over.

will compel the nationalization, can be operated by public employees working under civil service rules. The telegraph can be similarly purchased (at cost of duplication) and publicly operated. Similarly the mines can be taken Work now let to contractors can be performed by government directly; and, one by one, or more rapidly, such of the Trusts as experience proves to be permanent in character can be nationalized and operated by the public, the classified list being extended to include at least the more important grades of help.

As a measure of practical politics such a step should prove to be wisdom itself. The first duty of government is to care for the people-to see that each is provided with the opportunity for useful labor, rational development, and the living of a complete life. The party so long dominant in America has maintained its grip largely by its nominal observance of this principle. Its "protective" policy, which, had its real workings been understood, should have proved a millstone about its neck, has been to it instead a tower of strength, because the people have believed that it "made work" for them and secured to them the opportunity to earn a living. The campaign of 1896 was won chiefly by the threat that opposition to the demands of the bank octopus would cost people their jobs. The campaign of 1900 was won very largely by the utilization of the same principle. The professional classes, clergymen, teachers, experimental scientists, soldiers, and placehunters generally were assured that opportunities for their employment would be largely increased by the retention of "our new possessions." The workingman was dazzled by the glitter of his "full dinner pail," and warned that discharge and emptiness would follow the turning down of the party that "found work" for the workless. The hollowness of these claims we need not here point out. But they had their effect: the workman "voted for his job."

And thus multitudes of men will continue to vote; for their "job" is their life. Suppose, now, a political party

actually in sympathy with the people should boldly announce the policy of directly furnishing employment, at good pay and reasonable hours, to competent workers, the money for this purpose to be raised by taxing not the poor who now bear the burden of taxation but the rich who now evade it-the corporations, the Trusts, and the estates of dead millionaires. What politics could be more practical? Upon what surer foundation could a party build its claim for power? And what policy would be more beneficent in its operations?

Ruskin College, Trenton, Mo.

THOMAS E. WILL.

PROGRESSION, NOT RETROGRESSION.

The building of peaceful homes is civilization; the destruction of peaceful homes is barbarism. The maintenance of high ideals of liberty is the spirit of modern times in our New World, discovered by Columbus and made free by Washington. The destruction of ideals of liberty, which have inspired a weak but aspiring people to struggle for three centuries against despotism, is to turn our faces back toward the darkness whence our ancestors emerged so slowly and at such fearful cost. To make a people free is progression. To place new shackles on a long-struggling people is retrogression. To change the desert into a garden, and there establish homes surrounded by the blessings of liberty, is to approach the functions of the Divine as near as we can ever hope to do. To go into a country that is already a smiling garden and there destroy homes, rob and kill and wrest from the people all hope of liberty, is diabolical. To attend to one's own business, at home, is always wise, and it always pays. To neglect home opportunities and duties and endeavor to conquer and govern distant peoples is not wise; it does not pay-and it should not pay. Peace, culture and refinement in comfortable and

earth. Armed camps.

happy homes-this is heaven on earth.

Which is

murderous forays on a feeble people, drunkenness, debauchery, sickness-these are hell on earth. "Christian," and which is "heathen?"

A young man went out to seek his fortune in distant lands. He was brave, persevering, enterprising, and determined. Years afterward he returned in poverty-a broken, feeble old man; and under the door-step of the humble home, which he had left so long ago to seek his fortune, he found a diamond mine! To the restless, discontented boy, the far-away pastures seem green. The experienced traveler returns to his boyhood scenes and finds that they are equal or superior to any in distant parts of the world. The lasting lesson that he has learned is, that the beauty and loveliness, which in his inexperience he was so anxious to leave, are not surpassed and scarcely equaled anywhere else. The far-away hills lose their imaginary attractiveness, and sweet content adds new beauties to home scenes. Ask a returning soldier from the Philippines! As a Nation we will learn, as many individuals have learned, that

"To stay at home is best."

And such a home as we have! The possibilities within our home boundaries are greater than we can ever hope to exhaust. We can here produce limitless wealth and bring to our shores all that the remainder of the world has to offer. We do not have to go abroad to find homes and sustenance for the rising generation. We have plenty of room for homes for many generations, and plenty of substance with which to sustain them. The reclaiming of our deserts and the protection of one of the richest agricultural regions in the world (the lower Mississippi valley) from the waste of waters furnish tempting problems for our young men. The nurturing of a real Christian spirit among us might be an inviting work for our young women. There are plenty of possible achievements at home for our young men, and plenty of need for "spreading the gospel" to

keep our young women busy at home for an indefinite time in the future.

The annual production of gold in the Klondike, for which so many have braved dangerous journeys, cruel winters, and hardships of all kinds, does not much exceed (less than double) in value the annual sale of peanuts in the United States.

Home duties should be our first duties. Home rewards are greater and more certain than those sought in distant lands. C. F. TAYLOR.

Philadelphia, Pa.

LET CONSTRUCTION DISPLACE DESTRUCTION.

The Constitution of the United States opens with the following preamble: "We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

In the Declaration of Independence we find this expression: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such force, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."

The foregoing utterances indicate in a general way the

course our Government should pursue. Acting in the spirit of these declarations, Congress has appropriated money for a great variety of purposes. We have sounded the seas and made charts thereof, built light-houses, improved harbors, constructed dikes, made possible the navigation of rivers, surveyed lands, subsidized railroad companies, established mail routes, maintained the signal service, and done many other things too numerous to mention. There is, then, no constitutional reason and no want of precedent to prevent the irrigation of arid lands, the reclamation of waste lands, or the purchase of additional lands-provided only the need exists. The need, the general welfare of the people, is the sole determining factor in the case.

As to the advisability of irrigating arid lands in preference to spending our millions in foreign conquest and wars of exploitation, there is no room for argument. Such lands exist in great abundance. They are sufficient in extent and fertility to feed the world, provided they could be cultivated with skill and intelligence. If every other foot of land on the earth should become barren, there would still be no need of starvation. There is half enough waste land in rocky New England to feed America. The possibilities of a single acre under irrigation and with proper cultivation it is almost impossible to exaggerate. Certainly there is no natural reason why the people of America should be destitute, or even poor.

As to wars of conquest, and especially this Philippine war, I have no words in which to express my horror of it. It is the infamy of the ages. The present Administration will go down in history as the most perfidious in the annals of the civilized world. McKinley and his coadjutors will do well if they escape the brand of conscious liars and murderers. Intelligent, Christian America is sick at heart of this awful business. Rather than to use our money in suppressing liberty and exploiting the conquered we would better load a war-ship with gold, sail it out into mid-ocean,