up in Connecticut, way off by itself, in a lonesome valley-the lonesomer the better, we thought, and we went there to live. Well-” The quiet voice broke off suddenly, while the portly form shook with chuckles of mirth, so that the gray cat stirred a little and stretched out one sleepy paw. "I wish you could have seen Jim and me stranded on that farm! I never knew anything so funny, half pitiful, too, though it was. All them plans and hopes, all them expectations, all that happiness—and then! You needn't ask me what was the matter. "Twould be shorter if I was to ask you what could help being the matter. I honestly haven't the least idea what people mean by talking about the simple life in the country. In order to do any one thing, you've got to do twenty-five other things first-if you call that being simple! However, that wasn't the worst difficulty. We had caught up with our lives now, sure enough. There they were, turning around on us, coming and sitting down in the parlor, and staring at us, and saying, 'Well?' That was just it: well? What was we going to do about it, now we'd found quietness? "Only, of course, as a matter of fact, we hadn't found quietness. Quietness. seems to be something inside you; it don't have nothing to do with woods and farm-houses. My feelings made more noise them days than a whole elevated road. We felt as if we was broken off, and didn't belong anywhere any more. The world went on without us. "We stood it just a year and a half. Yes, we stood it as long as that, because it didn't seem hardly decent to whop right around and go back on so many plans. We was pretty ashamed and disappointed, as we sat and talked on them winter evenings, with the snow-storms howling around us like mad. We had run away from New York to be quiet, and now New York seemed the quietest place in the whole wide world. Quietness-" The good woman paused, caught in the throes of philosophy. 'Quietness comes from a lot of doing all taken together, I guess. Maybe no person alone can have it. It's like a river. The more water there is, the stiller every drop rolls along, and it's only the little brook that makes such a fuss and chatter." Again there was a spacious pause. The Spectator tickled the head of the cat thoughtfully with his finger. "They say," his hostess pondered aloud, "that God's the quietest thing there is. Well, then, I guess it's just because he has all the lives there ever was bound up in himself." She cast philosophy to the winds, and returned to experience. "We sold the farm and came back to the city, and bought this little shop. And now-well, I tell you, sir-" A slow, contented light welled up in the placid eyes as they made the loving circuit of the little room. "We're quiet now," she concluded. There was really nothing more to be said. The Spectator understood that, and rose reluctantly. "I wish I had a little shop," he observed involuntarily, as he tucked his package under his arm-his extravagant package! The rushing streets sang a brave song in the Spectator's ears as he made his way home that morning. Fullness of life and fullness of being, and therefore, under their noise of much doing, fullness of uttermost peace. For peace is what life is founded on, what life aspires to. And the proof of the wide beatitude of the common quest after quietness lies in the simple tale of this woman, who, searching for her soul's ultimate treasure, found it, not in seclusion and distance, but at the heart of the world. Now, when the Spectator is tired, he leans back on the great city around him, and the million hands of his fellow-men lift him surely into pea (ose THE PROBLEM OF ENORMOUS FORTUNES A DISCUSSION OF THE REMEDY INVOLVED IN THE PROPOSED ENACTMENT BY CONGRESS OF A PROGRESSIVE TAX ON INHERITANCES BY PHILIP S. POST, JR. Y EARS ago travelers passing through the mountains of New Mexico saw from the car windows painted on a boulder in huge letters the words, "LIMIT WEALTH." Like the religious mottoes which in some parts of the country, blazoned on the roadside, tell the wayfarer to "Prepare to Meet Thy God," and warn him that "Death is Sure," so this inscription flashed into the eye of the passer-by some man's conviction that a limit would yet be placed upon individual wealth. No one seemed to know the painter. Few bothered themselves to fathom his meaning. Was he crank or prophet? On April 14, 1906, in a speech at Washington, President Roosevelt startled the country by declaring: It is important to this people to grapple with the problem of enormous fortunes. I feel that we shall ultimately have to consider the adoption of some such scheme as that of the progressive inheritance tax on all fortunes beyond a certain amount, either given in life or devised or bequeathed upon death to any individual-a tax so framed as to put it out of the power of the owner of one of these enormous fortunes to hand on more than a certain amount to any one individual. Notwithstanding the laconic comment of a distinguished Senator who characterized the suggestion as "rank Socialism," the President has, in his annual Message, renewed his advocacy of this system of taxation. "The problem of enormous fortunes" is thus officially recognized. The handwriting on the rocks has found an interpreter at the seat of power. Taxes on inheritances, or succession taxes, are by no means uncommon. They are found in the Roman law, and they were adopted in England in 1780. Nearly all the countries of Europe have some system of "death duties." As early as 1797 Congress imposed a legacy tax, and a similar Federal tax was put into force during the war periods of 1862 and 1898. Pennsylvania enacted such a law in 1826, and such taxes now exist in many States. The rates imposed by these laws are moderate. Bequests to lineal descendants are in several States taxed one per cent., while a higher rate is imposed on gifts to collateral relatives and to strangers in blood. Bequests to charity and education are generally exempt. These State taxes have been enacted as revenue measures. The proposed Federal tax is advocated, not primarily for revenue, but to accomplish a sociological and economic result. It introduces into our revenue legislation the principle that a tax may be imposed, not alone for fiscal purposes, but with the definite object of dispersing property accumulated in the hands of a single owner. The fact that this question may soon become the subject of Congressional debate suggests a review of the arguments advanced against and for this system of imposts. The scope of the controversy and its fundamental character are revealed at the outset when it is found that the critics of the tax-and they have been able and vigorous-take their stand upon what are alleged to be certain "natural rights." The first contention is that the principle of the inheritance tax destroys an essential and inherent quality in the nature of private property; that the right of disposition is an incident of property, and includes the power to transmit that the State will retain the title to the cathedrals and churches that belong to it; that it shall freely place these at the disposition of the different religious bodies; that the property belonging to different sects shall be held by their legal representatives; that no religion shall be salaried or supported by the State; that the reduction of salaries now paid shall be gradual, and that pensions for life may be given conditionally to pastors and priests over forty-five years of age; that the State shall no longer nominate ministers of religion to clerical offices, but they are restored to all their political rights. Railway Rate Regulation: The Next Step The New York Sun publishes a speech by Mr. M. H. Smith, the President of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company, which, to use his own words, "sounds a pessimistic note." That note is, in brief, that the cost of improving and operating railways is constantly increasing, and that the people are demanding that the railways shall pay larger taxes and shall receive less sums in freight and passenger rates, and that if this process is continued indefinitely, the end must be bankruptcy. The cardinal mistake in this address, as it is with many if not most of the special advocates of the railways, is in the italicized portion of the following sentence: "A law has been enacted giving to a Commission mandatory power to fix rates, the avowed purpose being to reduce the rates." It is a mistake that the avowed purpose of the recent railway rate legislation was to reduce rates. Its object was, in some cases, to raise the rates-to some shippers. The objection of the American people to the railway rates was not that they were too high, but that they were unequal. The object of the American people was not to reduce the rates, but to equalize them. We repeat an illustration which we have used before: it would be better for the people of the United States to have a uniform rate of postage of three cents an ounce than to have a general rate of two cents an ounce with a special reduction to a cent and a half to favored buyers. What the American people object to is not high rates, but special privileges. No doubt individuals can be found who complain that railway rates are too high. No doubt in some cases they are too high. But this is not the cause of the popular discontent. Very little has been said by President Roosevelt, who is the author of the railway rate regulation, about the prices being too high. Not much complaint was made on this score in the Congressional debates. The avowed purpose, we repeat, is not to reduce rates, but to equalize rates so that all shippers and all communities shall be treated alike. Public discussion to be of value must be discussion of the real treated alike. question, not of an imaginary one. On There are two theories on which railway rates may be adjusted. The first is that the railway has something to sell, namely transportation, and that it may properly sell this transportation for the best price it can get, as a farmer does his apples, or a butcher his meat. The other theory is that transportation is not a piece of private property to be sold, but a public service to be rendered, and that freight charges are not a price paid by a customer for a thing purchased, but a toll paid by a trader for the use of a special kind of public highway. the first theory the owner charges for the transportation which he has to sell whatever he thinks he can get for it-in other words, he charges all that the traffic will bear. On the second theory the toll is fixed by the State on equal terms to all who use the road, and this rate ought to be so adjusted as to pay a fair interest to those whose capital is invested in the road and a fair compensation to those who operate it, and no more. In old days we had turnpikes in some of our States and a toll-gate at either end. Our railways have been operated on the theory that the toll-gate keeper may charge any man who comes along whatever he can get out of him. The people demand that the toll be fixed by law, be charged on equal terms to all who use the turnpike, and be just alike to the traveler and the turnpike company. Some of our ablest railway officials recognize this distinction and accept the latter theory. The sooner all railway officials accept it, the farther we shall be on the road to a final settlement of the somewhat difficult question, On what principles shall we determine what rates are just and equal to the railways, to the shippers, and to the various communities? All that we have done so far is to give the Inter-State Commerce Commission power, on complaint that particular charges are unjust and unequal, to order them made just and equal. This is a good first step, but not a final one. What we next want is an official recognition by law that freight charges are a turnpike toll, and a conference by representatives of the people appointed by the Government, and representatives of those railways only that accept that principle, in an endeavor to settle upon certain general principles to be universally applied by the Government in determining what the tolls should be. The Discomforts mopolitan character increases and more sharply defines itself from decade to decade. Those who suppose that it is simply a business community know very little about it. Its life is many-sided; and the vast number of different peoples included within its boundaries present problems of the deepest interest. It is not, however, a comfortable city to live in; it is distinctly uncomfortable. In the rudimentary conception of the management of cities which has prevailed, small place was made for comfort; but comfort holds a great place in the life of any highly civilized community, and the success of the management of a city is very largely measured by the comfort in which its people live. The discomfort of living in New York is due to a considerable extent to its conformation, to lack of means and methods of transportation from point to point. At certain hours in the day every vehicle that runs on wheels and is open to the public, above or below ground, is crowded, not only beyond all comfort, but well beyond the line of decency. The scenes which take place, not only at the Brooklyn of Bridge, but often at the stations of the Americans have still a great deal to learn in the application of ideas and intelligence to the government of cities. Our notions on this subject have been largely rudimentary; we have treated cities as if they were mere aggregations of houses instead of vital organizations of community life, with a unity which can be expressed in legislation, in building, in the direction of affairs. We have thought of the government of cities as a kind of minor politics, involving the filling of offices, plans for raising money, collecting taxes, and gaining ground for the party. In Europe, as Americans have come to understand, many cities are studied as a whole and treated as unities, from the regulative, the administrative, the educational, and the æsthetic side; and to this point of view Americans are coming as rapidly as their preoccupations and prejudices will permit. New York is becoming every year a more interesting place to live in; its cos Subway, are fast breeding a kind of savagery which will give the city in the end a very unenviable reputation. The logical outcome of the present tendency would be a free fight at the entrance to the platform of every car, and the opportunity of getting aboard to those who survive in the struggle. Women especially are subjected to familiarities which no woman, decent or otherwise, ought to bear, and the men who are eager to prɔtect them are helpless under the pressure of the merciless horde which fights its way to a car platform. Public sentiment will do something when it is aroused; but final relief cannot come until the means of transportation are multiplied. In the meantime, and perhaps for all time in view of the conformation of New York and the fact that such a host of people are anxious to go in the same direction at the same time, the city needs to create a strong sentiment imposing restraint, patience, and courtesy on its citizens. In many instances the trouble is due to the lack of application of ideas to the |