APR 13 1900 BRIDGE, MASS

The Puerto Rico Bill The Week in Congress passed the Senate by a majority of eleven. All of the Silver Republican Senators from the mining States except Mr. Teller, of Colorado, gave the bill their support, as did aiso Mr. McEnery, the protectionist Democrat of Louisiana. These accessions were outweighed, however, by the adverse votes of the following Republicans: Hoar, of Massachusetts, Proctor, of Vermont, Wellington, of Maryland, Mason, of Illinois, Davis and Nelson, of Minnesota, and Simon, of Oregon. When the bill was sent to the House, a Republican caucus was held and the bill adopted as a party measure. At this caucus the civil government features of the bill received the principal consideration, and Mr. Cooper, of Wisconsin, and Mr. Moody, of Massachusetts, both members of the House Committee on Insular Affairs, protested strongly against some of the provisions. The fact that the entire Executive Council for Puerto Rico was to be appointed by the President, and that this Council was to control the granting of franchises in the island, led Mr. Cooper to characterize the bill as one to establish an indefensible form of "carpetbag" rule. No direct reply was made to these criticisms, but the need of party unity was strongly urged by Mr. Cannon, and the Senate bill was indorsed as it stood, to avoid further controversy. Apart from Puerto Rico, the army and navy appropriation bills, the Indian appropriation bill, and the bill for the government of Hawaii were the centers of interest. The army and navy appropriation bills carry with them an expenditure of nearly two hundred million dollars, or about three times the average yearly expenditure between the Civil and the Spanish wars. Mr. Hay, of Virginia, introduced a bill to organize the militia of all the States as a reserve for the Federal army, and to appropriate

No. 15

$4,000,000 yearly from the Federal Treasury for the purpose of equipment. This is believed to represent the Democratic plan of avoiding an increase in the standing army. When the Indian bill was before the Senate, Mr. Jones, of Arkansas, supported by Mr. Vest, of Missouri, and Mr. Carter, of Montana, attempted to break down the plan adopted in 1894, by which Government appropriations to church schools are being reduced twenty per cent. a year, but the amendment was defeated, and this year promises to be the last in which a sectarian appropriation will be made. When the Hawaiian bill was before the House, Mr. Gillett, of Massachusetts, succeeded in securing the adoption of an amendment prohibiting saloons in the island.

The Puerto Rican Bill

The Puerto Rican Bill, as it has passed the Senate, and at this writing seems certain to pass the House, is a bill for the present government of the island, and for provisionally securing the necessary revenues. It declares that the inhabitants of the island, except such as shall elect before a given date to remain subjects of Spain, are citizens of Puerto Rico, and as such entitled to the protection of the United States; provides that all laws and ordinances now in force shall continue so, except as changed by this act or by military orders at present in force, or as they are in conflict with the statutory laws of the United States; repeals the law forbidding the marriage of priests, and provides for divorce on the ground of adul tery; retires the coins of Puerto Rico, and substitutes therefor United States

coinage; transfers all titles acquired in Puerto Rico by the United States to bridges, water-powers, highways, harbor shores, and the like, to the Puerto Rican Government, for the benefit of the people

who makes the estimate. He who believes that suffrage is a natural right, and that all people have a right to govern themselves, whatever their moral and intellectual condition, and that therefore the United States should submit the question of political organization and civil order to the people, and all the people, of Puerto Rico, in the first instance, will, of course, condemn a scheme which vests quasi-imperial powers in the President of the United States, even though that scheme be only temporary in its purpose and be accompanied by provision for a certain measure of popular representation. But the same objections now made to the acquirement of Puerto Rico and the so-called imperialistic government of it were made to the acquirement of Louisiana and the autocratic powers for its government which were for the time vested in the President. It remains for the future to determine whether the objections will prove practically any more serious in the one case than in the other. The opinion of The Outlook on this subject has been repeatedly expressed, and needs, therefore, here only to be briefly reaffirmed. That opinion is that suffrage is not a natural right, that the responsibility for the good government of Puerto Rico rests upon the people of the United States, that we cannot escape from that responsibility, and that our duty is so to organize government that life, liberty, and property shall be now protected and a power of self-government shall in the future be developed among the people which will enable them to assume permanently the powers which it would be hazardous now to confer upon them. appears to us that, while criticisms might be made in detail to this measure, it is one, on the whole, to be commended; that under it the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness will probably be far better protected than they would under a government founded at once on universal suffrage; and that enough of popular representation is provided for to make it reasonably certain that the government will

It

grow to be a self-government as fast as the people prove their capacity therefor. Whether this is the case will depend largely upon the character of the men appointed by the President and the watch fulness exercised by press and people over the experiment.

which we publish on another page, gives very clearly one point of view, and an important one, concerning the Hawaiian Government. It appears to us that the most important suggestion in the article is that to which the least space is giventhe protest against the provision that land titles must be registered in Washington— a provision which the writer justly says favors the rich man at the expense of the poor and discourages small holdings. The argument in favor of confining the Senate to those who represent property appears to us to make against rather than in favor of his conclusion, since it indicates that its absence will compel a more thorough political education of the native Hawaiians, who, he thinks, will not be subject to either intimidation or corruption. A Senate representing property appears to us a dangerous form of plutocracy, or at least a tendency toward it. We have altogether too much of this tendency in our own country. If to our readers this article on Hawaii appears to discuss the political questions too exclusively from the commercial point of view, they must remember that there is this point of view, that it cannot be ignored, and that it will natu rally seem more important to one all of whose property interests are at stake, being dependent on political action, than it will to one at a safe distance from political revolutions and only indirectly and impersonally interested in the possibility of their occurrence.

The first State elecThe Spring Elections tion of the year was held last week in Rhode Island. As is usual in Presidential years, the vote was greater than in the years intervening, because of the desire of each party to inspire confidence for the coming National campaign. The issue pushed to the front by the Democrats was, of course, "imperialism," while the Republicans laid greater stress upon the financial issues. As New England is the stronghold of anti-imperialism, Democratic gains as compared

with the last Presidential election were assured, though it was not anticipated that the party would poll as large a vote as in the spring of '96, before the Eastern

Democracy was crippled by the silver issue. This resul, however, was realized, and the Democrats are naturally sanguine over the outcome. The Republican majority, how ever, is still so large as to prevent the Democrats from hoping to carry any New England State, no matter how much the issue of "imperialism" is made the dominant one in the Presidential campaign. The exact vote, as compared with the three previous years, was as follows:

1896, Governor. 1896, President..

1897, Governor.. 1898, Governor.. 1899, Governor..

.......

1,300

600

Rep. Dem. Pro. Soe. 28,500 17,100 2,900 37,400 14,500 1,200 24,300 13,700 2,100 1,400 24,700 13,200 2,000 2,900 24,300 14,600 1,300 2,900 1900, Governor.......... 25,900 17,400 1,900 3,100 In the Congressional election in Utah to choose the successor of Brigham H. Roberts the Democrats were successful by about the same majority as in 1898, but by a far smaller one than in 1896. The popularity of expansion among the Silver Republicans of the West makes the Republican party look forward with confidence to the approaching election in Oregon, which takes place in June. The municipal elections last week in Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Missouri showed Republican gains here and Democratic gains there in such a way as to prove the rapidly growing disposition to vote in municipal elections without regard to National party ties. If this movement advances a little further, so that the press will no longer comment upon municipal results as if they were determined by National issues, the separation of National from municipal issues will be accomplished. In Wisconsin almost as many "Citizen" tickets were successful as Republican or Democrat. In Chicago the Voters' Municipal League was successful in nearly two-thirds of the aldermanic districts. The election of Dr. Gladden in Columbus, Ohio, is treated in another column.

The Court of ApThe Kentucky Decision peals in Kentucky has rendered the inevitable decision that the Legislature's decision regarding the Governorship must stand. The Constitution of the State made the Legislature the sole judge in case of a contest, and the Court could not escape its conclusion that "we have no more right to supervise

the decision of the General Assembly in determining the result of this election than we have to supervise the action of the Governor in calling a special session of the Legislature or in pardoning a criminal, or the action of the Legislature in contracting debts or determining upon the election of its members, or doing any other act authorized by the Constitution." The four Democratic judges were, of course, unanimous upon this point, and two of the three Republican judges supported them. The latter, however, as was their right, expressed their concurrence in a separate opinion declaring their belief that the Legislature had been governed by partisanship in reaching its decis ion. This, however, as they recognized, gave the Court no more authority to set aside the Legislature's decision than it would possess to set aside the decision of the voters if it believed them to have been governed by partisanship. One Republican judge, however, sustained the Republican claimant, and the latter refuses to give up his office until the Federal Supreme Court decides that it has no jurisdiction in the case. Fortunately for the preservation of order, the Democrats. have had the political wisdom to await the final action of the courts in their favor. Had the Republican claimants shown similar political wisdom, and cared more to remain in the right than in the Capitol, the partisan excesses of their op ponents would have been worth thousands of votes; but their own partisan excesses have forfeited this advantage. The State is now expected to go Democratic this fall.

Martial Law in Idaho

Just a year ago an armed mob in the "pan-handle" of Idaho destroyed the works of the non-union mine at Wardner, killing one man and wounding two others. The county in which this outrage took place had been placed under martial law for several weeks in 1892 because of similar lawlessness, and in 1894, by the admission of citizens hostile to martial law, at least one non-union miner was waylaid and assassinated. The fact that this mining region had borne such a reputation in the past, coupled with the fact that the Idaho militia was serving in the Philippines when the outrage of last April