BOOKS OF THE DAY.

REVIEWED BY B. O. FLOWER.*

A VENERABLE JUDGE ARRAIGNS A RECREANT ADMINISTRATION.

THE GREAT TRIAL OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. By Judge Samuel Parks, A.M. Cloth, 174 pp. Price, $1.00. Kansas City, Mo. Hudson-Kimberly Publishing Co.

A Book Study.

Nothing in history is so unutterably sad as the spectacle of a nation, which has advanced so far along the highway of progress that it has become an inspiration and a lodestone for the friends of freedom and human rights in all lands, falling back into the night from. which civilization has toilsomely and with bleeding feet emerged; for it speaks of the surrender of the higher to the lower. It tells of a betrayal of a sacred trust vouchsafed to those who had followed the vision of progress; and the higher and truer the mission, the more terrible will ever be the retribution when the wheel of effect has made its circuit. Unhappy indeed is that people who slumbers through crucial moments, when the fundamental principles that have made a nation morally great are pushed aside for sordid ends; for in that fatal hour the handwriting is again traced on the wall of time-"weighed and found wanting."

Since the close of the civil war, our people have been to a certain degree hypnotized by greed for gain. A passion for material prosperity has seemed to fascinate the public eye and paralyze not only the higher consciousness but the faculty ror clearly discerning between what is ethically just and right and what slothful conventionalism and wealth sanction. Even the lofty precepts, the vital truths, that rang from the lips of the Founder of Christianity two thousand years ago now fail to hold the Church true to her holy charge; and the Golden Rule and the gospel of peace are ignored, while the war of conquest is being waged for material gain and political aggrandizement, without any serious protest on the part of Christian citizenship.

Unhappily for the United States and the cause of freedom the world over, the dawning of the twentieth century has witnessed a supreme tragedy. The great Republic-which, until war was inaugurated against the liberty-loving Filipinos, was the greatest moral world power, and the nation among nations to whom the eyes of all true democrats

* Books intended for review in THE ARENA should be addressed to B. O. Flower, 5 Park Square, Boston, Mass.

throughout the world were turned-became recreant to her high and sacred mission, closing her eyes at once to the most solemn injunctions of the great Nazarene and to the splendid truths enunciated in her Declaration of Independence. She has allowed herself to be led astray by the spirit of materialistic commercialism, and, turning aside from the highway of progress, has become one of the vulture family of sordid and greedy nations, and in so doing has exchanged her robe of glory for the blood-dyed garment that ever clothes imperial rule. The law of right has given place to the terrible rule of might.

The action of the United States in the treatment accorded to the Puerto Ricans and the Filipinos is the strongest justification and indorsement of the position taken by Great Britain against our Revolutionary fathers that could possibly be made. If the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the brave stand taken by the Continental Congress, by General Washington, and by the master spirits of the American Revolution are fundamentally sound and true, then the Republic at the behest of commercial exploiters has committed a moral crime, the tragic results of which will curse our people individually and collectively. Indeed, some of the evil fruits are even now plainly visible. Thousands of American soldiers have perished. Thousands of Filipinos have been slain. A standing army of 100,000, instead of the 25,000 that was more than ample before we attempted forcibly to subjugate an unwilling people, will now take 75,000 men from productive labor and give to them as a profession the killing of human beings, while when not engaged in destruction of human life they will be employed in no productive work, but must be a continual burden to the hard-working, taxpaying citizens.

To-day the wealth creators of America are called upon to pay a war budget, which, including the army, navy, and pension appropriations, exceeds, according to so conservative a Republican statesman as Senator Hale of Maine, the expenditures of any European nation. Again, through this war of criminal aggression, numbers of our soldiers have fallen victims to small-pox, and through the mail the contagion has been carried to various Western States, where it has already spread over vast areas. Kansas and Missouri are to-day battling with this scourge, which in some places has assumed almost an epidemic form. Furthermore, there are over 30,000 lepers at large in the Philippine Islands. There can be but small doubt that many of our soldiers who return home will bring with them seeds of this most dreaded disease, only to scatter them throughout the Republic. These are a few evil consequences that are a part of the harvest we must reap for the crime of being recreant alike to the Golden Rule, to our noblest traditions, and to our high mission. Nor is this all. Few people seem to realize the peril that lurks in the awful precedents now being established. The recent appointment to lucrative positions of two sons of Justices of the Supreme Court by the Executive, at a time when the constitutionality of the Administration's acts were before the bench, is probably the most dangerous precedent ever established by a President of the United States. The fact that the

present Supreme Bench may be above being influenced by the tender of lucrative positions does not alter the fact that the precedent established may be used as a warrant at a future time to distribute patronage when such distributions may influence members of the court of last resort.

Perhaps no stronger, braver, or bolder arraignment of the leaders who have profaned the temple of freedom by casting out the Declaration of Independence and the Golden Rule in order to enthrone the god of gold has appeared than is found in a work recently published, entitled "The Great Trial of the Nineteenth Century." It is from the ripe mind of an honorable and venerable jurist, Judge Samuel C. Parks, A.M.

The author was one of the closest friends of Abraham Lincoln from 1840 until the tragic death of the great emancipator. In 1860 he was chosen to prepare the campaign life of Mr. Lincoln. In 1862 he was appointed associate justice of the supreme court of Idaho, and in 1878 President Hayes appointed him associate justice of the supreme court of New Mexico. In 1882 President Arthur transferred him to the supreme bench of Wyoming. During his long, honorable, exacting, and public career he has been faithful to the higher law; hence, his words on this great question bear with them the double authority of a great jurist and a good man. In his preface Judge Parks quotes a memorable passage from an address delivered by Abraham Lincoln at Springfield, Ill., on the 26th of June, 1857, in which the martyred President uttered a warning note that should be pondered by every patriotic American to-day. In this address, when speaking of the Declaration of Independence, Mr. Lincoln said:

"I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all such, but they did not intend to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral development, or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness in what respects they did consider all men created equal-equal in certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' This they said, and this they meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that all were then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit.

"They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and, even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading, and deepening its influence and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere. The assertion that 'all men are created equal' was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain; and it was placed in the Declaration, not for that, but for future use. Its authors meant it to be as-thank God! it is now proving itself-a stumbling-block to all those who, in after times, might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despotism. They knew the proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant when such should reappear in this fair land and commence their vocation they should find left for them at least one hard nut to crack."

"This view," observes Judge Park, "was the view of the Republican