Some of his followers had tried to explain away his tariff attitude, for the sake of winning votes. 'Gentlemen,' he said, 'this is a matter about which I do not propose to ask your advice, because it involves my conscience and personal honor. I spoke yesterday, at Louisa Court House, under a free-trade flag. I have never ridden " both sides of the sapling," and I don't propose to begin at this late day. That banner in Clay Ward comes down to-day, or I retire from this canvass by published card to-morrow.'

Perhaps the finest tribute to his moral elevation comes from a generous enemy. I recorded at the time,' says Cox, writing of the surrender, 'my own feeling that I had rarely met a man who was personally more attractive to me than General Johnston. His mode of viewing things was a large one, his thoughts and his expression of them were refined, his conscientious anxiety to do exactly what was right in the circumstances was apparent in every word and act, his ability and his natural gift of leadership showed in his whole bearing and conduct.' And in illustration of his scrupulous conscientiousness Cox adds that, when the General learned that one of his staff had retained a little cavalry guidon of silk in the form of a Confederate flag, he sent for it at once and passed it over to the Union officers, as the colors were supposed to be surrendered.

Johnston was as simple, too, as he was upright and honest, cared nothing for display, parade, or show, lived with his men and shared their fare and their hardships. There was only one fork (one prong deficient) between himself and staff, and this was handed to me ceremoniously as the guest,' says Fremantle. While on his journey to Atlanta to assume command of the second army of the Confederacy, he excited universal remark by having an

ordinary box-car assigned to himself and staff, instead of imitating the brigadiers of the time and taking possession of a passenger-coach,' says Hughes.

Even as regards Johnston's jealousy, his sensitiveness to personal slights, and to the advancement of others, it is curious to note that this does not seem to have been owing to any inordinate ambition. He himself says that he did not draw his sword for rank or fame; and General Gordon tells us that he was not ambitious. This is doubtless exaggerated. All soldiers, all normal human beings, are ambitious, and like rank and fame, when they can get them honestly. But I find no shadow of evidence that Johnston was devoured by Jackson's ardent fever, or ever dreamed long dreams of shadowy glory and success. His attitude in this connection recalls what Clarendon says of the Earl of Essex: 'His pride supplied his want of ambition, and he was angry to see any man more respected than himself because he thought he deserved it more.' I believe that he was even capable of the highest, noblest, self-sacrifice, so long as it was not enforced, but voluntary; and that he was always ready to act upon his own fine saying, "The great energy exhibited by the Government of the United States, the danger in which our very existence as an independent people lies, requires sacrifice from us all who have been educated as soldiers.'

What is most winning about Johnston, however, in fact, quite irresistible, is his warmth of nature, his affection, his feminine tenderness, doubly charming in a man as strenuously virile as ever lived. His letters, even official, have a vivacity and personal quality wholly different from Lee's. He loved his men, watched over them, cared for them, praised them. 'I can find no record of more effective fighting in modern battles than that of this army

in December, evincing skill in the commanders and courage in the troops.' He has the most kindly words for the achievements of his officers. Of Stuart he writes, "He is a rare man, wonderfully endowed by nature with the qualities necessary for an officer of light cavalry. Calm, firm, acute, active, and enterprising, I know no one more competent than he to estimate the occurrences before him at their true value.' And to Stuart: 'How can I eat or sleep without you upon the outpost?' Of Longstreet: 'I rode upon the field, but found myself compelled to be a mere spectator, for General Longstreet's clear head and brave heart left me no apology for interference.'

With his equals in other commands he was amply generous, where they did not represent Davis. Thus he writes of Bragg: 'I am very glad that your confidence in General Bragg is unshaken. My own is confirmed by his recent operations, which, in my opinion, evince great skill and vigor. It would be very unfortunate to remove him at this juncture, when, he has just earned, if not won, the gratitude of the country.'

The man is even more attractive in his private friendships. 'One of the purest and strongest men I ever knew,' says Stiles, and perhaps the most affectionate.' Few more touching letters were ever written than the one he addressed to Mrs. Lee after her husband's death. Characteristic of his friendship was its singular demonstrativeness. He embraced and kissed his male friends as tenderly as if they were women. 'I have said he was the most affectionate of men,' writes Stiles. 'It will surprise many, who saw only the iron bearing of the soldier, to hear that we never met or parted, for any length of time, that he did not, if we were alone, throw his arms about me and kiss me, and that such was his habit in parting from

or greeting his male relatives and most cherished friends.'

In his domestic relations there was the same tenderness, the same devotion. He adored his wife, and their love was a life-long idyl, diversified, as idyls should be, by sunny mocking and sweet merriment. He had no children; but his nephews and nieces were as near to him as children. When he was told, in Mexico, of one nephew's death, 'the shock was so great that he fell prostrate upon the works. . . . Up to the day of his death, forty-four years later, Johnston kept a likeness of his nephew in his room and never failed to look at it immediately after rising.'

With all this, is it any wonder that men loved him and resent bitterly today the inevitable conclusions drawn from his own written words? Bragg wrote, in answer to one of Johnston's kind letters: "That spontaneous offer from a brother soldier and fellow citizen, so honored and esteemed, will be treasured as a source of happiness and a reward which neither time nor circumstances can impair.' Kirby Smith wrote: 'I would willingly be back under your command at any personal sacrifice.' Longstreet wrote: 'General Johnston was skilled in the art and science of war, gifted in his quick, penetrating mind and soldierly bearing, genial and affectionate in nature, honorable and winning in person, and confiding in his love. He drew the hearts of those about him so close that his comrades felt that they could die for him.'

The country trusted him. 'I discover from my correspondence you possess the confidence of the whole country as you do mine,' writes a civilian in December, 1863.

The soldiers trusted him. After weeks of falling back, yielding point after point to an encroaching enemy, the evidence is overwhelming that

Johnston's troops were cheerful, eager, zealous, had unbounded belief that he was doing the best that could be done, unbounded regret when they heard that he had been removed. His disciplinary faculty, his grip upon the hearts of men, his power of inspiration, were immense and undisputed. He had the greatest gift a leader can have, magnetism. "There was a magnetic power about him no man could resist, and exact discipline followed at once upon his assuming any command.' What the general feeling in his army was is nowhere better shown than in the fine letter written to him by Brigadier General Stevens, after Johnston had been replaced by Hood. 'We have ever felt that the best was being done that could be, and have looked confidently forward to the day of triumph, when with you as our leader we should surely march to a glorious victory. This confidence and implicit trust has been in no way impaired, and we are to-day ready, as we have ever been, to obey your orders, whether they be to retire before a largely out-numbering foe, or to spend our last drop of blood in the fiercest conflict. We feel that in parting with you our loss is irreparable

and you carry with you the love, respect, esteem, and confidence, of the officers and men of this brigade.'

Yet'a man so honored, admired, and beloved could write the Narrative of Military Operations! What a tangle human nature is!

If I wished to sum up Johnston's character briefly, I should quote two passages, both, as it happens, left us by women. Mrs. Chesnut writes, toward the close of the war: 'Afterwards, when Isabella and I were taking a walk, General Joseph E. Johnston joined us. He explained to us all of Lee's and Stonewall Jackson's mistakes. We had nothing to say how could we say anything?' When one reads this, remembering what Lee's position in the Confederacy was, what Johnston's was, and that he was talking to what must have been one of the liveliest tongues in the Southern States, one appreciates why Johnston did not succeed. When one turns to the remark of an officer to Mrs. Pickett, - 'Lee was a great general and a good man, but I never wanted to put my arms round his neck as I used to want to to Joe Johnston,' one is overcome with pity to think that Johnston should have failed.

IN the House of Representatives, on May 1, last, the Committee on Insular Affairs reported favorably a joint resolution of the House and Senate authorizing the President to open negotiations with such foreign governments as in his judgment should be parties to the compact, 'whereby the neutralization of the Philippine Islands shall be guaranteed and their independence recognized through international agreement,' and suggesting that the year 1918 be selected for the awarding of independence and perpetual neutrality to our island possessions.

Nearly all Americans are aware that the Philippine Islands have entailed enormous expense upon our people. They represent an outlay impossible ever to estimate with certainty, involving as it does the cost of a regular army more than doubled, the protection of a distant coast-line, and the prosecution of a long-continued campaign against ignorance and disease. It has already reached an amount before the computation of which officials and statisticians have either failed or kept suggestive silence. A half billion of dollars is not too large a sum to place upon our fourteen years of sovereignty in the Islands, including their subjugation and defense. The late Senator Hoar declared ten years ago that the American Government had expended upon them over $600,000,000, and his statement has never been successfully challenged. Computing even to-day that the Government pays $1500 annually for each soldier in the foreign service, the cost

under the head of military expenses alone amounts to $26,000,000 a year, not to speak of the sums expended in the construction and equipment of defensive fortifications.

Yet, for all this, the average American is not ten cents richer for their possession. The value of American exports to the Islands in 1911, exclusive of those for the army, navy, and administrative services, was $15,000,000, with imports amounting to under $17,000,000; and if every dollar of both combined had been clear profit instead of merely the value of the products exchanged, the whole amount would scarcely have paid the expenses of the same year's military establishment.

Furthermore, the American government has placed a tariff on the principal articles of export from the Islands to the United States, sugar, rice, and tobacco, so that the Islands, so far as any special advantage is given to American trade, might just as well not belong to us at all. Is not this the time, therefore, and might it not now be wise to consider a cessation in the expenditure of those vast sums which Congress votes annually for the fortification and military occupation of the Islands?

In their report of the same date the Committee on Insular Affairs states that, in its opinion, there does not exist to-day any considerable sentiment in the United States favorable to the permanent retention of the Philippines, basing this assertion on the ground that the Democratic party has, in three

successive national platforms, proposed the recognition of Philippine independence; while the leaders of the Republicans, including both the President and the ex-President, have repeatedly declared that the policy of their party was but to prepare the people of the Islands for independence in the future. In view of such statements, the question seems to be one merely of time and of the proper method to be employed.

It is not independence that is of supreme importance, but neutralization. A study of the subject will show that independence is not only unnecessary, if permanent neutrality is awarded, but also more difficult of imposition and maintenance, and much more doubtful as to its results. Neutralization is a European, not an American, institution. It is little known in this country, and, until two years ago, no treatise had been written in English on the subject. It is certain to have a different development on this hemisphere and in the Far East from that which it has had in Europe, where the need of buffer states is more apparent. But this at least is of value, that, although four entire countries have been neutralized, three of them independent states of Europe and one a union of dependent states in Africa, together with two colonies and a canal, we are assured by examples that it is not requisite, in granting permanent neutrality, to confer independence as well.

Savoy was neutralized while belonging both at the time and thereafter to the Kingdom of Sardinia. It is now, although neutralized, one of the departments of France. The Ionian Islands continued to belong to Greece after their neutralization, and the neutralized Basin of the Congo is apportioned among and owned to-day by four different powers. The Philippines are our property and we may

neutralize them, with the coöperation of the Great Powers of the world, while retaining exclusive sovereignty over them. We may build their schools, keep order, inculcate ideals of American citizenship, influence in all legitimate ways the trade of the Islands to come to America, just as England is doing in India, with the added advantage that we shall benefit equally with all other nations in their trade, which, under our tariff provisions, is not altogether the

case now.

Philippine independence, moreover, without being an essential factor in the neutralization of the Islands, might, if conferred at this present time, result unwisely for the United States. Supposing that we should grant independence to the Philippines, we should then have no assurance that they would not, in the future, following some political change not uncommon in new republics, erect a tariff wall against ourselves a ludicrous and mortifying situation, but not impossible to the ingratitude of republics. It is certain that at the present moment they are not capable of self-government and the maintenance of stable foreign relations. Commercially interested nations, which now include the whole world, would hardly agree to our withdrawing guidance and protection and responsibility, and then failing to provide some authority to take our place.

If we step out, some one will step in, if only to protect their commerce with the world; and although Europe could not prevent our withdrawal, she could certainly refuse to neutralize the Islands under these conditions, leaving them rather to the first Power strong and determined enough to seize them and at the same time to satisfy Europe in the matter of equal participation in their trade. Until we have convinced not only ourselves, but also the world, of the ability of independent Philip