and the country has no claims upon them longer to submit to opposition, misrepresentation and abuse. Fortunately both are men of means and of such intellectual resources that they can find the enjoyments they deserve, and one of the greatest will be, after the curs have ceased yelping, a realization of the broadening gratitude of the thinking people of the whole United States.

VERMONT AND THE TARIFF.

There was something startling in the report of the Chicago Tribune's canvass showing that Republican Vermont, if its newspapers correctly represent public opinion, had practically turned against protection by repudiating the new tariff, which the President, as the titular head of the Republican party, thinks is the best tariff ever enacted. It is not necessary to agree with him to that extent to accept and defend the tariff and to uphold the administration.

Wishing to learn why the Vermont Republican editors so sweepingly reject the tariff, the Secretary of the Home Market Club addressed the following letter to the editor of the St. Albans Messenger, which is one of the leading dailies in the State:

To the Editor of the St. Albans Messenger: The Chicago Tribune of March 24, a well known advocate of free trade, reported a of editors in the Eastern states on the question, "Do You Indorse the Aldrich Tariff Law?" and the poll for Vermont is, yes, 1; no, 38. Republicans voted yes, 1; no. 34; and there were 45-a majority-who did not reply at all. Upon these figures The Tribune bases the remark that "Among the states of the East, Vermont shows the strongest opposition to the Aldrich law, only one editor placing himself on

record as favoring it." Since a majority refrained from placing themselves on record as against it, is it fair to infer that the Republicans of Vermont disapprove the law enacted by their party?

At some length The Tribune describes the replies, one paragraph of which will

serve to show the character of the whole:

"Emphatically no," says the editor of one of the leading Republican organs of the Green Mountain state. "No," underscored three times, is the way three others vote. "No, sir; no sir," replied one of the old time Republican editors, who adds: "We need a new deal all around. They are all rotten to the core."

It must be admitted that these answers show positiveness of conviction, but I have read the article through in vain to find one reason against the law.

Now, from my long connection with Vermont journalism, and my respect for its present editors as among the ablest in the country, I wish to ask you or some of the others to publish the reasons for opposing the new tariff, and to state whether or not you favor another revision by this Congress or the next. It is easy to understand how this man or that may dislike this or that duty, for this has always been the case under any tariff, but there must be a preponderance of strong reasons to turn intelligent and honest men against the law as a whole, and if they have already been published, I hope that some of you gifted writers will summarize them, and if this cannot be done, that you will state them originally, bearing in mind that your answer must be, not a criticism of the law, but a condemnation of it.

As a student of tariffs and industrial conditions for many years, I shall await your answer with great interest, and so, I am sure, will thousands of other Republicans throughout the country.

Boston, March 31.

Albert Clarke.

The letter was promptly published and appended to it was the following editorial:

The foregoing letter from a former editor of The Messenger, recognized as one of the country's leading authorities on the tariff, and a profound student of economic questions in general, will be of great interest to Vermonters. He puts a fair proposition up to the editors of Vermont and it is entitled to serious consideration.

Of course, The Messenger can only answer Colonel Clarke's question for itself. Its editor expressed disapproval of the Aldrich tariff law in The Chicago Tribune's canvass, but it was an academic dissent rather than the vigorous protest to which Colonel Clarke refers, and it was based largely upon the belief that the woolen schedule, for one thing, was unjust to the "ultimate consumer." Of course, a law of such complicated parts as a tariff measure cannot fairly be condemned altogether out of hand because some one schedule may be thought to be defective, and a categorical "yes" or "no" in response to The Tribune's question did not permit of some qualifications that doubtless many editors had in mind. But The Messenger has believed that elements and interests not confined to the beneficiaries of the woolen schedule exerted more or less standpat pressure during the recent revision of the tariff and that the revision was not always made with an eye single to the public benefit.

Perhaps this is a prejudiced view of the matter, something of a generalization, but it is very real and shared by a great many others. The fact is, as Colonel Clarke well knows, that comparatively few men are tariff experts or have special knowledge of tariff schedules and the history of the economics of tariffs. The Messenger does not pretend to such learning. The average editor or citizen does not pretend to it. Nevertheless, there is something of an instinct for the right in the minds of most of us that appears to be able to form fairly intelligent opinions about such things as tariffs when certain features and facts are explained, and there appears to have been a singular unanimity on the part of the people in arriving at a general disapproval of the Aldrich measure.

The Messenger does not believe it would be wise to hurry into another general revision of the tariff until a little more time has been had in which

to study the results of the new features of the Aldrich law, say nothing of the broader fact that continued unsettledness of business because of uncertainty about the tariff would mean more mischief to business than a few defective schedules. If it is possible to mend the woolen schedule, however, without such a general upset, it might be wise to attempt it.

The Messenger heartily favors the proposition that the tariff should be taken out of politics and its various schedules adjusted from time to time by authorities removed from partisan political influences and wholly with an honest endeavor to meet the demands of changed or changing economic conditions, just as the private citizen might prudently regulate his own business to suit the varying demands of the times.

The Messenger very frankly recognizes Colonel Clarke's own mastery of tariff lore and his reputation as a tariff authority. It would not expect to match his special knowledge of this vast and intricate economic question, but it would expect to believe what it thought it knew about it, still, just as Colonel Clarke would do if he were back here again and once more showing Messenger readers how a bold man could stand up for what he thought was right.

The Messenger has made an honest answer. The editor of the Springfield reporter, who was the only Vermont editor to reply that he stood by the new tariff, called upon his confreres to give their reasons for condemning it, and the Randolph Herald, one of the most influential weeklies in the state, replied that it did not express unqualified disapproval and that it doubts "the accuracy of the Tribune's canvass as affording an infallible sign of sentiment among the Republicans of Vermont."

Now if SO able an editor as Colonel Frank Greene of the St. Albans Messenger (who, by the way, some of the papers say

specific charges against the PayneAldrich law, but has an impression that the wool and woolens schedule is wrong and an instinctive belief that the revision in other respects was not what it should have been, and yet who is opposed to another revision until the law has had a fair trial, it is obvious that there has been no such turnover in Vermont as the Chicago champion of free trade asserted.

The Randolph Herald says truly that the tariff is but one of many political conditions which cause discontent, but thinks the public believes that the work of tariff revision was "put into the hands of reactionaries and the progressives were turned down;" that "the tariff was not honestly revised downward as it should have been," and that the "interests had their way instead of the people." In short, that "nothing good in the way of downward revision was to be expected out of such a Nazareth as that peopled by the Paynes, Aldriches and Cannons."

If the people believe these Democratic lies, is it not the first duty of Republican newspapers to correct their false impressions? Is the Republican party again to be turned out of power because prejudices have been created against its leaders and its laws?

Suppose the next Vermont Republican state convention indorses the administration and the work of the party in Congress, as it should and probably will, what will the newspapers say? Will they be with their party or will they prefer the company of the N. Y. Evening Post,

the Springfield Republican and the Chicago Tribune? The party, to have strength enough to win victories, must not only stand by its principles, but by the acts of its majorities giving the best attainable expression to those principles.

No other course is open to Republicans. Senator Beveridge of Indiana seems to think otherwise, but he is an insurgent. Is the party to be led by its rebels? The new tariff is the most important enactment of the Republican party. There is not the slightest prospect of its being overhauled before the next Congressional election or before the next Presidential election. Further academic dissent from it, therefore, must mean politically the division and weakness of the Republican party and industrially an impairment of that confidence which is necessary to enterprise and prosperity.

THE LATE PROFESSOR

SUMNER.

The death of Professor W. G. Sumner of Yale removes an apt pupil of the English theorists and a teacher of teachers in this country. Like David A. Wells and Edward Atkinson, he possessed original ability and was not a mere imitator, but he never seemed able to understand that protection is but a regulation of trade and that trade unregulated may enable one country to crush another. He could see all the abuses of protection and it was hard for him to see any good in it. He welcomed tariff reduction as always good so far it goes. He impressed himself strongly on young men and a great many of them are in positions

of power and influence and have not become wholly emancipated. But he did discover that the tariff is not the brother of trusts and that shows that he was not a demagogue.

OBITUARY.

JOHN S. CHENEY, the oldest member of the firm of Cheney Brothers, silk manufacturers of South Man

chester, Conn., died March 14, aged 83. He was a son of John Wells Cheney, one of the original Cheney Brothers, and was a descendant of John Cheney, who came to this country in 1635 and settled in Roxbury. In 1848 Mr. Cheney sailed for California and later went to the Hawaiian Islands and Australia. Returning to Manchester in 1864, he associated himself with the silk manufacturing industry, in which he continued until his death. He is survived by a widow, two sons and two daughters.

THE PLACE FOR INSURGENTS.

Eugene Foss, in a congressional campaign meeting in Rochester, N. Y., said:

To my insurgent Republican friends I say: "Don't be a near-Democrat; be a real one. Come over with me, where you belong, and where you can do real service."

Mr. Foss is a practical man and he is right in saying that the insurgent Republicans belong with the DemoWe would much prefer to have them remain Republicans if they will stop insurging. (The correctness of that word may be in

doubt, but the incorrectness of their position has not been in doubt for some time.)

When Vallandigham sympathized with the rebels and did all he could to embarrass the Union cause, President Lincoln, instead of hanging him, as he might have done, sent him beyond the Confederate lines. Lincoln had a sense of the fitness of things and so had Foss. Vallandigham was henceforth harmless.

EXPENSIVE GOVERNMENT NOT NECESSARY TO PROTECTION.

Recently the writer heard a Boston merchant say that he was tired of seeing costly battleships built as an excuse for raising a big revenue by a high protective tariff. He was undoubtedly sincere and very much in earnest. He was talking with another gentleman, so the writer refrained from "butting in," but thinking that his conception may be somewhat general, it seems worth while to correct it.

Few, if any, enlightened protectionists favor large outlays by the government to create a need for large revenues, and most of them, like the writer, are opposed to large armies and navies.

The constantly increasing cost of government and of internal improvements calls for all the money that a tariff of any kind is likely to yield.

A high tariff is not necessarily a large producer of revenue. Low duties, by admitting more goods, often yield more revenue than high duties, which measurably exclude imports.

The British free trade tariff yields nearly one-third more revenue per

capita than the Dingley tariff raised, which was miscalled high.

The Payne tariff, which is lower on most articles of large import than the Dingley law was, is thus far rapidly increasing the revenue, wiping out the deficit and promising a surplus.

If the gentleman had wished to oppose the building of two Dreadnoughts a year, why did he not do it on the merits of that question alone, for there is an abundance of strong arguments against the necessity, the expediency and the morality of such wastefulness?

Probably it is because he had read and heard so much against the protective tariff that he had thoughtlessly come to regard it as the chief cause of all our troubles. But if he would look about him he would find that the greatest friends of protection are the greatest friends of peace; that they do not consider extensive preparations for war the best means of preserving peace; that protection has so many beneficent results that it needs no excuse or extraneous reason for its support; and that as its main purpose is the promotion of peaceful industry and the uplift of the people who toil, it is logically opposed to trouble makers of every name and kind.

COMFORT FOR CANNON.

Washington Cor. Boston Herald. Speaker Cannon is tremendously cheered in these days by the flood of encouraging letters that are pouring in upon his desk with every mail. His secretaries wrote 100 acknowledgments to such communications in one day. They wrote almost as many the next day.

Some of these communications which are coming from almost every state from Maine to California, are couched

in emphatic language. They extol the speaker for his game fight and assure him that the Republicans of the land are with him and against the insurgents. The writers for the most part apparently are regular Republicans, but certain of them claim they were formerly insurgent sympathizers. One of his recent letters was from Lieut.-Gov. John Strange of Wisconsin, who says he has been a follower of La Follette.

From the Hartford Times (Dem.).

The new arrangement makes the Speaker of the House about as influential in the new committee as he was in the old one. These six regular Republicans can be counted on to carry out the Speaker's wishes, which after all are only the desires of the Republican leaders of the House, generally.

The insurgent members appear to have marched up the hill with much noise and to have marched down again very quietly.

Speaker Cannon is just as much of a "czar" as he ever was no less and no more. He has no reason to feel humiliated or dissatisfied. Apparently the insurgency of these House malcontents

does not thus far "amount to a hill of beans."

From the San Francisco Chronicle.

The Republican majority is right. It is utter falsehood to assert that men of the La Follette stripe-none of the House insurgents are sufficiently known to give their name to a policy-are any more honest, any less opposed to corruption, or to the undue influence of wealth or corporate power, any less patriotic than Cannon or Aldrich or others of that group of strong men who by many years of faithful and conspicuous public service have won their way to constructive leadership in the Republican party. "Cannonism" means nothing more or less than efficiency in party government under the leadership of the strong and wise men who by natural selection have come to be recognized as leaders. The question before the country is of reason and sanity versus unreason and anarchy. It will not be fully