens on the farther side of the tracks, with a feed and hardware store at the crossing. At the end of the fourth year. Smith's Coulee has a Fourth-of-July celebration; the in- habitants declare it good, and it grows and waxes strong. At the end of ten years it has become the greatest in the world in something or other — in the number of horses it ships to market, or the amount of alfalfa it raises, or the height of the stand-pipe of its water-works. With coming self -consciousness it discovers a bitter rival in Jones City, fifty miles farther up the track, named after the fourth vice-president and celebrated as having the best baseball team in the State. Earnest, strenuous, ambitious towns are these, full of ozone and energy. The ubiquitous commercial traveler Avho occupies the best chair in the smoking compartment will tell you that they are " lively 138 The Progress of a United People towns," " good business places," and how much they sell of shoes and saddles and calico. Smith's Coulee and Jones City read many newspapers, — read out of all proportion to their size, — and go into politics as though politics really meant something. Two parties grow up, extra-political, but enthusiastic, one pro- railroad, the other anti-railroad. And still later, especially during hard times, they amalgamate and become fiercely anti-railroad (including all the inhabitants except the station-agent and the roundhouse foreman). Petitions are drawn up and resolutions are adopted looking to the reduc- tion of freight-rates. We of the East live in peaceful ig- norance of freight-rates, but if you talk any length of time with any Western business man, you will find him veering around sooner or later to freight-rates. He will tell you that if the road would only make a through tariff (he speaks volubly of tariffs, differentials, yardage, and the like) of forty-eight cents instead of fifty-three, — only five cents reduction, mind you, — a new industry would blossom forth- with, cities would boom joyfully, settlers would rush in ; but while the rate is fifty-three cents, any one can see that ruin is the only outcome. Mass-meetings are held, letters are printed in the papers. Congress is petitioned, the in- fluential citizen puts on his derby hat and goes to see the officials ; but the patriarchal road, driving its red trains across a thousand miles of desert and over two mountain ranges, in the dust and heat of summer and the deep snows of winter, goes its superior way, and the rate remains at fifty- three. But the road has not forgotten its people, though they wax impatient. By and by, to-morrow, when that tunnel in Idaho is finished and the coal-mine in Wyoming is opened, after the people have entirely forgotten the heat The Western Railroad 139 of the freight controversy in the absorbing attempt to compel the road to make Smith's a regular stop for its much belauded express (dining-car, barber shop, library, and all that), the road calmly makes a rate of forty-nine, or perhaps forty-five or forty-two, and no one thinks any- thing more about it. Built upon faith in a virgin country, with a restless, ex- pansive, ambitious people, the road is ever solicitous for development, being wholly unable to look upon its plains and mountains except with the eye of the prophetic imagina- tion. If you doubt, read the newest railroad pamphlet, and you will see the very desert smiling with crops, gold bursting from the hills, and deer and elk and bear to be seen from the car windows. Talk with the special agent, and lose your very soul in longing for a Montana farm or an Oregon orchard or a Colorado ranch. Ask any settler in some part of the West why he immigrated, and he will invariably point you back to the beguil- ing road, a pamphlet, a fevered folder, an enthusiastic agent. You wnll find that he has not only been solicited, but perhaps moved free of expense by the road ; that he has settled on railroad land, and possibly he is now building with railroad timber and plowing with a railroad plow. And he has usually thrived, you will find, under the paren- tal care of the road. He understands the bargain : he comes out and settles to-day, assisted by the road in his pioneer struggle; next year or the year after he will have grain or cattle to ship, and he wall buy sugar and coffee, which has paid toll to the road, and he will travel back and forth in the passenger-cars and induce his friends to join him. Thus the road proves its faith, justifies its prophecies, planting acorns for oaks to grow. 140 The Progress of a United People So the road plays its part in all the wide activities of Western life. You will find it a vital power in politics, often sinister, often corrupting, always commanding. Here is an especially bright newspaper which supports with sober logic the pretensions of the road. Delve deep, and you will find the money of the road working in the editorial till. Here is a struggling church: the road has not only furnished the land for the new building, but its money has purchased the cabinet organ and the big Bible. This street carnival glitters more brightly because the road has been amiable; this water-power has been developed because the road took part of the stock; this library has more books because the first vice-president has been inter- ested. And so, mingling good and evil, the road pursues its commanding purposes — the development of an empire. And yet, great as is the power and prominence of the road in the West, it is itself only the instrument by which a mighty nation is making progress. The road was the effort of the East to knit to itself with steel the far-outlying Rockies and the Pacific coast. Without the road, the West and the East, diverse in interest and sentiment, never could have been held together. With the interchange of ideas and commodities which it encourages, the American people have been able to build up a great empire, holding together vast territory, firmly founded upon national unity. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS By Its Manager, Melville E. Stone news-gathering as a business The business of news-gathering and news-pubhshing, as we know it, is wholly an American idea, having taken its rise in this country in the early years the last century. There were coffee- houses in London and New York, where the men had been accustomed to resort to ex- change the current gossip, and letters on important topics had occasionally been pub- lished; but before this time no systematic effort had been made to keep pace with the world's happenings. Then came the newspaper, supplant- ing the chapbook, the almanac, and the political pamphlet. In the new development half a dozen men were notable. Samuel Topliff and Harry Blake were the first newsmon- gers. Topliff established a '' news-room " in Boston, where he sold market reports and shipping intelligence ; and Blake was a journalistic Gaffer Hexam, who prowled about Boston harbor in his rowboat, intercepting incoming European packets, and peddling out as best he could any news that he secured. Both these men displayed zeal and intelligence, and both became famous in their day. Topliff and Blake were succeeded by D. H. Craig, who 141 ?^'- Beautiful type of rural highway. 174 The Progress of a United People The elements for an attractive street are very simple. After properly constructed road-bed and sidewalks come shade-trees. These should be all of the same kind on one street, or at least on one block of a street. Otherwise the effect will be broken, ragged and discordant. Wherever practicable, the trees should stand in a margin of turf be- tween the sidewalk and the road. If the street is extremely broad, this turfed space can be made an ample belt of ver- dure. If, on the other hand, the street is a narrow one, and particularly if the fronts of the houses are on the line of the sidewalk, the mistake of planting trees that grow high should not be made. For, wdiile the lofty vault of the trees may give beauty to the street itself, the dense foliage will be harmful to health by excluding needed light and the free movement of fresh air from the houses. On narrow streets, therefore, trees of low-growing habit are desirable. By planting them at frequent intervals they may be made to shade the walks sufficiently, and at the same time they will not deprive the adjacent dwellings of needed light and air. As a rule, shade-trees are undesirable for urban busi- ness thoroughfares, unless the streets are particularly broad. In the latter event, trees naturally of small size, trimmed in formal shapes, perhaps, may serve an admirable decorative function as adjuncts to good mercantile and civic architec- ture, and also for mitigating the depressing effects of mean construction. A narrow residential street may be a very attractive one if the houses stand well back from the street-line, with pleasant grounds about them. In a growing town, however, the danger from such conditions comes with the liability to convert the street to business purposes, or to erect more compactly disposed dwellings. If business comes in, the Civic Improvement 175 transition is commonly marked by jagged lines. Com- mercial structures, often of a cheap and undesirable aspect, are built out to the street, while the dwellings stand re- cessed back at irregular intervals. And when at last the street is fully occupied for business purposes, it is alto- gether too narrow; the roadway and the sidewalks are cramped, and often a widening has to take place at the public expense. If built up closely to the line with dwell- ings, the street is likely to lack air and sunshine, and the tendency is toward squalid conditions. An excellent remedy for these evils is offered in the Massachusetts law that empowers municipalities to establish building-lines at any desired distance back from the street- line. When such a line is established, no buildings can be erected on the intervening space. The municipality ac- quires an easement in this strip of land, which can still be used by the owner for anything but building purposes, and, on the establishment of such a line, owners may claim damages, as in case of takings for 'a street-widening. It is, however, commonly more of a benefit than a damage to have property thus restricted, for it assures a more perma- nently desirable character to the street; and in case a street- widening should ever be called for, no obstacle will stand in the way: by taking the restricted strips, there will be ample room for the wider roadway and sidewalks. Ideals for attractive street-planning are to be found in many parts of the United States. There is nothing more charming as a rural street than that of a New England village at its best — lofty aisles of leafage, the trees with feet in a carpet of turf at the sidewalk border; the houses, quiet and unobtrusive, standing well back, and marked with the true home character, whether they are humble 176 The Progress of a United People Magnolia Avenue at Riverside, California. An example of formal planting. cottages or abodes of the rich. The noblest development of such rural streets is to be found in the old towns of the Connecticut valley and in western Massachusetts. There the main highways have an extraordinarily generous width, often giving room for quadruple rows of old elms and broad spaces of turf, the roadway requiring only a narrow space in the total width of the thoroughfare. The beauty of such streets goes far to compensate for the too prosaic aspect of our typical wooden country houses, conferring upon the New England villages of the best type a picturesque charm that bears comparison with that of English villages, though of a quite different fashion. In this way there is probably nothing finer than the celebrated street of the Connecticut-valley town appropriately named Long Meadow. Long Meadow Street, as it is called, is bordered by almost the whole of the township's main village, which extends along the grassy interval of the great river, Civic Improvement 177 shaded by hundreds of the typical elms which in that valley are found in their highest perfection. Beneath one of the double naves of natural Gothic the electric cars now speed their way, and hundreds of long-distance trolley tourists have spread the fame of this street far and wide as one of the great sights of the Connecticut-valley trip. Such streets seem to grow, rather than to be made ; they require age to perfect the ensemble of lofty elms and venerable houses that together stand for many decades of existence. But even these stately old ways were once new, and equal effects may now be planned. To all good highway develop- ment the mellowing touch of time will give its justifying charm. There are certain great streets in various American cities famous as typical examples of civic beauty and stateli- ness. In spreading the gospel of civic improvement such object-lessons have the greatest value. What one com- munity has done surpassingly well other communities will seek to do. Hence, these great streets serve as models that, with due modifications according to local circumstance, have been widely followed elsewhere. One of the fore- most of them is Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, with its central reserved space for trees, turf, and monumental adornment, and its breadth of two hundred and forty feet between building-lines. Another famous thoroughfare of the residential type, urban and suburban in character, is Euclid Avenue in Cleveland. A celebrated illustration of the possibilities of stately development under semi-tropical conditions is Magnolia Avenue at Riverside in southern California, adorned with pepper-trees and palms, extending for miles through orange-plantations and bordered by pleasant residences. lyS The Progress of a United People To promote and preserve the charm of the typical coun- try road, as well as to beautify the formal city or village street, should be one of the chief aims in civic improve- ment. An example of a country road of ideal beauty is to be found in the Greater Boston municipalities of Medford and Winchester. A historic old colonial estate of some hundreds of acres is still owned by the descendants of the original proprietor, who in stately fashion maintained his country-seat there. A most admirable example is that set by the seaside town of Manchester, on Cape Ann. One of the town's great charms for its wealthy summer dwellers is the beauty of the drive through the Essex woods. Well-grown woods have their value for timber and fuel, however. So, to for fend all danger of wayside spoliation, the entire belt of wood- land traversed by the road, in a width just sufficient to pre- serve the integrity of the forest border, was purchased by subscription, and presented to the town for permanent preservation as a part of its park system. An area of seven acres, thus secured, was equivalent to a long roadside stretch of sylvan scenery. The example of Manchester has been followed by the Cape Cod town of Yarmouth, which for like purposes has secured a long belt of land bordering a pleasant drive through the woods. PEACE VERSUS WAR By Andrew Carnegie Long and earnestly have the teachers of men sought reHef from international war, which has drawn from the most illustrious such fierce denunciation as no other crime has evoked — perhaps not all the other national crimes com- bined. Surely no civilized community in our day can resist the conclusion that the killing of man by man as a means of settling international disputes is the foulest blot upon hu- man society and the greatest curse of human life, and that as long as men continue thus to kill one another they have slight claim to rank as civilized, since in this respect they remain savages. The crime of war is inherent : it awards victory not to the nation that is right but to that which is strong. In man's triumphant upward march he has outgrown many savage habits. He no longer eats his fellows, or buys and sells them, or sacrifices prisoners of war, or puts van- quished garrisons to the sword, or confiscates private property, poisons wells, or sacks cities. No more ... the flesh'd soldier, rough and hard at heart, In liberty of bloody hand shall range With conscience wide as hell All these changes in the rules of war have been made from time to time as our race rose from the savage state toward 179 i8o The Progress of a United People civilization. They are chiefly the good fruits of the last century, for even Wellington sacked cities. If all civilized people now regard these former atrocities of war as disgraceful to humanity, how long will it be be- fore their successors will regard the root of these barbari- ties, war itself, as unworthy of civilized men, and discard it ? We are marching fast to that day through the reign of law under which civilized people are compelled to live. No citizen of a civilized nation is permitted to-day to wage war against his fellow-citizen or to redress his own wrongs, real or fancied. Even if insulted, he can legally use force only sufficient to protect himself; then the law steps in, and ad- ministers punishment to the aggressor based upon evidence. Hence, if a citizen attempts to sit as judge in his own cause or to redress his wrongs in case of dispute with another, he breaks the law. Now, nations being only aggregations of individuals, why should they be permitted to wage war against other nations, when, if all were classed as citizens of one nation, they would be denied this right of war and would have to subject themselves to the reign of law? Not long can this continue to commend itself to the judgment of intelligent men. Consider our own republic, with an area little smaller than that of Europe, within whose wide borders war is impossible, every citizen being honorably bound to keep the peace and submit to the courts of law, which alone administer judgment in cases of dispute, and contrast it with Europe, an armed camp — armed not against distant foreign enemies upon other continents, but against itself. Under present rules of war, there are in Europe as many possible centers of war as there are nations on that Conti- nent. We have forty-six nations called States, yet there is not one center of war. Resort to force would be rebellion. Peace Versus War 18 1 This unity, which insures freedom from danger of internal war and free exchange of products, is fast making our Union the foremost power of the world. Our wealth al- ready exceeds that of any other nation, our population is exceeded only by that of Russia or China or India; our manufactures exceed in value $17,000,000,000, said to ex- ceed those of Great Britain and Germany combined. At the present rate of increase, our population, and hence our military strength, will soon equal that of both. The last census (1900) gave over 16,000,000 males of militia age. In considering the problem, let it be noted that it is no longer actual war itself which the world in our day has most to dread. This is not our greatest curse. It is the '' ever-present danger of war " which hangs over the world like a pall and which we have to dispel. Men are now born *and die, their country's peace unbroken, but in scarcely a year of their lives is it not endangered, and not a day can pass which is not disturbed by the fearful note of *' prepara- tion for war " throughout the world, which some writers still venture to recommend even in editorial columns as the best preventive of war. On the contrary preparation by one nation compels rival preparation by others, each hon- estly protesting that only protection, not attack, is desired, the inevitable result being, however, that mutual suspicion is aroused, and as each vies with the other in fearful prep- aration, national hatreds develop, and only a spark is then needed to kindle the torch of w^ar. Partial disarmament would make the difference between two quarreling neigh- bors, each having only two pistols instead of three, the danger of war between them remaining as great as before. It is not what bearings a question at issue between nations may have upon the countries of the respective disputants l82 The Progress of a United People which is of first importance in determining the result of peace or war; it is in what spirit friendly, or unfriendly, negotiations are entered upon. Disputes that would be easily settled between friendly nations become the basis of war when international jealousies exist. An illustration of this vital truth is the incident upon the Dogger Bank, which recently excited Great Britain and Russia. It was promptly settled; but if the parties had been Great Britain and Ger- many, it would in all probability have led to war, so readily does rival preparation provide the inflammable material upon which war feeds. The insuperable objection to " prepara- tion " by the first nation is that it inevitably leads to the building of competing armaments by powers which other- wise would not have increased them, thus spreading the area of war, and making more nations possible enemies. Hence the most prolific mother of war in our day, is " prep- aration," as '' territorial aggrandizement " has been until recently. There is one important feature of our time which has to be most carefully considered — every ruler, statesman, and ambassador of every country repeatedly protests that their armaments are for protection only; that their country seeks not territorial additions, that its first and last desire is peace as the greatest blessing. In all this they are beyond question sincere. Among civilized lands to-day there are not good peaceable members and bad warlike members ; all really desire peace and their armaments are intended to be protective instruments only. Why then is peace not se- cured? The answer is that the leaders of nations at their respective capitals are strangers to each other and com- municate only through ambassadors ; they do not trust each other; each suspects sinister designs in the other, and. Peace Versus War 183 fearful of offending public opinion so easily excited upon international issues, they hesitate to adopt broad peaceful measures of common justice, or to agree to arbitration which might decide against their country. Under present world conditions, if the makers of treaties knew and trusted each other, war would soon become obsolete, for it is an in- dubitable fact that the reign of peace would be most ad- vantageous for all nations. To every nation war would be a calamity. Let us rid ourselves of thinking that there are good nations who abhor war and bad nations who lie in wait for an opportunity to attack the weak. In our day the peaceful development of nations is their most profitable policy. Assuming that all civilized nations long for peace, if one or more of the chief powers were to approach the others in the proper spirit, a league of peace would seem highly probable. The world, once so unknown, with ports so distant, has now shrunk into a neighborhood, in constant and instan- taneous communication, international exchanges reaching the enormous sum of $28,000,000,000 per year. It stands to reason, therefore, that under these changed conditions no one or two nations should be permitted to disturb the world's peace, in which other nations have a common in- terest and upon w^hich they are more or less dependent. Nations are partners to-day in this world-business, and have a right to be consulted in all matters pertaining to the world's peace. They are rapidly becoming interdependent, and international courts must of necessity soon be estab- lished. We have the germ of these already in the world marine court recently agreed upon in London by the dele- gates of the eight naval powers, Austria-Hungary, Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, Italy, and the 184 The Progress of a United People United States. This tribunal, composed of one judge from each land, is to pass final judgment upon all questions within its sphere. It is this pioneer of other world courts to come which our Secretary of State has wisely suggested should become an arbitral court, empowered to consider all dis- putes referred to them by the nations. If the powers agree to his admirable suggestion, the world will soon have an international court composed of the foremost of the world's jurists, ready to pass judgment upon any international dis- pute that may be submitted. Thus the world does move steadily toward peace and brotherhood. Peaceful arbitration has so far been the chief agent of progress toward the reign of peace and can be credited with having already settled nearly six hundred international dis- putes. Secretary Root has broken all records by negotiating twenty-four of these settlements, and for this and other important services he deserves high place among the workers for international peace. Such treaties are not to be judged solely by their provisions. These to which we have re- ferred are limited to certain subjects, exclusive of others, but the average citizen knows little of treaty contents, and hence the mere fact that his country has agreed with an- other to settle some issues peacefully inspires friendly feel- ings which may some day count for much. Again, states- men, knowing that their respective countries have agreed to settle some kinds of disputes peaceably, are predisposed to follow that mode for the settlement of others; therefore all treaties, whatever their limitations, make for peace. But arbitration of international disputes has so far encoun- tered a serious obstacle : nations have been and still are in- disposed to submit all disputes to arbitration. Although Belgium and Holland, Chili and the Argentine, Norway Peace Versus War 185 and Sweden, have done so, one or more exceptions are al- ways made by the chief nations, and these are fatal to the one indispensable change required — the removal of the danger of zvar, without which nothing vital is gained. Many devoted disciples of peace were seriously studying this feature of the problem when the solution came unex- pectedly in a flash of inspiration from no less a ruler than President Taft, that revealed the true path to the realization of peace on earth. Here is the inspired deliverance before the Peace and Arbitration Society in New York on the 22d of March, 19 10, which we believe will remain memorable for untold ages, and give the author rank among the im- mortals as one of the foremost benefactors of his race: Personally I do not see any more reason why matters of na- tional honor should not be referred to a court of arbitration than matters of property or of national proprietorship. I know that is going further than most men are willing to go, but I do not see why questions of honor may not be submitted to a tribunal composed of men of honor who understand questions of national honor, to abide by their decision, as well as any other question of difference arising between nations. In these few words President Taft becomes the leader of the holy crusade against man killing man in war, as Lincoln became the leader in the crusade against the selling of man by man. Much to the dismay of mere party politicians, Lincoln went to the root of the cause of slavery, declaring that a nation could not endure permanently half slave and half free. Our leader of to-day declares it the duty of nations to refer to a court of honor all questions tliought to affect their honor, as wtW as any other questions arising between them. Thus nations cannot sit as judges in i86 The Progress of a United People their own causes, for this would violate the first principles of natural justice, as is shown by the fact that in our day a judge known to have sat in judgment in a cause in which he was even in the smallest degree personally interested, would die in infamy. So will nations sink into infamy which insist much longer upon trampling under foot this benign rule of law. Courts of honor such as suggested by the president are coming rapidly into favor in countries which still tolerate the duel. The German Emperor especially is reputed to have done much to introduce these and hence to restrict dueling. It is quite true that the President, as he says, " goes further than most men are willing to go " ; otherwise he would not be a leader; for a leader's place is in the front. But — and this is another characteristic of the truly great leader — he goes no further than is absolutely necessary. Had he exempted any one subject, even "honor" from arbitration, — although no nation can dishonor another nation, and no man dishonor another man, all honor's wounds being self-inflicted, — he would have failed to bridge the chasm betzi^een peace and the danger of zvar, and little would have been gained. Armaments would continue to swell as at present, increasing suspicion, jealousy, and hatred between the powers until w^ar broke forth as the natural result of " mutual preparation," which from its very nature creates what it so vainly hopes to prevent. When the final step is taken and the representatives of the nations assemble to organize the International Court, to which they agree to submit all disputes, it may be assumed that they will specify as a fundamental principle that the in- dependence of nations and their existing territorial rights shall be recognized and upheld as an integral part of the Peace Versus War 187 organization. Hence no disputes could arise affecting either of these subjects. Thus would be eliminated the chief source of serious disputes, those affecting the honor or vital interests of nations. Let all friends of peace hail President Taft as our leader, rejoicing that he has found the true solution of the problem and placed our country in the van in the holy crusade for international peace, an honor to which it is fairly entitled as the foremost exponent and upholder of the rights of man, or, as the poet Burns put it in Revolutionary days, Columbia's offspring, brave and free, Ye know and dare proclaim The royalty of man. Well do the intelligent masses of Europe and of our Southern republics know and appreciate the mission of this Republic in drawing all ranks and classes together in the bonds of brotherhood. Her representatives will not lack support in these lands nor in Canada when they urge that all international disputes shall be arbitrated that the world's peace may remain unbroken. THREE WARS PREVENTED {From the New York Evening Sun, May, 19 ii.) Baltimore, May 4, 191 1. — Huntington Wilson, As- sistant Secretary of State, opened to-day's session of the Third National Peace Congress, which is in session here, with a short address explaining how the present policies of the State Department tend to advance the general world- wide movement for peace. He discussed the relation be- tween the so-called *' Dollar Diplomacy," which he con- tended had the effect of promoting peaceful relations with foreign governments through the development of closer trade and commercial bonds. He cited the present arbitra- tion treaty which is now in process of negotiation between the United States and Great Britain as a tangible result of the present policy of the United States Government. When completed and ratified by the Senate, he added, all future disputes between the United States and Great Britain will be settled by arbitration. " Those who work in the Department of State and for- eign service," Mr. Wilson said, " ordinarily do not talk much of peace except when war threatens some other coun- try. I am proud to be connected with an administration which within two years has actually prevented three wars. When the opposing armies of Ecuador and Peru were in sight of each other the telegraphic proposals of the United States brought about the tripartite mediation of the Argen- 188 Three Wars Prevented 189 tine Republic, Brazil and the United States. The pro- posal was well received by Ecuador and Peru and they ab- stained from war. A few months ago the Dominican Republic and Hayti were at swords' points. The influence of the Government of the United States stayed their hands. Also w^ithin the last few months the good offices of the United States put an end to civil war in Honduras. Here are three actual achievements of the peace which is your ideal. These things the President and Secretary Knox have done. " Among other practical modes of pursuing the ideal of world's peace," he added, '' is the true meaning of what has been called ' dollar diplomacy.' Of course this term may be applied to commercial diplomacy. To-day international commerce is everywhere an important department of diplo- macy. In so far as our diplomacy is commercially suc- cessful we are proud of the fact. We are not above being practical and commercial, and, from the less material point of view, commerce means contact; contact means under- standing; and if one is worthy enough to be respected and liked, if understood, international commerce conduces powerfully to international sympathy. The most rudi- mentary business sense should dictate tact, sympathy and considerateness in dealing with foreign customers. So, in the broader view, every American business man or traveler, every student in university or school, who is in- considerate, supercilious or lacking in sympathetic apprecia- tion of his foreign associate, makes himself a missionary not of good-will but of ill-will, and so radiates an influence not for peace but for war. " But I use the newly-coined phrase of * dollar diplo- macy ' in another sense. It means using the capital of the 190 The Progress of a United People country in the foreign field in a manner calculated to en- hance fixed national policies. It means the substitution of dollars for bullets. It means the creation of a prosperity which will be preferred to predatory strife. It means availing of capital's self-interest in peace. It means taking advantage of the interest in peace of those who benefit by the investment of capital. It recognizes that financial soundness is a potent factor in political stability; that prosperity means contentment and contentment means repose. *' This thought is at the basis of the policy of the United States in Central America and the zone of the Caribbean. There this policy is one of special helpfulness in a neighbor- hood where peace and progress are especially important to the United States, and where, moreover, they are due the aspirations and the splendid resources of the peoples of those neighboring republics. ** In China the same principle has been invoked to enable the United States to take its share in the material, as it has in the moral and intellectual, development of that great empire. *' To the intellectual and moral development of the pro- gressive Ottoman Empire the United States has contrib- uted the greatest share. There, too, it is hoped that American commerce and enterprise will contribute. " So, also, ' dollar diplomacy ' is enabling the United States, through a loan by this country, Great Britain, France and probably Germany, to give practical effect to its ancient special obligations to Liberia, incidentally removing the causes of friction between that struggling republic and its powerful neighbors." Three Wars Prevented 191 An accurate and true international understanding, Sec- retary Wilson added, is also a strong factor in promoting peace between nations. The newspapers of the world, he said, play an important part in formulating the foreign repu- tation of a nation. " It is almost to state a syllogism to say," Mr. Wilson said, '* that next to national character the greatest factor toward peace is true international understanding, and that, after diplomacy, the newspapers play the most important part in bringing about or retarding such true understanding. In the case of the United States, the true understanding of the American people and the true ideals and policies of their government is horribly hampered by the fact that, in the Far East for example, and still more in Latin America, almost everything bad and nothing good of us is reported in some section of the newspapers of most countries. Every lynching and scandal, every discreditable thing, which it is our unique custom to air so energetically, is repeated in its worst version by a section of the press of most of these countries. In the case of many countries which have important colonies engaged in business — for example, in Brazil, in Peru, in China — their nationals sup- port locally their own organs, which, probably often sub- sidized, carry on a patriotic service of their country. " Thinking of Mr. Carnegie's munificent gift, it occurs to me that the establishment and subsidy of four or five newspapers in Latin America and the Far East, wuth means to give adequate and respectable telegraphic news service and with a non-partizan and patriotic guidance of their policy by trustees who should be disassociated from the Government and independently representative of patriotic 192 The Progress of a United People American citizenship, would be a splendid and proper means to that international true understanding which must be at the basis of peace." In conclusion Mr. Wilson discussed disarmament. He said: " I am sure the American people are protagonists of peace for a higher reason than the economy of disarmament. If ever a country could afford armaments it is ours. As a business proposition it w^ould save, in the unfortunate event of war, the appalling loss of life and money involved in headlong hasty preparations and also the time necessary to make a people already warlike also military. As a bur- den it could hardly exceed what is wholesome to bear, and the effort would focus the national spirit. And undoubt- edly the most practicable step toward the desired interna- tional spirit of humanity is to begin with the right national spirit. Some people even think that a large army and a system of military training would do more toward peace through instilling patriotic solidarity and discipline than it would for war through the temptation of having weap- ons handy. " We have laws against carrying concealed weapons be- cause a violent man w^ith a concealed weapon is more dan- gerous than a muscular Christian fully armed. Is a war- like nation, not fond of discipline and possessed of vast resources, less dangerous than one openly carrying its olive branch and also its arrows and thunderbolt? War springs from the human heart, not from the arsenal ; and the human heart, rather than the archives of diplomatic engagements, is still the only ultimate sure abode of peace. ** The nation which can do most to secure international Three Wars Prevented ' 193 peace must be the nation with the highest ideals plus the greatest mihtary efficiency. It is such nations that in striv- ing for and reaHzing their own advantage contribute the most toward advantaging their neighbors and the world.'' 13 AN EARLY AMERICAN DESCRIBED By J. Hector St. John de Crevecceur (1782) I wish I could be acquainted with the feehngs and thoughts which must agitate the heart and present them- selves to the mind of an enlightened Englishman, when he first lands on this continent [America]. . . . Here he sees the industry of his native country displayed in a new manner. . . . Here he beholds fair cities, substantial villages, extensive fields, an immense country filled with decent houses, good roads, orchards, meadows, and bridges, where an hundred years ago all was wild, woody and un- cultivated ! . . . He is arrived on a new continent ; a modern society offers itself to his contemplation, different from what he had hitherto seen. It is not composed, as in Europe, of great lords who possess everything, and of a herd of people who have nothing. Here are no aristocrat- ical families, no courts, no kings, no bishops, no ecclesias- tical dominion, no invisible power giving to a few a very visible one; no great manufacturers employing thousands, no great refinements of luxury. The rich and the poor are not so far removed from each other as they are in Europe. Some few towns excepted, we are all tillers of the earth, from Nova Scotia to West Florida. We are a people of cultivators, scattered over an immense territory, communicating with each other by means of good roads 194 An Early American Described 195 and navigable rivers, united by the silken bands of mild government, all respecting the laws, without dreading their power because they are equitable. We are all animated with the spirit of an industry which is unfettered and un- restrained, because each person works for himself. . . . A pleasing uniformity of decent competence appears throughout our habitations. The meanest of our log-houses is a dry and comfortable habitation. Lawyer or mer- chant are the fairest titles our towns afford ; that of a farmer is the only appellation of the rural inhabitants of our country. . . . Here man is free as he ought to be ; nor is this pleasing equality so transitory as many others are. Many ages will not see the shores of our great lakes replenished with inland nations, nor the unknown bounds of North America entirely peopled. Who can tell how far it extends? Who can tell the millions of men whom it will feed and contain ? for no European foot has as yet traveled half the extent of this mighty continent! The next wish of this traveler will be to know whence came all these people? They are a mixture of English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans, and Swedes. From this promiscuous breed, that race now called Ameri- cans have arisen. . . . . . . By what invisible power has this surprising met- amorphosis been performed? By that of the laws and that of their industry. The laws, the indulgent laws, protect them as they arrive, stamping on them the symbol of adop- tion; they receive ample rewards for their labors; these ac- cumulated rewards procure them lands; those lands confer on them the title of freemen, and to that title every benefit is affixed which men can possibly require. This is the great operation daily performed by our laws. From whence 196 The Progress of a United People proceed these laws ? From our government. Whence that government? It is derived from the original genius and strong desire of the people ratified and confirmed by the Crown. This is the great chain which links us all, this is the picture which every province exhibits. . . o . . . He is an American, wdio leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds. He becomes an American by being received in the broad lap of our great Alma Mater. Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labors and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world. Americans are the western pilgrims, who are carrying along with them that great mass of arts, sciences, vigor, and industry which be- gan long since in the east ; they will finish the great circle. The Americans were once scattered all over Europe; here they are incorporated into one of the finest systems of popu- lation which has ever appeared, and which will Iiereafter become distinct by the power of the difi*erent climates they inhabit. The American ought therefore to love this country much better than that wherein either he or his forefathers were born. Here the rewards of his industry follow wath equal steps the progress of his labor; his labor is founded on the basis of nature, self-interest; can it want a stronger allurement? Wives and children, wdio before in vain de- manded of him a morsel of bread, now, fat and frolic- some, gladly help their father to clear those fields whence exuberant crops are to arise to feed and to clothe them all ; without any part being claimed, either by a despotic prince, a rich abbot, or a mighty lord. Here religion demands but little of him; a small voluntary salary to the minister, and An Early American Described 197 gratitude to God; can he refuse these? The American is a new man, who acts upon new principles; he must there- fore entertain new ideas, and form new opinions. From invohmtary idleness, servile dependence, penury, and useless labor, he has passed to toils of a very different nature, re- warded by ample subsistence. — This is an American. The mace NEW AMERICANS By Wardon Allan Curtis I am speaking of Wisconsin, because it happens to be the State where I have pursued my ethnological studies, and be- cause it epitomizes the central West. No other Western State has such a diversity of racial elements. Illinois alone, with its cjueer colony of Portu- guese Protestants at Jacksonville, has an element which Wisconsin has not. None but Wisconsin has Bulgarians and Flemings. It has an Indian population of over eight thousand. It is the great- est Welsh, Cornish, Norwegian, and Ger- man State. It has Icelanders with Minnesota ; Bohemians with Iowa; and French, Finns and Hol- landers with Michigan. The oldest and only purely Hungarian colony in America is on its soil, and the largest colony of Swiss. It has a native white element as old as the Knickerbockers, and even English-descended families who go back one hundred and fifty years on Wisconsin soil. German. Of all our old immigrant stocks, the German in the raw is the least person- 198 German-American. New Americans 199 able. Nor is he, superstition to the contrary notwithstand- ing, so big a man as the Yankee or the Irishman. Civil War enlistment statistics proved that our native stock averaged bigger men than any other element. Com- parative measurements of Eastern and Western col- leges give the effete East the advantage, due, I be- lieve, to the large per- centage of Europeans in the Western institutions, inferior in height to .the British nationalities. With the third genera- tion the Germans show a change. You can go into an old German town like Watertown, Wisconsin, where the third generation is now to the fore, and actually exclaim at the number of pretty girls you see, the pleasing result of three generations of Amer- A German bride. ican life upon the original uncomely material. Faces and forms of men and women have been refined. It is a new race mentally and physically. They are slimmer, cleaner- limbed, much taller. Their backs have a curve unknown to their grandparents, their eyes have a sparkle that never lighted the eyes of that poor peasantry which, until the tramp of the armies of Napoleonic France shook its fetters 200 The Progress of a United People free, could not leave the soil upon which it was born. The Swiss have preserved both their nationality and their customs better than any other race in the West. Until recently they have had very little social intercourse, and intermarried almost not at all with other nationalities. In the case of all other nationalities in the third generation, social relations are very free, and that, of course, means inter- marriage and the building of a race which wil) have no hyphen before " American." On the border-lines of a row of German townships, meeting rows of Yankee, Irish, and Norse townships, the young people mingle socially. The first intermarriages are of foreigners with Yankees. All intermarry with Yankees, and have done so for a long time, but the intermarriage of Irisli and Germans has only lately begun, and tlie intermarriage of the two great kindred Teutonic stocks, Germans and Norse, does not take place at all as yet. At New Glarus, Wisconsin, you find the capital of the largest Swiss colony in the country, which, though it has been somewhat Americanized where its expanding borders impinge upon surrounding Yankees, Norse, and French, in the mother village still remains a bit of Switzerland. The romantic history of this colony and Swiss girl. Swiss-American. New Americans 201 [.. m its present aspect, richest of agricultural communities in America, its economic importance in Wisconsin and northern Ilhnois, founding as it did, the greatest in- dustry of that region, is something which deserves a monograph. There are many small men among these Swiss. There are also many tall ones, though I fancy the tall ones ap- pear taller by contrast. The French and the Swiss of this region are much alike in appearance, and have many of the same traits. The French are the only people the Swiss cannot buy out. Both are spreading and buying out the farmers of other nationalities. The Norwegian girls of the present generation and of the better class are very good-looking. They are by no means all blondes. Dark hair, with a glint of gold of the reddish tint of a beam of sinking sun against an eastern hill, is to be found among them. They have fine complexions, with a lovely blending of pink and cream. The beauty of the Norse woman is less likely to be in feature and eyes, as in the case of the Irish and the Welsh, than in her coloring. An amiable, healthv, finely colored face, evi- Swiss. Swiss girl. dence of good temper and good 202 The Progress of a United People Norse-American. Norwegian. Norwegian. humor, is lovely in the sight of the ordinary human being. In another generation, if not sooner, it will all be Ameri- can. With the cessation of immigration to Wisconsin, the link with the Old World has been broken. The old tongues are heard no more. English is fast becoming the language of the churches, last stronghold of foreignism. The paper published in a foreign tongue will soon be a curiosity. The body of the central West will be of all races, but the spirit is and will remain the Americanism of Massachusetts of fifty years ago. The genius of the New England founders of these commonwealths is still the over-soul of the central West. THE AMERICAN BUSINESS MAN By a. Barton Hepburn President of the Chase National Bank, New York Does the pursuit of wealth cut the American man of business off from the old-fashioned relish of books and so- ciety? In other words, is he paying too big or dispro- portionate a price in time and strength for wealth and com- mercial prominence? My answer would be: Yes, beyond qtiestion. America possesses comparatively few old families whose established fortunes permit the choice of vocation and a judicious division of energies, devoting perhaps the major portion to business pursuits, but reserving sufficient time and strength for the development of the higher ideals of life. Family history in America has been pithily described as '' from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves in three generations." The fortune that results from the frugality, sobriety, and .intelligent application of the father may be preserved, pos- sibly added to, by the son, but the next generation enjoys, — recklessly, perhaps, — and the next squanders, so that the third generation is forced again into the ranks of bread- winners. This may result largely from our newness as a nation and from the ease with which fortunes are made. Age may modify somewhat, but in the absence of right of 203 204 The Progress of a United People primogeniture and a law of entail, abnormal accumula- tions of wealth are bound to find general distribution in a limited period of time. Pinched with poverty at the in- ception of one's career, habits of thrift and economy be- come ingrained, — a second nature, — and are a controlling influence through life. Others, to whom a reasonable start in life is given, find it difficult to retire from business even when ample fortune crowns their efforts. Retiring is difficult largely because there is no inviting field for them to enter. We have no leisure class devoted to the general purposes of life, whose ranks open invitingly and furnish a proper goal to the business man's ambition. In many instances the large fortunes that have been ac- cumulated and left to those who have had little or no part in the making become a menace to the community; for large fortunes, unwisely administered, are a source of danger to the public as well as to their possessors. Many recent exemplifications of the truth of this statement will readily present themselves. If the fathers of the spoiled children of luxury had practised a dignified, sensible leisure at the right time of life, the example might have descended with their money. Badness, however, is by no means the rule. Large fortunes generally are administered fairly within the lines of public approval. The compensatory influence attending upon great wealth is the general dis- position to devote a large portion to the public interest, as witness the private endowments of schools, colleges, li- braries, hospitals, and eleemosynary institutions generally. In New York Ave have one conspicuous instance of a man of great wealth, still very much in business, wdio practises on a grand scale those intellectual relaxations which in some degree are obtainable by every business The American Business Man 205 man. He has collected treasures of literature and art which appeal only to the highest culture. His library con- tains rare, rich treasures; probably no other private library in the world can compare with it. And we have many men of great wealth who are devoting their large fortunes to the public good in a manner to be of continuing service to succeeding generations. The assiduity of their labor in disposing of part of their fortunes is quite equal to the labor of accumulation. Such men are far removed from the charge of sordidness, and such a term cannot well be applied to our men of w^ealth, as a whole. All I have said simply explains existing conditions; I do not seek to justify. Our business men ought to break away from trade exactions long before they do — ought to do so as a matter of volition and ethical judgment, rather than of physical necessity. They ought to get and give more enjoyment in life; they ought to do less for self and more for others; they ought to live more in books and more in the open and less at their desks, and realize better health and longer lives as a result. More and more culture in all its forms is exercising a growing influence, which must manifest itself in lessened effort along the fines of money-getting, and the devotion of more time on the part of our business men to the pursuits which naturally ac- company fortified leisure. Aristotle said " the end of labor is to gain leisure," and Aristotle was a wise man. THE AMERICAN SPIRIT By S. E. Forman Some one has said that in every high school and college there should be a '' professor of America." There is just a little boastfulness in the utterance, yet it nevertheless con- tains a sane suggestion. One of the chief tasks of this '' professor of America " v^ould be to train his pupils to distinguish between that which is American and that which is un-American. It should be confessed that as far as political matters are concerned such a training would be useful. It is good to be able to stamp instantly and un- erringly a political act or movement or sentiment as Ameri- can or as un-American. The student ought at this point to be able to tell what is truly American and what is not. It is American to trust the people, to have implicit faith in their ability to govern themselves; it is un-American to be always carping at democracy and predicting its downfall. It is American to recognize the moral and legal equality of men and to cherish the feelings of universal brotherhood; it is un- American to foster the spirit of aristocracy or of class hatred. It is American to give power abundantly to leaders who have been elected at the polls, for such leaders are real representatives ; it is un-American to submit tamely to the rule of a self-appointed "boss." To encourage and sustain a department of government when it is contending 206 The American Spirit 207 for its rights is American; to aid in increasing the power of a usurping department is not. To accomplish a po- litical purpose by altering the Constitution in a formal, deliberate manner is American; to act in wanton disregard of constitutional restraint is not. It is x\merican to exalt the Union, but it is un-American to belittle the State. It is American for the State authority to uphold and maintain justice and law and order, but it is un-American to give to the State government the management of affairs that are purely local. It is American to use the political party as a means of government, but to regard party as the end of government is un-American. To enjoy every right which belongs to a free and enlightened people is Ameri- can, but it is un-American to insist upon a liberty that runs into license and riot. By adhering to the American way we shall preserve the spirit of the American government, and the spirit of a government is as important as its form. *' The letter kill^ eth, but the spirit giveth life." Indeed the form of the American government is only an outgrow^th of the spirit which animated its founders. The American fathers loved liberty and believed the people should have a controlling hand in government, and they drew the Constitution in trend with their affections and beliefs. The spirit of the fathers became the spirit of the generations which followed, and is the American spirit to-day. As long as that spirit shall survive the American citizen may say : " Under my government I know and exultingly feel both that I am free and that I am not dangerously free to myself or to others. I know that if I act as I ought no power on earth can touch my life, my liberty, my property. I have that inward and dignified consciousness of my own security 2o8 The Progress of a United People and independence which constitutes, and is the only thing which does constitute, the proud and comfortable sentiment of freedom in the human breast. I know, too, and bless God for my own mediocrity ; I know that I cannot, by any special favor or by popular delusion or by oligarchical cabal, elevate myself above a certain very limited point so as to endanger [incur the risk of] my own fall or the ruin of my country. I know there is a constitution that keeps things fast in their place : it is made to us and we are made to it." {Edmund Burke.) THE DITTIES OF CTTTZENSHIP. The duties of citizenship are always equal to its rights. If I can hold a man to his contracts, I ought (/ oive it) to pay my own debts ; if I may worship ag I please, I ought to refrain from persecuting another on account of his religion; if my own property is held sacred, I ought to regard the property of another man as sacred; if the government deals fairly with me and does not oppress me, I ought to deal fairly with it and refuse to cheat it; if I am allowed freedom of speech, I ought not to abuse the privilege: if I have a right to be tried by a jury, I ought to respond wdien I am summoned to serve as a juror; if I have a right to my good name and reputation, I ought not to slander my neighbor; if government shields me from in- jury I ought to be ready to take up arms in its defense. Civil rights are inseparable from civil duties; the con- tinued and full enjoyment of the former depends upon the fulfilment of the latter. Since duty is largely a mat- ter of morals, good citizenship also would seem to be a question of morals. In the last analysis this is true. 14 THE AMERICAN OF THE FUTURE By Brander Matthews One Monday in the spring of 1906, a New York morn- ing paper recorded the fact that " ten thousand men, women, and children, immigrants from all sections of the globe, were inside New York Harbor before sundown yesterday, as many more were on big immigrant vessels reported ofif Sandy Hook, and three times ten thousand on other vessels little more than two hundred miles from port. All told, at least fifty-two thousand immigrants will have reached port by Thursday morning, the largest number that has yet come to New York at one time." The new- comers belonged to many different nationalities. Some came from Great Britain and Ireland, some from Germany and Austria, some from Russia and Poland, and more from Italy. The reporter noted that there were also a few French and a few Arabians. More than fifty thousand in four days ! And these were only the advance guard of the host that followed fast all through the lengthening days of the spring months. Men and women and children from every part of Europe, even from Africa and from Asia, poured into New York, to scatter themselves throughout the United States. A few of them intended to work only during the summer, and then to return whence they came; but the most of them were resolved to lead a new life in the New World. They 210 The American of the Future 211 wished to better themselves, and they did not pause to ask whether we wanted them or whether their coming was for our good, also. They left us to ask these Questions, and to find such answers as we could. Wide open and unguarded stand our gates, And through them presses a wild motley throng — Men from the Volga and the Tartar steppes, Featureless figures of the Hoang-Ho, Malayan, Scythian, Teuton, Kelt and Slav, Flying the Old World's poverty and scorn ; These bringing with them unknown gods and rites. Those, tiger passions, here to stretch their claws. O Liberty, white Goddess! is it well To leave the gates unguarded ? For so of old The thronging Goth and Vandal trampled Rome, And where the temples of the Caesars stood, The lean wolf unmolested made her lair. In these lofty lines Aldrich sharply phrased what many Americans vaguely feared. The motley horde that invades us hopes to better its condition; but what of our condition? What effect will Malayan and Scythian and Slav have upon us? Are they worthy to be welcomed within our commonwealth ? Will they trample America as the throng- ing Goth and Vandal trampled Rome? Must we dread the coming of a day when the lean wolf, unmolested, shall make her liar in the deserted streets where once the many churches stood, the stately libraries, and the frequent school- houses ? 212 The Progress of a United People But the danger-signal has been heeded, and the gates are no longer unguarded. The " featureless figures of the Hoang-Ho " are denied admission; and the wisdom of this exclusion is evident, however harsh we may sometimes seem in its application. These Orientals have a civiliza- tion older than ours, hostile to ours, exclusive, and re- pellent. They do not come here to throw in their lot with us. They abhor assimilation, and they have no desire to be absorbed. They mean to remain aliens; they insist upon being taken back when they are dead; and we do well to keep them out while they are alive. We exclude also with equal wisdom the maimed and the halt and the blind. In a single year we have sent back whence they came twelve thousand undesirable immigrants, some of them insane, some of tliem diseased, but most of them mere weaklings likely soon to become dependent. We have accepted the principle that it is our duty to de- fend our coasts against an undesirable invasion. We are glad still to provide a refuge for the oppressed, but only when those who demand hospitality are fit to be incorpor- ated in our body politic, and only when they are willing loyally to accept the laws under which they seek shelter. Of late we have been putting hard questions to all new arrivals at our ports, and if they have no answers ready, the gates are closed in their faces. We have seen in time the danger of too lax a liberality, and we have recognized the sagacity of the late Mayo Smith's saying, that those " who desire that the United States should discharge the function of a world-asylum forget that asylums are not governed by their inmates." But there are those amone us who are not satisfied with The American of the Future 213 this setting up of barriers against the unfit, and who see a menace to American standards in the admission even of the physically fit, if they come from alien stocks. There are those — and they are not a few — who would keep out the " men from the Volga and Tartar steppes " and all " bring- ing with them unknown gods and rites." Willing enough still to welcome Teuton and even Celt, they see peril to our citizenship in granting it to Slav and to Scythian, with " tiger-passions, here to stretch their claws." They look askant at New York, with its immense masses of imper- fectly assimilated foreigners, with its Little Italy, with its mysterious China-town, with its Syrian quarter, with its half million of Russian Jews. They ask themselves whether the metropolis of the United States can any longer be considered an American city. To this last question the answer is easy. New York is quite as American to-day as it ever has been in any of its three centuries. Diversity of blood has always been its dominant characteristic. As one of its historians has tersely asserted, " no sooner has one set of varying ele- ments been fused together than another stream has been poured into the crucible. There probably has been no period in the city's growth during which the New Yorkers whose parents were born in New York formed the ma- jority of the population ; and there never has been a time when the bulk of the citizens were of English blood." The history of the metropolis from which these quotations are taken was written by Theodore Roosevelt, a typical New Yorker, as he is a typical American ; and he illustrates in his own person this commingling of stocks. He is of Dutch descent, with other ancestors who were Huguenot 214 The Progress of a United People and Scotch-Irish; and he has declared that so far as he himself is aware, he has not a drop of English blood in his veins. The New Englanders were swiftly assimilated, as the Huguenots had been a century earlier; and they, in turn, disliked and dreaded the Irish invasion that soon followed, and the later German invasion that came before and during the Civil War. But in that bitter conflict the Irish and the Germans and their children proved themselves stanch Americans; they revealed their belief that this was not only a good land to live in, but a good country to die for. And the Irish and the Germans in their turn also disliked and dreaded the more recent invasion of Italians and Russian Jews; and they joined with the older New Yorkers in wondering whether these strange newcomers were not unfit for the citizenship which had been generously granted to them. Yet there is scarcely a larger proportion of for- eigners in the population of New York at the beginning of the twentieth century than there was at the end of the seventeenth, nor are the dangerous elements proportion- ately larger than they were then. The fire still glows beneath the crucible, and the process of fusing is as rapid and as complete to-day as ever it has been in the past. The children are the flux for this fusing: they are taken captive first by the schools, and then the public libraries bind them fast; and finally the young folk react on their parents. Sooner or later the foreigners are made over; they are born anew; and they have a proud consciousness that they have come into their birthright. It needs to be noted that two of the most distinguished electrical inventors of America are of Slavonic birth. That shrewd observer of social conditions. Miss Jane Addams, The American of the Future 21^ has asserted that we talk far too loosely about our im- migrants. We use the phrase '' the scum of Europe " and other unwarrantable words, " without realizing that the undeveloped peasant may be much more valuable to us here than the more highly developed but also more highly specialized towai-dweller, who may much less readily de- velop the acquired characteristics which the new environ- ment demands." " The way to compare men is to compare their respec- tive ideals," said Thoreau ; " the actual man is too complex to deal with." In some mysterious fashion we Americans have imposed our ideals on the Irish and on the Germans, as we are now imposing them on the Italians and on the Russian Jews. The children and the grandchildren of these ignorant immigrants learn to revere Washington and Lincoln, and they take swift pride in being Americans. They thrill in response to the same patriotic appeals which move us of the older stocks; and wdien New York cele- brated the centenary of the Constitution, nowhere were the portraits of the Father of the Country more frequent than in Little Italy and in the Ghetto. When the Presi- dent of the United States declared that a certain friend of his was " the most useful citizen of New York," he named not a native, but a man w^ho was by birth a Dane; and if any one with equal opportunity for knowing should undertake to draw up a list of the five most useful citizens of New York, he would have to include also one Hebrew of German birth. If this observer should extend the list to ten, he would be forced to set down the name of an- other German Hebrew whose service to the public good has been quite as indisputable. The census records the number of those of foreign birth, 2l6 The Progress of a United People and also those who are of foreign parentage; and these figures seem to suggest that there exists among us a mass of undigested aliens. But in so far as the statistics do suggest this, they convey a false impression. The boys and girls of Little Italy speak English as fluently as they speak Italian, and while they salute the flag in school, in the street they amuse themselves with '' Little Sally Waters " and with the traditional games of Anglo-Saxon youth. The American of to-day, whatever his descent, has most of the characteristics of the American of yesterday. Ideals endure, and aspirations have not been blunted by time or turned aside by alien influences. It is true enough that the makers of America were mainly of British origin. Benjamin Franklin and Wash- ington Irving were the sons of immigrants, one English and the other Scotch. But, from the very beginning, the admixture of other elements was abundant, most obvious in New York, but perceptible even in New England. Be- fore the Revolution, besides the Dutch in New York, there were Swedes in New Jersey. In Pennsylvania there were Germans and Scotch-Irish, and in New York and South Carolina there were Huguenots, and no single stock has contributed to our citizenship so many men of ability in proportion to its numbers as this sturdy and stalwart group of French Protestants. Thus we see that there is no basis for the prevalent belief that the people of the United States were once of almost purely English descent, and that they have been diluted by foreign admixture only since the war of 1812. In the Louisiana Purchase and in the Northwest Territory there were many French settlers, and men of Spanish descent were incorporated by the acquisition of The American of the Future 217 Texas and of California. The commingling of these many bloods during our first century of national life must be more or less responsible for the divergence now obvious between American ideals, American standards, and Ameri- can tendencies, on the one hand, and British ideals, British standards, and British tendencies, on the other. Both sets are derived from the same root — from the ideals, the standards and the tendencies of the older Anglo-Saxon stock, transplanted in England from the Teutonic main- land, and stimulated by the commingled Hebrew and Greek and Roman ideals of the church. It is well for us to recall the fact that the English race itself was of many mingled strains, Celtic and Teutonic, welded into unity at last, and achieving its richest expres- sion under Elizabeth. But while the British have been inbreeding for centuries now, with only occasional enrich- ment by alien stocks, Spanish-Hebrew, Huguenot, and Ger- man, we Americans have been absorbing vigorous foreign blood; and to this infusion must be credited some portion of the differences between the subjects of the British King and the citizens of the American republic. These dif- ferences are abundant and they are evident, and there is no need to catalogue them here. It finds fit expression in lavish giving to public service, and it leads also to the preservation of natural beauty and of the sacred places of our brief history. When we consider all these things carefully, we cannot help w^ondering whether we have not been guilty of flagrant conceit in our assumption that we could not possibly profit by any infusion of other bloods than the Teutonic. We find ourselves face to face with the question whether the so-called Anglo-Saxon stock is of a truth so near to per- 2i8 The Progress of a United People fection that any admixture is certain to be harmful. We find ourselves doubting whether this stock has always done so well that it has an undisputed right to a halo on demand. Much as we owe to England, we have other debts also; and even New England, of which we are all justly proud, is not now the focus of the whole United States, — however much we may have profited in the past by the lofty ex- ample of Emerson and Lowell. The strength of the founders of the American republic lay chiefly in character. It is not by brilliancy, by intellect, or even by genius that Washington and Jay and John Adams impressed themselves on their fellow-citizens in Virginia, in New York, and in Massachusetts. Ability they had in abundance, no doubt ; but it was by character that they conquered, by their moral individuality. And it is the grossest conceit for us to assume that character is the privilege or the prerogative of any single stock. We have a right to hope and even to believe that whatever we may lose by the commingling of the future, by the admix- ture of other racial types than the Teutonic and the Celtic, will be made up to us by what we shall thereby gain. Our type may be a little transformed, but it is not at all likely to be deteriorated. INDEX Aeroplane, 125-134 American business man, 203-205 Character, 38 Citizenship, 208 family history, 203 home, 4 IManners, 5 of the future, 210-218 of to-day, 216 Spirit, 50, 206-209 Americans, new, 198-202 An American, 6 Arid America, 36-50 Arizona, 47-50 Associated Press, 141-145 Atlantic Cable, 4 Bosses and the people, 29-32 California, 42-45, 177 Census, 146-159 Centennial hymn, 2 Cervera, Admiral, 85. 86, 89 Charleston, S. C, 9-15 Civil Service reform, 26-28, 33-35 Civic improvement, 160-178 Clark, Capt. Charles E., 78-92 Cleveland, Grover, 33-35 Colorado, 41, 42 Colored people, 9-15 Conservation, 36-50, 51-53 Culebra cut, 120 Custer, 56, 64-69 Dewey, Admiral, 70, '/(i, 86, 93-106 Forest protection, 51-53 Forman's U. S. History, 3 German-American, 198, 199 Growth of U. S., 146-159 Historic preservation, 162 Illiteracy, 158 Immigration, 154, 155, 210-216 Indian Warfare, 54-63 Indians, 64-69 Irrigation, 36-50 Ku Klux Klan, 16-25 Leisure, 205 iManila Bay, battle of, 93-106 Norse-American, 201-202 Oregon, the, '/2, 78-92 Panama canal, 5, 107-124 Peace vs. War, 179-187, 188-193 Philippines, The, 70, ']()< Population. See Census (146-159) Progress since the War, 3-8 Reconstruction, 7, 8, 9-15. 16-25 Salt Lake, 39, 40 Sampson, Admiral, 74 Santiago, 75 San Francisco, 117 Scenic preservation, 160-178 Schley, Admiral, 74 219 220 Index Sitting Bull, 56-60 Western railroad, 135-140 Spanish War, 70-77, 78^2, 93-106 Wisconsin, 198-202 Steamship, 5 Wright Brothers, 125-134 Street and highway, 175-178 Swiss-American, 200-201 Yankee teacTier in the South, 9-15 War and peace, 179-187, 188-^193 Young, Brigham, 39, 40 112 W <.'••••'*«>* V^^^^v-^ <'^'°-**^^ .. ^^0^ - ^-^^rS ^0^ o KL^O^ o <^ O^ - ^^..^^ :'mk^ \/ /J^^ ^^..^^ /^ ^^^ o * . ' ' • . <>>. o* « • " • » ^ • '^^^■« ' J- ^ c^^.^^t^^^o .^^\c^%\. /.ii;^^% . *«. c*^^ *'«i^'. ^ .^^ .'. :^* A r ..".•., *^ •o. ♦'TTT'-.A <> '• *a6« ^'J^.%*'.**\.1^%'\ *^o« '.^ j^ yjp£^\ \^ .^ >'^ki' ^.„ .4^