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ABOUT ENTANGLING ALLIANCES

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HE Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs has refused to sanction Secretary Bryan's plan to have the United States definitely assume the same responsibility toward Nicaragua that we have now toward Cuba.

Undoubtedly the Secretary's plan meant an "entangling alliance" such as we have traditionally avoided. But the avoidance But the avoidance has been more in tradition than in fact, as our relations to Mexico show. If we did not have a de facto entangling alliance with Mexico we should not be any more responsible for conditions in that country than any other country. But the Monroe Doctrine's inevitable inference is that if the people of any American country fail to live up to their obligations to civilization, the responsibility next falls upon the United States. We have not taken this responsibility very actively, yet it might at any time be forced upon us.

Mr. Bryan's plan recognized the positive responsibilities imposed upon us as well as the negation imposed upon European countries. It was meant only as an honest attempt to aid Nicaragua. Our intervention in that country would have been no more imminent with the treaty than without it.

Latin American critics are, however, apt to suspect our motives. In the last fifteen years we have taken Porto Rico, the Philippines, the Canal strip. We have intervened in Cuba when we considered it necessary. We are operating the customhouses (the chief source of income) in Santo Domingo. Our neighbors fear that we are easily forced into taking territory and extending our influence.

This is unfortunate at this time when the opening of the Panama Canal increases the possibilities of our more intimate intercourse and trade with South America. An interesting plan has been made to allay this suspicion and at the same time somewhat to reduce the responsibilities that the Monroe Doctrine puts upon us. The plan is to invite one or two of the stronger South American countries to join with us in upholding this doctrine and all that it necessarily entails.

This or any foreign policy that puts us in an "entangling alliance" has, of course, many drawbacks, but as we may now at any time be entangled with the more un

stable of the neighbor republics there is something to be said in favor of an alliance with the more stable states.

Perhaps there are no South American states that would share our Monroe Doctrine. There may be other reasons against this particular plan, but one thing is certain: it behooves every American to think long and earnestly about our relations with South and Central America. We are confronted "with a condition not a theory." We are not in the safe isolation from foreign affairs that we are accustomed to think ourselves. We are in need of a definite foreign policy that will relieve us of suspicion and set definite limits to our responsibilities.

MR. MCADOO'S HELPING HAND

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HESecretary of the Treasury stirred up a great controversy by his method of trying to alleviate som of the money stringency that yearly a companies the moving of the crops. H: offered to deposit between 25 and 50 milion dollars in the banking centres of the grain and cotton states. The banks : those states generally accepted the offer for with a 25 to 50 million dollar increas in deposits, they can increase their loa between 100 and 200 millions. Even i so huge a task as moving the crops the is a very real help.

The Secretary has devised but a crus. and arbitrary way of doing what the ne currency measure ought to do regula and effectively. But at least the ter porary expedient ought to make t year's crop-moving easier and perha teach us a little that will help in : operation of the new currency law. Th is nothing in the experiment to cause a the discussion that it has aroused. The is no reason why an effort to improve bad condition which everyone knows com once a year should be construed as : emergency measure which should make ? public feel that business was in a precar state. Neither is there any reason to f

the Secretary's action as a precedent. The new currency measure should end the need for such actions.

But it is to be hoped that Mr. McAdoo's plan will be successful this year, for both the producers and consumers are heavy losers by a system under which cropmoving is retarded by the lack of capital.

FOR GOOD GOVERNMENT IN NEW YORK

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HE nomination of Mr. John Purroy Mitchel, the collector of the port, as the fusion candidate for Mayor of New York has more than local significance. There are two or three municipal political machines that spread their corrupting influence to state and national politics. Tammany Hall is the most dangerous of them.

It gets no spoils from the present Administration at Washington. Unfortunately an unfit Governor is not an effective opponent of the machine. Nevertheless, to take away its spoils in the city would give promise of leaving Tammany shorn of much of its patronage and power.

The defeat of Tammany is the first task. For this the fusion committee chose a good candidate. As president of the Board of Aldermen, Mr. Mitchel forced three grafting Tammany borough presidents out of office. He knows the rough and tumble of New York City politics. He is a capable and active fighter for honesty and efficiency.

After the defeat of Tammany comes the task of administration of the city government, a government that collects and spends more money and serves more people than most of the state governments in the country. In doing this task, if elected, Mr. Mitchel will have the able help of Mr. McAneny, now the president of the Borough of Manhattan.

Mr. McAneny's record as a constructive city official made him a very strong candidate for the Mayoralty nomination. It is a fine spirit in him and in Mr. Whitman, the District Attorney, who was similarly a candidate, that made them. accept places on the ticket under Mr. Mitchel. With the three men who have

chiefly brought about the recent improvement in New York City government, all on one ticket, the fusion movement certainly should have a good chance to win at the polls.

There is no doubt that the election of this fusion ticket would give New York. a city administration which in honesty and knowledge of the task surpasses any that New York has had for many years. It would be so well equipped with experience that it even holds out a fair prospect of taking the corruption out of the police force - the most difficult problem of any city administration.

NEW BLOOD FOR THE NEW

M

HAVEN

R. HOWARD ELLIOTT, the new chairman of the board of directors of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, has a personality and a record which inspire confidence that he will be able to gain "good-will" for that system and bring it back to the place of eminence it enjoyed in the railroad world ten years ago. It is a hard task and a slow task. But it will be easier from the fact that his appointment produces a friendly attitude both from investors and from the public. Moreover, Mr. Elliott's new position, the chairman of the board of directors, is what it should be. It gives earnest of a change in that body — a change that was needed just as much as the change in the presidency of the road.

Mr. Mellen's retirement takes out of railroad management the last of the oldfashioned railroad barons. The Interstate Commerce Commission's report on the New Haven management, written by Mr. Prouty — the first report of this kind ever made by the Commission - did not censure the road's service. It said, on the contrary, that the passengers and shippers that used the New Haven's lines had little to complain of in the service. It stated specifically that, though the New Haven's operation was not so good as the Pennsylvania's, it was comparable to that of the Baltimore & Ohio.

Yet President Willard of the Baltimore & Ohio holds a high place in the public esti

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mation and Mr. Mellen well, was not popular. Nor did most of Mr. Mellen's unpopularity come from the fact that under his administration the value of the stock declined from 225 to 100, or that he tried to monopolize the transportation agencies of New England. It is true, a stockholders' committee finally became active, and the Government has a suit against the railroad for an alleged violation of the Sherman Law. But the fundamental reason for the change in the New Haven's management was that Mr. Mellen had consistently shown himself entirely out of sympathy with the public that he served. He did not realize that a railroad president does serve the public as well as his board of directors. He stigmatized New Englanders who asked for better service as "agitators, demagogues, and politicians." Certain individuals who opposed the merger of the Boston & Maine

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POWER PROBLEM

T TOOK more than twenty years of bitter struggle to establish the public's interest in railroad management and to make effective the public control of railroad rates and service. A little more than six years ago, when the conservation policy was announced, we first became aware of our water-power problem. There are hopeful indications that we are now in a fair way to settle its main difficulties.

with the New Haven he assailed as "black- FOR A SOLUTION OF THE WATERmailers." He described the Interstate Commerce Commission as "a blunder!" The Hepburn Bill which gave it power he labelled "a most pernicious piece of legislation." Several years ago the Connecticut National Grange asked Mr. Mellen to address its meeting. He was tactless enough to make a speech so full of violence against those whom he termed "agitators and demagogues" that at its conclusion, the audience in a formal note repudiated the sentiments. He did not trust the public and the public did not trust him. There was little "good-will" for the New Haven under these conditions, and Mr. Mellen's good points as a railroad administrator are dimmed by his lack of the all-important friendly attitude toward the public. For his inability to deal with the public in an enlightened way Mr. Mellen is, of course, responsible.

On the other hand, for the policy of monopoly the directors of the New Haven are more accountable than Mr. Mellen. It is commonly said that he did not favor all the trolley purchases that were made. But whether he did or not he could not have carried on the orgy of buying without the sanction of the road's directors. If the road is burdened with a lot of poorpaying trolley lines, bought at inflated

Up to the time of President Roosevelt's veto of the James River Dam Act it had been the custom of the Government and of the states to give to development companies free and in perpetuity the right to develop water-power. Everyone recognized the great value of having the strength of the rivers turned into electric current, and to give away the privilege was the easiest way of accomplishing that end. The few companies that had the capital and foresight to develop the water-power of the country were getting franchises that would leave the public without redress if the companies should, in the future, charge exorbitant rates or give unbearable service.

The water-power companies naturally wished to keep on with the unlimited,

unrestricted franchises. The believers in conservation protested. In the last regular session of Congress there was an attack all along the conservationists' line of defence. The Raker Bill was introduced to establish a precedent under which water-power companies would be able to use lands in the National Forests contrary to the regulations of the Forest Service. This bill was killed in Congress.

Next came the Omnibus Dam Bill to grant sixteen water-power sites, without any provision for compensation to the Government or for rate regulation.

This second attempt failed. Then one of the sixteen projects a site on the Coosa River in Alabama - was put into a separate bill. This went through Congress but was vetoed by President Taft.

In retaliation the believers in unrestricted franchises killed the Connecticut River Dam bill in the Senate, for its provisions for compensation and regulation were such that if it became a precedent the old days of free and easy franchises would be over.

As far as the record goes that is where the matter stood when the new Administration came into power.

During the last six months, however, the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture have agreed upon a policy that will cover the National Forests and all other public lands. They have leased three power sites under their plan. The leases are indefinite in time but revocable if the power companies fail to live up to their contract. For the first ten years there is no rental and after that the rental varies directly with the rates which the company charges the public so that there is an incentive to keep the rates down. The terms of these franchises are liberal enough to encourage capital to enter the water-power field and yet they protect the public and maintain the principle of government control.

To get power sites on navigable streams. it is necessary to get an Act of Congress. In this field, too, it looks as if some equitable act might be passed which would do what the department leases do. The more enlightened water-power companies are beginning to accept the inevitable.

One of the largest hydro-electric companies, for example, was willing to accept the Connecticut River Dam bill with its regulations and restrictions.

It has taken seven years for the waterpower companies on one side and the believers in conservation on the other to come this near to agreement. If the controversy has delayed some development it has nevertheless been worth while, for it has saved many valuable sites from being incontinently grabbed and it has brought us to a point from which the whole hydro-electric business can go on upon a proper basis. If the power companies can learn from the history of the railroads they will aid in the passage of a fair amendment to the General Dam Act, and they will avoid deserving the public hostility that has at various times so handicapped the railroad business.

WHERE THERE ARE NO

STATES' RIGHTS

HERE is a small but noisy party in the West with representatives in Congress which maintains that the National Government should divide. the National Forests and the public domain and give to each state the land that lies within its borders. This scheme is backed in the main by men who believe in exploitation more than development and who believe that the opportunities for successful exploitation would be greater than they are now if the lands were under state control.

Their two most effective arguments are that the Forest Service regulations retard development and that the National administration of the forests and the public domain is an invasion of states' rights. They have never been able to prove their case against the Forest Service, but, if it were proven, of course the obvious thing to do would be to change the regulations or even the administration of the Forest.

With the states' rights doctrine these enemies of conservation hope to make more progress now that the Government is in the hands of the Democratic party.

In this hope, however, they forget that the states' rights doctrine has never

applied to the public lands. In accordance with a recommendation of the Continental Congress before our present form of Government was established the different states ceded to the central Government their unappropriated lands. With the exception of this land, the territory of the original colonies, and the state of Texas, which was an independent Government, all the territory of the United States was bought and paid for by the National Government. And since the very beginning not a single state has been given the control of the public domain within its borders upon admission to the Union or afterward, except Tennessee. In this case there was so little public land within the state borders that it was not worth while for the National Government to continue to administer it. The Federal Government has donated some land to almost every state but it has always kept the main part of the unappropriated lands (in the language of the resolve of October 10, 1780) to "be disposed of for the common benefit of the United States." Moreover, the enabling act and the constitutions under which the states were admitted expressly stated the right of the Federal Government to control the public domain.

The several states have never had any rights to the public lands and the effort to use the ancient and honorable doctrine of states' rights to bolster up attempts to exploit the public domain is no more tenable than it is meritorious.

The country has made up its mind about conservation the right utilization of our resources. It believes in it. It is anxious to put its beliefs fully into practice. There will be little toleration for those who delay this great task in order to benefit their private schemes of exploitation.

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Now they serve a fifth of the population of Great Britain as members.

The coöperative idea is now taking root in this country faster than is usually realized. Most people have known that coöperation had gained a foothold in Minnesota and Wisconsin. They had heard of coöperative and semi-coöperative creameries, stores, cheese factories, and grain elevators. There is even a coöperative bank and a coöperative laundry. The eminently successful organizations of the California orange growers and the apple men of the Northwest are known all over the country, but people often forget that they are essentially coöperative agencies. There are many small retail stores run on the coöperative plan in New England. New York State recently amended its business corporation law to provide for the organization of coöperating enterprises. The law limits the stock which any one member may hold to $5,000, and it also limits every stockholder to one vote, whether he holds $5,000 worth of stock or only $5 worth. There are at least two strong cooperative marketing associations in the South, and only recently the workers in a South Carolina cotton mill subscribed $10,000 and took over the company store.

Coöperation, when successful, saves money. This saving is the basis of the propaganda on which coöperation is spread. But it has other advantages as important if not as obvious. It teaches people to progress together, it promotes wholesome social intercourse, and it tends to keep in the hands of the many some of the agencies of distribution.

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