to court. The policeman may, incidentally in getting a man to court, be compelled to half kill him if he refuses to go, but he meets out no punishment-he leaves that to the judge; his business is simply to get the criminal before the judge and jury to be tried according to law. The function of the militia is much the same. Quelling a riot is not war; it is of the nature of a police function, it is law against lawlessness. The analogy of the army is not the police, but the duellist. Without law, or judge or jury or evidence, a battle is merely a duel on a gigantic scale. A minimum of force to get miscreants to court will be needed so long as there are lawless people in the world. Civil war may occur for many years to come. But with the organization of the world, international duelling will cease, and an armed international police force will police the world. This will come, more or less perfectly, in all probability within one hundred years. The marvelous diplomatic settlement of long standing difficulties between England and France, and the disarmament of Chili and Argentina were discussed and the danger and expense of our huge navy were commented on by Mrs. Mead. Within eighteen years, our population has increased fifty per cent., our wealth one hundred per cent., and the cost of our navy seven hundred per cent. The cost of the battleship "Iowa" exceeds the valuation of all the land and the ninety-four buildings of Harvard University, plus all the land and the seventy buildings of Tuskegee Institute, plus all the land and buildings of Hampton Institute. Every battleship is withdrawn in about thirteen years. What would it mean in expense to the country if all these educational institutions were destroyed in that length of time. To-day, our navy has passed far beyond the needs of national defence. It is making us a menace to the peace of the world by arousing distrust and jealously among our neighbors. It is the duty of our rich country, safe between two oceans and with no natural enemies in the world, to lead the world in steps towards world organization and gradual, proportionate disarmament. After another hymn by the congregation the audience was dismissed. 1905. SIXTH DAY.-MORNING SESSION. Promptly at ten o'clock the Yearly meeting of Progressive Friends was opened with singing, after which the following CALL was read: THE YEARLY MEETING OF PROGRESSIVE FRIENDS Will be held at Longwood, Pa., on the 2d, 3d and 4th of Sixthmonth (June), 1905. The questions to-day demanding public attention are as important. as any which have ever challenged the human mind. Let the friends of free thought and free speech again come together, for their earnest consideration. FREDERIC A. HINCKLEY, Philadelphia, Pa. Clerks. AARON MENDENHALL, Mendenhall, Pa., Treasurer. The Presiding Clerk, FREDERIC A. HINCKLEY, remarked: It is with unusual pleasure that I extend the greetings of Longwood to you this charming morning. The sunshine which lights up this beautiful spot, without, has its counterpart in the sunshine in my heart. I am feeling jubilant about what has just been accomplished in Philadelphia. Three weeks ago the people of that city felt themselves in hopeless bondage, with no power to free themselves. They knew that the worst conditions of government prevailed there and saw no relief therefrom. They had not measured their own strength. Suddenly the conditions changed. The people, simultaneously stirred, rose to the occasion, defeated the infamous steal of a valuable public franchise and asserted their independence of gang rule. Police control has been taken out of politics and public contracts are to be awarded on an honest basis. The whole country is interested. Philadelphia seems solving that hard problem in a popular government,-the wise government of a city. The battle is only well begun. The legislature must be watched and the repeal secured of the Ripper bill-which is meant to destroy the Mayor's vital power. We may have many battles to fight but the promise of the time is fair that this determination of the people is aroused to last. The news from the far East is freighted with the atrocities of war, but full of promise for a larger freedom and better government for the Russian people. It brings with it also the augury of a new nation among the world powers. A nation not exclusively Christian by profession, oriental in its customs, of a different race complexion from ours, but so imbued with the principle of progress that we welcome it to the front rank of nations. We are full of good cheer that these demonstrations at home and abroad indicate a forward movement of humanity toward the ideals of freedom, justice and honest government. In the twentieth year of my term of service in this chair, the blue skies that bend above us, the green grass and nodding flowers of beautiful Longwood seem as fresh and inspiring to me as if I had never seen them before. The delightful associations and memories of this place do not grow old. I trust we may not weary of coming here to attack the problems of the hour as they come before us. I hope the younger generations will take up the work, and make Longwood, in the future, as in the past, stand for the advocacy of those great ideas and movements which will lift humanity the world over to a higher plane of justice, to an enlarged conception of righteousness. The appointment of the several committees followed in order. The Business Committee were: WHITTIER FULTON, chairman; HENRY S. KENT, JANE P. RUSHMORE, LAVINIA C. HOOPES, MARTHA S. S. CRANSTON, RUTH HUEY, MARY THATCHER, ALBERT THATCHER, LYDIA H. PRICE, SARAH D. CHAMBERS, beside all invited speakers, and the clerks and Treasurer of the Yearly Meeting, ex-officio. The committee to nominate officers and audit the Treasurer's accounts, were: CATHARINE A. HANNUM, ALICE MarSHALL and DR. I. D. JOHNSON. The Finance Committee were: CHARLES J. PENNOCK, SARAH D. CHAMBERS and GEO. MARTIN CLOUD. Of the Memorial Committee: EDITH PENNOCK was reap pointed as the new member-her term having expired. It now stands: MARY S. WOODWARD, CATHARINE A. HANNUM and EDITH PENNOCK. As has long been customary, a ten minutes' rule was adopted for all speakers except the invited guests. The Nominating Committee reported the re-appointment for the ensuing year of all the acting officers: Frederic A. Hinckley, Presiding Clerk; Elizabeth B. Passmore, Recording Clerk, and Aaron Mendenhall, Treasurer. In accepting his re-appointment Mr. Hinckley said: You are not in accord with Dr. Osler's theory about ageing people or Mrs. Passmore and myself would have to retire. I believe his theory wide of the mark. Joseph Choate, our distinguished English Ambassador, has just returned home laden with honors at the age of seventy-three. Franklin was seventy-five when he signed the Declaration of Independence, still older when he conducted his mission at the Court of France, and older still when he served as a member of the Constitutional Convention. Gladstone, called five times to the Premiership of England, was thrice called after he was seventy, and reached the climax of his political achievement when he carried the Irish Home Rule bill at eighty-eight. The idea that old people are necessarily unfit for work defies the hope of immortality. With the wearing out of the body the mind often manifests an increase of contemplative and of spiritual power. which make age beautiful and valuable. Some aged people leave life with the acuteness of mental and spiritual vision accentuated as the bonds of the physical are relaxed. It ought always to be so. I do not like to think of advancing years as a descending plane of inability towards the abyss of nothingness. I believe we ought to keep young in thought, and approach the point of transference in the spirit of Browning: "With head erect, breast forward." The soul ought to keep young. If it loses expectancy it invites old age. A solo, "Let Thy Hand Help Me," was sung by Mrss SLEEPER, of Philadelphia. Rev. Anna H. Shaw then addressed the meeting on THE REAL DEMOCRACY. She said in part: In all ages men have been aspiring toward and striving for higher conditions,-politically and otherwise. The struggle for political equality has ever been complicated by wrong ideas as to what is a true Republic or a true Democracy. We speak of the republics of Greece and Rome, of South America and of the United States, as if they all were the same thing, while as a matter of fact each differs from every other one as the people of each differ from those of the others. Strictly speaking we of the United States are not and never have been a Republic, although nearest to it, among the nations. The familiar definition says: "A Republic is that form of government under which laws are enacted by Representatives elected by the people." It does not say,-by a fraction of the people. No real republic has ever existed. We have been evolving a republic out of a monarchy and are yet only midway in the process, but we are advancing step by step toward the successful completion of the evolution. From the beginning, governments have been based on the idea that one class was to govern, and as a necessary sequence to this idea, the other class was to be governed. The variations in republican governments have depended, also, upon where this class line was drawn. The Puritans came to the new world filled with a sublime vision of freedom, right and justice. They left all that was dearest to them in temporal affairs, they braved storm and cold and the terrors of an unknown sea and shore, to win the right to freely worship God in their own way. Who can assume that these brave, devoted men were insincere? Who can assume that they were not believers in the idea of religious freedom? Yet their first act when they founded a colony in the Land of Freedom was to persecute those who differed from them in religious belief. In the framing of their government the query arose as to who should take part in it. It was to be a government, not of kings and oppressors, but of the people. Their decision was |