MORE WINE AND OSTRICH D FEATHERS URING the nine months from August 1, 1912, to May 1, 1913, more than $50,000,000 worth of works of art were imported into the United States. During the same period in 1911-12 the corresponding figure was $30,000,000 and the year before that $20,000,000. The importations this year are a new high record in value. In the same nine months $35,000,000 worth of diamonds and other precious stones came in; and this figure has been exceeded only once. The $7,500,000 worth of wines that came in in these nine months is more by a half million dollars' worth than came in the previous year, and the $9,500,000 paid for imported feathers is three and a quarter million dollars more than was paid in 1910. Certainly there are some classes at least that are not feeling the effects of the high cost of living when wines, diamonds, and ostrich feathers are coming into the country in increasing volume. And these things are not like the much abused farmer's automobile. They do not increase the efficiency of living among the producing classes. II The high cost of living has not pinched us desperately. We are still importing more and more luxuries and wasting money at home, wasting money not only privately but publicly. Ours is not a paternalistic Government. It is not burdened with all the complexities of the German Government, for example. Compared with other countries, our city, state, and National governments engage in few commercial enterprises. Yet the combined taxes to meet our local, state, and National needs amount to nearly $40 for every man, woman, and child in the United States. The recent popular vote of the state of New York to make a second bond issue of $50,000,000 for roads is a fair example of our careless attitude toward public expenditures. The people in New York want good roads. The simple method of borrowing the money and building them is proposed and accepted by popular vote. Yet there is every indication from the past that the roads built with this $50,000,000 will have to be rebuilt with more borrowed money two or three times before this present loan is paid off. An average tax of $40 a head all over the country means that a family of five pays $200. A man earning $3 a day earns only a little more than $900 in a year. The $200 is a large proportion of that. The $200 is just 5 per cent. of a salary of $4,000 a year. Of course, if the tax were collected directly and the facts of the situation touched everyone's pocket nerve in a way that could not be disguised, there would be a tremendous outcry immediately. But a large proportion of the population lives in the ignorant belief that it pays no taxes at all, or, if any, only a negligible amount. The taxes that it pays under the disguise of rent, transportation, food, and clothing do not appear as taxes at all. But the remedy for the situation is not to abandon any good works which are being done in order thereby to decrease the burden of taxation. On the contrary, true economy calls for us to redouble our efforts in the improvement of our roads, schools, sanitation, and many other functions, particularly of the local and state governments. But in redoubling our energy in the betterment of these institutions of progress we can well quadruple the scrutiny that we bestow upon the expenditure of the public funds. information in it that is not already accessible in this country. But from the trip of the commission itself a great deal is to be expected. It is composed of more than a hundred members, and they represent three fourths of the states. Every one of these men will be a centre of inspiration for the better organization of country living. They will have the conviction and enthusiasm that men get from seeing things themselves. The knowledge which they gain abroad will be a living knowledge ready to produce results. FOR A NATURAL NATIONAL HIGHWAY C ALIFORNIA is now at work upon an unusual plan of state highway building. Two years ago the state bonded itself for $18,000,000 for public road improvement upon two original principles: First, that none of the usual restrictions were placed upon the time in which the highways should be built except that the work should be done as fast as possible; and second, that the routes of these roads were practically pre-determined by the law, because they were limited to two trunk lines from Oregon to Mexico one line along the coast and one line down the great central valley that should be as direct as possible, with only those laterals that might be indispensable to connect centres of population with the trunk roads. About 1,800 miles of trunk line road and about 900 miles of lateral roads will be built. The purpose behind this plan was to provide an object lesson in road-making to the counties and an irresistible incentive to them to build local systems of good roads that should connect with the trunk lines. Under direction of the state highway commission, contractors are already building 206 miles of the system; and plans and routes for 74 miles more have been approved. The stimulating effect upon the cities and counties is already apparent. Four cities are at work spending altogether $164,000 on the permanent improvement of the streets within their limits that carry the highway through their territory. San Mateo County has issued bonds for $1,250,000 to improve 110 miles of connecting roads. Commercial bodies in twenty other counties are coöperating with the public officials to provide bond issues for similar local systems of good roads. Every county in the state has agreed to furnish all rights of way and to construct all necessary bridges for the trunk lines within its jurisdiction, without cost to the state. If every state would solve its roads problem in some such way as this, the work of connectingthe statesystems into "national" highways would be simple, and these interstate highways would then be really national, for they would be intercommunicating north and south as well as east and west. And national legislators would be freed of the embarrassments and temptations of that new "pork barrel" which is so difficult to divorce from the scheme for Federal aid to a "national" system of roads. II But there is one difficulty which the California plan would encounter, a difficulty which California has already encountered. The state authorized the sale of $18,000,000 worth of bonds. It has sold about a third of them in a reluctant market. The same difficulty would undoubtedly confront other states if they were to begin to bond themselves upon a large scale for road-building. Senator Bourne, of Oregon, has prepared a scheme for national aid to the states in their road-building campaigns which would in a large measure overcome this financial difficulty, and which would at the same time allow a smaller opportunity for a raid upon the Federal Treasury than any of the other plans of Federal aid which have been proposed. His plan is much the same as the plan that was proposed in North Carolina for the state to pursue in helping the counties. It amounts practically to a guarantee of the counties' bonds so that they may utilize the better credit facilities of the state. Senator Bourne's plan similarly means the guarantee of the state bonds so that they may use the better credit facilities of the National Government. Under the Senator's plan every state THE ESTIMATED COST OF A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF GOOD ROADS UNDER SENATOR JONATHAN BOURNE'S PLAN TO LEND THE CREDIT OF THE FEderal governmENT TO THE STATES SO THAT A MARKET CAN BE SECURED FOR STATE BONDS AT A LOW RATE OF INTEREST amount of 3 per cent. bonds, it would secure $8,000,000 interest a year and pay $6,000,000. On the $2,000,000 difference, according to the Senator's plan, the United States Government would allow the states 3 per cent. annual compound interest. At this rate, at the end of 46.89 years this sinking fund would amount to $200,000,000, enough to pay off the National bonds and return the state bonds to the state treasuries cancelled. ernment is based upon area, population, property valuation, and the present mileage of roads. It would allow the different states to borrow as shown in the table above, with the provision that no state would borrow more than 20 per cent. of its allotment in any one year. The Senator claims for this apportionment that, being fixed, it would prevent a Congressman from being held "unsatisfactory or inefficient unless he succeeded in securing for his district an increased appropriation." If it be wise to have Federal aid at all it seems that some such plan as Senator Bourne has worked out - designed to limit the National Government's financial obligations to the amount which every state is willing to tax itself and to limit the National Government's actual work to inspection and advice is infinitely better than the schemes of direct gifts of money for Federal road construction, with all their "pork barrel" possibilities. A NEW PROFESSION But one tendency appears very clearly: There is an ever growing public interest in this interpretation; and to supply this demand there is a fairly well started profession of men of judgment and ability who can write the vital facts of progress for all the public to read. This profession already includes such capable writers and students of affairs as Mr. Ray Stannard Baker, Miss Ida M. Tarbell, Mr. Burton J. Hendrick, Mr. Mark Sullivan, Mr. William Bayard Hale, and others of national reputation. It is a profession that should be fostered, for through it the American people will increasingly come into that broader knowledge and interpretation of their own R. ROOSEVELT once, at a ban- affairs that is indispensable to the conduct M "quet of the Periodical Publishers Association, began his speech with the remark that it was a "pleasure to meet the governing classes." Though this was said as an after-dinner pleasantry, it is true that in the last ten or twelve years the magazines as a voice of the people have come to play a large rôle in our national life. Before that time such long established periodicals as Harper's, Scribner's, and the Century had, as they still have, a very strong hold upon the educated classes, upon people who needed no introduction to art, literature, and the pleasures of travel. There were scientific journals, too, that presupposed another kind of education upon the part of their readers. But the interpretation of current events did not have a large place in periodicals. But that is now changed. The magazine reading public has been broadened to include everyone who can and will read. The recording of American life in government, in industry, and in its social phases furnishes the leading articles of to-day. The easiest sensations in this field were the scandals, and in their new-found power the magazines of a muckraking period which is happily passing away dwelt overmuch upon them. We are coming into at period of better balanced judgment and of more constructive endeavor in our magazine literature, but as yet we are only experimenting with the possibilities of usefulness of those magazines that try sanely to interpret this most interesting period in which we live. of a democracy. The colleges here have an opportunity for public service in the training of such men. And the public can help by according to them the honor that has made the legal profession and the medical profession effective. TO REFORM CIVIL SERVICE T REFORM HE President, by ordering the fourth class postmasters, whom Mr. Taft put under the civil service rules, to take competitive examinations to maintain their positions, did what Mr. Taft should have done. If it turns out that the examinations will change the proportion of Republican postmasters it will merely indicate that there was political partiality in their selection - which, of course, every one knows there was. But, though they were put in under the "spoils system," to have taken their jobs from them for patronage reasons would have made the offence against decent government double. Soon after this order, the President accepted the resignation of two members of the Civil Service Commission. For a short time this will give a few Democratic jobhunters an unjustifiable hope that, after all, the plums will be easier to gather than they at first seemed. That idea will soon pass away, and it is to be hoped that the new commissioners will so conduct their office as to maintain an even stricter defence against the use of the Federal offices as rewards for party services, and at the same time that they will not allow the civil service rules to maintain incompetents in the Government employ. There are few things that encourage "the Government gait," that slow up Government work, so much as the stringent rules under which the departmental and bureau heads have to hire their subordinates. Of course, if it is a choice between a return to the practices of the "spoils system" or maintaining the present civil service system, the present condition, in spite of its drawbacks, is preferable. surely we have come to a time when a reform of the civil service regulations can be discussed without any danger of relapsing into the "spoils system." I GUIDING THE BOY GANGS But NA recent issue of the New York Times, under the headline, "Boys Sit As Judges and Punish Mates," appeared the following story: When Chief Justice Arthur Aurora, aged fourteen, called his court to order yesterday in the official courtroom of Public School 114, in Oak Street, shame and chagrin were depicted on the faces of two tiny detectives in blue blouses who hung back among the policemen, deputy sheriffs, culprits, and court attendants who filled the courtroom's benches. The first case the young Whitman of the school, Dionysius Eturaspe, had hoped to bring before the court was that of Pasquale Fezza, of 28 Madison Street, a thirteen-yearold, accused of jabbing a tiny penknife into the shoulder of William Paretsky. "Where is the defendant in this case?" demanded Dionysius, in boyish treble, but with much official dignity nevertheless. The two detectives shuffled their feet and their little faces turned red. "We ain't got him yet," one of the bluebloused detectives finally said. "You see, we ain't got no jurisdiction. We ain't only a block or two from school, and Pasquale, he has kept all the time to home where we can't grab him." Philip Lascal, of the Fourth Grade, was brought before the Chief Justice by a policeman from whose shoe a bare toe peeked forth. "What's the charge?" asked the Chief Justice of the school Whitman. "Playing craps, your Honor," said the District Attorney. "What evidence is there of this crime?" "I got de evidence in me pocket here," piped up Detective Lieut. Sidney Solomon. Lieut. Solomon came forward, and placed four cent pieces and a dime on the Chief Justice's desk. The Associate Justices leaned forward, and scrutinized the coins with great care. Then the Justices consulted. The result of the conference was kept for the time as a judicial secret. "Is there any other evidence?" asked the Chief Justice, keeping one eye on the money all the time. Ciociola "Yes, your Honor," Salvadore said. He was the other detective who, at the opening of the proceedings, was discomfited. "I grabbed dis for evidence. It's the thoid time I've raided a game, and I know what to take by now." Detective Ciociola pulled from his pocket a very soiled and battered set of dice. Philip Lascal, the chief of the group of crapplaying prisoners on trial, admitted that he had won all the money in the game. He received a sentence of three days' imprisonment, which meant that he would have to stay in half an hour after school every day for three days. The simple expedient of self-government had turned the dominant group of boys in the school into law enforcers. Always in school and elsewhere where boys congregate there are gangs. Usually these gangs are a nuisance; very often they are a serious menace to the morals of the gang members and to the peace of the neighborhood. For usually the energy of the gangs is directed against law and order. But a new time is coming, for so many people in the schools, in the Boy Scouts, and in many other activities, have grasped the fundamental fact that if these gang activities are guided most wonderful results can be achieved results that will leave these boys far better able to handle themselves honestly and effectively in the world than were their predecessors. |