Grand Rapids Herald-Review Newspaper, February 25, 1899, Page 10

By JOHN K. LEYS. EUTEUTEVICITECITCLITIETD, “There was another strange fact—the key of the Prince’s bedrcom was dis- covered on the floor inside. Of course, one would ‘have supposed that the per- son last in the room had locked the door behind him. and then had taken: out the key and pushed it under the door; but the extraordinary thing was that the key would not go under the door. I tried it myself. ‘The door was too close to the floor to allow of the key being pushed underneath.’ Von Mitschka, for the first time since I had known him, burst into a hearty laugh. “Confess, now,” said he, “that a thrill—a very gentle one, perhaps, but a perceptible thrill of—of some feeling it would be hard to name—let us say a vague fear, not of the supernatur: but of the mysterious, ef the inexplic ble—ran through your veins as you re alized that fact, and what it meant?” “Well, I was uncommonly surprised; and I don’t mind admitting to you that for an instant I was conscious of some | such feeling you de . The room w empty. It had no other outle. The lock was a special one, which had been put on under the Prince’s super- vision, and the key was unquestion- ably the one that belonged to the lock. | It could not have been thrust under the door, nor put into the room in any oth: er w by the person, (whoever he was) who was known to have gone into the room, locking the door after him. How did the key get there?” “And what was your answer to the question?” asked Von Mitschka, with a smile. “That in spite of Ivanovitch’s testations that the thing was impc ble, there must have existed a second key to that door, The pretended prince left the key of the door on the floor to pro- nuystify the police, and when he locked } ‘ the dcor behind him on going out of, the room, he used the second key.” “You naturally think so; and I sup- pose the police thought the same. But you are wrong. There was no second key. The thing was managed in this way. When the door v burst open, in the person of the lieutenant of po-} lice and his men, the gendarmes ad vanced first into the room. Their backs were at that moment turned to- wards the servants grouped together outside the door.” “Of course.” “It was but natural that one or two of the servants should follow the po- lice a few steps into the room.” “Yes.” “Well, one of them happened to have a hole in his trousers pocket; and my own idea is that the key must have slipped through the hole on the floor. When the police looked around, there was the key ready for them to pick ay “Childishly simple!” I exclaimed; “and yet I. ure you that the fact that the key had been picked up in the | bedroom by the police puzzled me ex tremely. I thought, of course, that the police had gone into the room alone. But you have not yet told me the most important part of the story. How dia the pretended Prince get into the Prince’s carriage without the know- | Jedge of the coachman and footman? | And, above all, how was the real Prince abducted?” “There was not so much difficulty | about that as you would suppcse,” said the chief. “We had a carriage, painted to resemble that of the Prince, with coachman and footman in clothes identical in appearance with these worn by his servants. This carriage kept well in front of the waiting ve- hicles. We had private warning that the prince was taking leave of ‘his hostess; and our carriage got so clo; to the entrance that the coachman was | able to give the official at the door the mame of the Prince just before the Prince appeared in the vestibule. Hence. there was no necessity to call the Prince’s name aloud and his coach- man made no effort to come up at the critical moment. The Prince descend- ed the steps, saw what looked exactly | like his own carriage waiting at the door to receive him, got into it and was | driven away.” “And the false Prince?” “Half an hour later, one of our peo- ple called out to the Prince’s coach- man, and told him that the Prince’s carriage had been called, and that the Prince was waiting for him. The poor man made his way as fast as he could towards the grand entrance, and a few steps from it he met a man of the same height and build as his master, walking towards the carriage, with the collar of his cloak turned up over his ears. This man put his hand onj{ the door of the brougam, opened it, and signed to the coachman to stop. The man was attending to his horses, and, of course, he did as he was bid without peering into the face of the person who had signalled to him to stop. Who but his master could have | been expected to act in such a way? As for the footman, the same agent who had told the coachman that he was wanted, spoke at that moment to the footman, distracting his attention; and the poor fellow literally did not | iknow that anybody had got into the, carriage till he heard the door bang. Of course, he was ready to swear, hon- estly enough, that the Prince had left the French Embassy at that hour in, his own carriage.” “And the real Prince?” “The real Prince was driven off at a rapid pace in the direction of his own house. Suddenly the brougham turned into a side street, and before the, Prince could as much as let down the! window to ask the reason of this, he | was whirled into the yard of one of the | houses, and the gates were shut be-| hind him. i a single cry that could be heard in the main. thoroughfare. He was gagged, bound and carried into the house. “Almost at once he was forced to in- hale a little chloroform—just enough to make it easy to administer some { ing ey | chief. | another glance at the photograph and} There was a short scuffle, ; but the Prince was hopelessly over-} matched, and was not allowed to utter | sho drugged coffee. And that very morn- ing, long before the alarm was given, he was taken to the river and put on board a small steam yacht, which is at the service of the Committee. The friend who personated the Prince had come ashore from his yacht the day before in the character of an invalid, unable to move without assistance, and, of course, furnished with a pass- | port. All we had to do was to put the prince on board the yacht in the name of the invalid gentleman, using his} passpc Long before nightfall it was practicable to allow the Prince the lib- erty of the vessel. She was far be- yond reach of pursuit.” { had listened to this narrative with breathless interest, and I felt tolerably certain, from the chief's manner cf telling the story, that I was listening to the account of an eye-witness—that Von Mitschka had been one of the ab- ductors, if not the prime mover im the conspiracy. I sat for some time silent, ater he had finished speaking. Then I} said: “You have been wonderfully frank with me, Von Mitschka. I suppose you have not told me all this without a mo- tive?” | I have not told you all this without a motive,” said my companion, | in a half-absent manner, toying with | his wine glass as he spoke. 1 d no more, but puffed my ciga thinking it bi to leave it to Von! Mitschka to speak next. But he said | nothing, and I took out my watch and | began winding it up, a hint that, if! he had nothing further to say, I might | as well go to my berth. Then he ap- | peared to wake up, and began to talk, | but on matters quite unconnected with | he conspiracy. I yawned, and r’ id I would be off to my bunk. | Sit down one moment. I won't keep keep you long,” said the chief. ‘Tell, me—have you noticed, since you came | to St. Petersburg, that people—strang- | ers, | mean—have sometimes turned to | R look you as you passed along the stree | I started to my feet again, and ex- | claimed: “Yes, I have, and I wish to goodness you could tell me the meaning of it.! There is nothing remarkable in my ap- pearance, so far as I know. And yet. | when I entered the room of the chief of police, he started as if he had seen a | ghost. Then, in London—that was be- | fore I came to St. Petersburg—the first | time Prince Kropenski saw me, he} stared as if I had been somebody he had never expected to see again, or) semebody he had supposed to be in| Australia. In St. Petersburg I have | seen people gaze at me, and then | nudge one another and smile, as if I) were a natural curiosity. I wish you | would tell me the meaning of it if you n.” “I think I understand the meaning of | it, for, the fi time I saw you in the | tle at Lovna, I noticed it | tood Heavens! Noticed what?” I! sroke with some irritation, bending down my head to look the Nihilist, leader straight in the face, as I sat op- | posite to him on the other side of the narrow table. His face, with its crown | of bleached white hair, and its gleam- | 2s, Was within a foot or two of my own. yticed what?’ I repeated. Noticed the extraordinary, the mar- yellous resemblance you bear to—" “Well “Yo His Majesty the Czar!” CHAPTER XIX. Von Mitschka Makes a Proposal, I burst into a laugh. “I? Like the Czar? You can’t be se- rious!” “T have a portrait of the tyrant some- where,” returned the revolutionary “You can compare it with your Perhaps that’ own face in a mirrcr, will convince you.” He took a photograph out of an old album, which he found in a locker, and I made the comparison. Certainly } there was a resemblance, and a strong one. I could even imagine that, to some people, it might seem startling. “You can’t be in the habit of using a! looking glass much,” said my compan- | ion, with a smile,” or you would not be | so ignorant of your own appearance.” | I now understood why people looked at me curiously on the streets of St. Petersburg, and why the chief of po-j lice started when I entered his room. | No doubt he thought for a moment that his master had come to pay him an unexpected visit. i “Really, now that you have pointed | it out to me, the resemblance does | seem comically exact,” I observed, with ; the mirror. 4 “And the oddest part of it is,” con- tinued Von Mitschka, “that it is not. merely a facial resemblanee. The voice is very nearly the same, If you were | to speak a little quicker—your Russian, though very good and perfectly pure, is scarcely colloquial yet, and you speak rather slowly—it would be im- possible for a blind man to distinguish between the two voices.” “How do you know that?” I asked, in much surprise. “Are you personally acquainted with the Czar?’ “T used to know the present occu- ant of the throne very well, indeed,” nid the Nihilist, gravely, and from this I gathered that he had been at one time employed, probably as a teacher, or perhaps as a physician, in one of the imperial palaces. “Nor is -that all” pursued Von Mitschka; “your height and the gen- eral configuration of your person close- ly resemble those of our tyrant. In t—’ He lowered his voice, and | the lands were to revert to Alexis. | turned out in his favor. ' ready—which will make it necessary ) love with her. | young Princess is very strong—there is again bending forward until his strarge eyes leoked into» mine—“in short, you are the man we want!” . I sank back in my seat amazed—first, at my astonishing blindmess, in not sooner recognizing what the conspir- ator's talk had been tending to, but chiefly at the audacity of the proposal. “In plain words, you wish me to per- sonate the Czar, in order that you may kidnap him—” “As his father kidnapped the gallant Prince Alexander—precisely.” “But you are mad!” I cried, getting up and moving about the cabin, in my excitement. ‘Dhe scheme never could | be carried out. Even if it could. it would end in the ruin of yourselves | and all your hopes. Eutcpe would not | tolerate such an outrage. You would fail, and the last state of Russia would be worse than the first.” “One thing at a time, please.” “One thing is enough for me. I do not mean to do anything so mad and | wicked. And there’s an end of it.” “And an end, too, to your winning | the Princess Irene as your bride. She | is a sweet girl and a kind-hearted—t | trust the fur robe she so kindly lent ine was restored to her!” I told him it had been returned to her, but I did not think it necessary to | add that the Princess had told the moujik who brought it to her from the saw mill, to keep it for his trouble. “She is a noble creature. It would be a pity to see her fall into poverty, or be forced, for her mother’s sake, to marry the greatest brute in the Rus- sian empire!” “What is this you are telling me?” “Den't you know the story? Let me tell it to you, then—it will interest you. You must know that my father ad- vanced large sums to the late Prince Kropenski, the present Prince’s father; the connection between them lasted | for many years, and that way we be- came intimately acquainted with the | affairs of the family. When the pres- | ent Prince succeeded to the title, the | estates were so heavily mortgaged that | they were almost worthless to the heir; i and as some of the mortgages were in | the hands of a cousin, Alexis Kropen- | ski, this young man (whom I referred ; to just now as the greatest brute in; Russia) conceived the idea of getting the estate into his own hands, leaving the Prince with the barren title. He might have succeeded, too, for our Prince was no more a wise man then | than he is now, had it not been for the | late Czar Alexander IT. The matter came to his ears, and he interfered. | He practically forced Alexis to accept | a. settlement, under which the estates | were to belong to the Prince for his life, and if he died childless, to Count | Ale: If the Prince left a son, he, of | course, would succeed his father, but | if he left only a daughter or daughters, | He teok his chance, and the chance has | As you know, | the Prince has a daughter, but no son.” | “But what is the use of telling me | all this?’ I exclaimed, “‘when the Prince is likely to live as long as I am?” “I am not so sure of that,” said Von Mitschka. with perfect composure. “The fact is, he was condemned to die | by the Committee, and his sentence | has only been reprieved. But he is} fast wearing out our patience—you yourself heard Lobieski say that he ave more trouble than any other half- dozen men in the prison. It is more | than likely that he will, one of these | days, commit an outrage—he has made two murderous assaults om warders al- | for us to shoot him. And in any case there is no doubt that Count Ale would, after the Prince had been un-} accountably absent for a year, obtain | a decree from the Czar to the effect | that, if he did not return before a cer- tain time, the settlement should take | effect as if he had died in an ordinary H way. | ow,” continued Von Mitschka, Ls must tell you that, when the Prince | and his family lived in St. Petersburg, | Prince Alexis saw his cousin, the Princess Irene, and fell violently in He is a brute, a savage —and you know what a savage a Rus- | sian can be. Count Alexis is all that, | and more. But his passion for the) no doubt about tifat; and if it had not; been for the ill-feeling existing be- tween her father and him, he would have pressed his suit in a way that the | Princess would not have liked. The death. real or assumed, of the Prince would give him his opportunity, and you may be sure that he would not be slow to take advantage of it.” Tt remembered that when I told the | Princess Irene that I was going back | to England, she said she had no male relative except a cousin who was not | their friend. Count Alexis was no/ doubt the man she meant. “But no one, not even the Czar, can make the Princess marry her cousin | against her will” I cried. “No doubt. But see the position the Princess will find herself in, in the) event of a decree to the effect that; Prince Kropenski must be held to be civilly dead. I happen to know that the Prince has not saved a kopeck out of his income, The repairs to the cas- | tle must have swallowed up all his ready money. There is nothing for his widow and daughter when the land is taken from them. How would the Princess Irene see her mother, an in- valid and accustomed to every luxury | —how could she bear to see her moth- er reduced to extreme destitution, when she might purchase ease and comfort for her by marrying a relation whom she does not like, it is true, but whom she does not in the least suspect to be the kind of man I know he is? She might hold out for a few weeks or mouths, but in the end she must suc-' cumb. And I can promise you that be- fore the marriage had lasted a year, the Princess Irene would wish she had never been ‘born.” I sat silent; and Von Mitschka, see- ing that his words had reached my heart, said, in a whisper that thrilled every nerve in my body: i “From this fate you can save her— and only you!” In a state of agitation that I will not try to describe I rose from my seat. { “I must think over it,” Isaid. “Give me until to-morrow morning.” | “Certainly. Take a week if you, like.” “No. Twelve hours will do. But, tell me---suppose that by my help you j are enabled to kidmap the Czar, what do you propose to do with him?” “He would be brought here, and Prince Kropenski would be at once , liberated. Then His Majesty would be , / not have conveyed elsewhere, since it would be obviously impossible to keep any, pris- oners here after the release of the Prince. He might be able to give the police information which would lead to the discovery of the secret prison. The Czar would be conveyed elsewhere, and detained in custody until he pledged his word in the most public way to grant our country a Constitu- tion such as you have im England. That is all We would not even ask for an act of indemnity for ourselves. oe catch us afterwards if they can!” “fo me the whole scheme seems wholly impracticable,” I said, after a pause. “To take part in such a plot seems like running one’s head into a noose. You will have to lay hands on the monarch in his own palace!” “Perhaps so. But even then the scheme need not be wholly impractic- able. We have no better friends any- »where than in the palace of the Czar.”> 1 scarcely knew whether to believe this statement, but I did not care to ar- gue the matter further. My brain was fatigued, as if I had been hard at work for some hours. I felt the need of rest, and yet I knew that I could not sleep until I had at least gone some way to- wards deciding the question that lay before me. So I fortified myself witu a modest portion of “Scotch,” and, fill- ing my pipe, retired to the space abaft the wheel, and sat down to think the matter out. As to the moral aspect of the aues- tion, I was not disposed to make too much of the objection that what was proposed was a crime. I was not a Russian subject; to me the person of the Russian emperor was no more Sa- cred than the persom of any other man. Again, I did not propose to lay a finger on His Majesty, but merely to become an accessory after the fact, by screening those who had carried him off. I confess that, considering the ob- ject of the conspirators was simply to gain such a degree of liberty for their fellow-countrymen as our English fore- fathers fought for, my conscience did not regard my complicity in the plot as a very serious offense. I often doubted whether in the court of ethies it were an offense at all. The real difficulty lay in the danger, the extreme danger of,the undert: For if the imposture should be ¢ ‘OV- ered before I escaped, nothing could AV my life; and of that I was well re. And as I was totally unac- quainted with the plans by which the hilists proposed to carry out the ab- duction—supposing they had = any, which I very much doubted—it was impossible for me to gauge the extent of the danger. For aught I knew, I might not be merely running a ri: but incurring a certainty of dying a v olent death at the hands of the public executioner. That is a prospect which may well make any man pause. But, on the oth- er side, there was the ruin which threatened the girl I loved. So long as her father lived she was safe. But I could not allow her to choose between positive destitution and marrying a man she disliked. No—it was impossible. I had made up my mind. And then I knew that in reality it had been made up long ago. In the depth of my heart IT had known all along that, even putting aside the possibility of my succeeding in the task, accomplishing the release of the Prince, and so winning the Princess Irene for my bride, I could left her to the fate Von Mitschka had sketched out. The moment I confessed that my mind was made up, my resolution was taken, I experienced a great exhilara- tion and lightness of spirits. So far from the danger deterring me, I actu- ally thought of it as an additional at- traction. I could have shouted out an old drinking song that I hummed to wyself as I went to bed. hat night I slept soundly; and in the morning I told Von Mitschka that I had resolved to accept the offer of the Committee on certain conditions. Von Mitschka leaped to his feet, and held out his hand, which I grasped in mine. I saw that he could not speak, and I was surprised at the emotion he exhibited. I had no idea that #e had so thoroughly set his heart on the suc- eess of this plot. . He wrung my hand in silence; and when I reminded him that my consent could only be giten on certain conditions, he turned on me with a smile, as much as to say they would be granted at once. “First of all,” I said, “I make it a stipulation that under no circum- stances, and under no excuse of su- prema lex or anything else, is personal injury to be offered to the Czar. He is to be well treated, and accorded the re- | spect due to his station.” “Granted.” “Secondly, he is not to be detained in custody under any circumstances for a longer period than six months. If he holds out that time, you must let him go. Of course, he may be led to sup- pose that his imprisonment will last till he yields to your demands.” Von Mitschka reflected a moment, and then he smiled and repeated, “Granted.” “And in the third place, if I do all that is required of me, and the plot fails through no fault of mine, you must liberate Prince Kropenski ali the same.” “Granted,” said the chief, for the third time. “And now,” he added, “let me tell you that you have made a very bad bargain. We do not consider the liberty of Prince Kropenski as at all of equal value to the great service you are going to render us. We always in- tended to devete a considerable sum as an honorarium for the person who should undertake this dangerous task. I knew that it was only for the sake of the Princess Irene that you would consent to help us, but that is no rea- ' son why you should give us your ser- vice practically for nothing.” Nonsense! I don’t want your mon- ey!’ I exclaimed, rather rudely. “If we succeed in our plans we will not show ourselves ungrateful,” said the chief, quietly, as he turned away. (To be continued.) PTE SATE Willing to Oblige. The Hostess—The conversation is be- ginning to lag, and I’m at a loss to know what to do in order to entertain our guests. ' The Host—I have an idea, my dear. Suppose we leave the room for an hour or two, and give them a chance to talk about us.—Chicago News. GOV. JOHN LIND’S ADDRESS | THE HOUR, THE NEEDS AND THE MAN, Address of Governor John Lind, at the Minneapolis Banquet, Dis- \ cussing “Politics — Ideal and Practical.” ‘The following is the address of Governor John Lind, at the Minneapolis banquet under the auspices of the State League of Democratic clubs, responding to the toast ‘Politics ideal and practical.” Mr. Toastmaster and Democrats of Min- nesoia: I feel like apologizing to you in | advance for being compelled to follow in a large degree the same line of thought that has been expressed by the other speakers, because I shall speak from manuscript prepared before listening to these gentlemen, the remarks that I have | to offer up on thoughts which were upper- most in my mind, as they apparently have beeo with those who have already spoken. Political ideals have never been more aptly expressed, or more eloquently, than in the inimitable language of Thomas Jef- ferson in the Declaration of Independence, as originally drafted. His summary of the rights of the individual and of the sphere and purpose of government has now be- come the political ideal—the very frame- werk of Democracy, wherever it exists. He says, ‘‘We hold these truths to be self- evident—that all men are created equal; ‘that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalierable 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 destruct- ive of these ‘ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish if, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organiz- ing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and happin a This synopsis, as formulated by Jefter- scn, is incomplete without the para- graphs which were stricken from the } draft of the declaration as proposed by tim. The original draft also contained the following, in one of the indictments against the king of England. “He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violated its most cred rights of | life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivat- ing and carrying them into slavery in | another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of he | Christian king of Great Britain. Deter- mined to keep open a market where men | should be bought and sold, he has prosti- tuted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce.” Vested rights, business interests and the demands of commerce, then as now, were | blind to ideals and deaf to the pleas of | justice. The paragraphs relating to slav- ery were stricken out. This was a victory | for one form of practical politics, but the , victory became a costly one in the end, | as is every victory at the expense of hu- | man right and justice. Some three- | quarters of a century later the spirit of these paragraps was restored to the peo- | ple’s declaration of rights, but at a cost | of millions of lives and of treasure. The portion of the Declaration of Independ- ence which I first read contains the gist of the political ideas which have guided our people and shaped our institutions since the beginning. The constitution sub- | sequently adopted and the legislation | enacted under it, state and national, are werely the application of these principles to the complex requirements of society and to the varying conditions of rational life and growth. On the whole, these principles have been applied in our legis- lation. There have been occasional de- partures from them in practice by those in authority, but none of a very serious character until more recently. I assume that no citizen of our country has the hardihood to deny these truths in so many words. Those who are disposed to do so rather deny their universality of applica- tion, forgetting that the distinguishing characteristic of truth is its universality While they concede in a negative, helpless sert of a way that they are true, they insist that they are not applicable to certain circumstances, or to a given state of facts. The signers of the Declaration of Inde- pendence solemnly declared with Jeffer- ; son that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that govern- ments are instituted among men to se- cure these fights, and that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed; but when the proper ap- plication of these self-evident truths was made by Jefferson to the nefarious traffic in hurcan beings, and to the wrongs per- petrated against the black man, they evi- dently considered that this was not a case for their application, or perhaps it was an instance where practical polities | of a certain kind had ‘an inning,” as I have intimated, even at this early day; but whether ‘the truth in this regard, it is now evident to us, by our war debt, by our national cemeteries and by our heavy | pension bills that the failure on the part | of the fathers of our country and of our earlier statasmen to keep their eyes stead- fastly upon the political ideals of justice and of human rights that had been placed before them by Thomas Jefferson, and which had sanctioned as true in principle, has cost our country more blood and more tressure than any other political mistake. (Applause.) Will our statesmen of to-day heed the lesson, or will they quibble and hesitate in the application of these truths? Will they deliberately say that the principle that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, while applicable to the people who were sub- jects of the king of Great Britain, has no application to those who have been the subjects of the king of Spain? Will they | persist in saying that our right of con- | quest is superior to the Filipinos’ God-siv- | en right to life, liberty and the pursuit of | happiness? (Applause.) It ‘will probably | trouble them to answer these questions categorically. It will be much easier for them to adopt the tactics of the oppressor in the past and claim a silent partner- ship with the Almighty (laughter) (Mark Hanan has intimated; I believe that he is in close touch) in carrying out His de- erees for the conversion and civilization of this people, and consistently with this profession and the spirit in which it is made they will proceed with fire and sword. (Laughter.) Men who have com- mitted the heinous offense of doing what the revolutiomary fathers did must be taught a lesson, The hypocrisy of such a ccurse will be more disastrous in its ef- fects upon the traits of our national name character and upon our national name and fame, which have hitherto stood fair before the nations of the world, than would be the frank avowal that our pro- fessions of love for liberty and justice are strictly for home consumption July 4 (laughter) and not applicable where an cpportunity is afforded for obtaining franchises, concessions, government con- tracts and subsidies. In the face of Such | apportunities let it be frankly admitted j that our millionaires, @r at least some of | them, are just as patriotic as the grandees | + Organization follows. | service | politics us or the lords of England; that our national administration is a business administration (applause); that while ft has no room for sentiment, it realizes, as was remarked by Senator Davis the other day, that the United States is the “great consecrated evangelist of the world,” and it is perfectly willing to permit the Krag- Jorgensens to open the way for our mis- sionaries. While the application of the political ideals quoted is plain and simple in cases like those referred to, there is a large do- main concerning our domestic affairs and national polity in which there is room for henest and patriotic differeuces of opinion. g This has always been and always will the case under free institutions. It has its origin in human nature. Men by in- born characteristics, as well as by self- interest, and the result of training and environment, divide into two great class- es, the Conservative and the Radical; the Conservative, with face turned backward, content with things as they are, a zealous defender of vested right and content with the spectacle of starvation and riotous plenty side by stde—the Radical, burdened with eyes that see things as they are, with feelings that are touched by the suffering resulting from the inequality of oppoz- tunity which existing conditions impose, | ears that hearken to the progress of the race and sympathies that are alive to the wrongs that exist with a zealous deter- mination to right them. The line of de- marnation. between these two great clesses is not always well defined. It is, however, notwithstanding temporary sin- ucsities and blurrings, as at the present time, the line upon which parties divide. The party name attached to the one group or the other signifies but little in the course of years. The progressive, I might almost say radical, element which, under the leadership of Jefferson became an active force in our polities and which has perpetuated its identity of name for generations, became a body of blighting ecnservatism and selfishness in the de- eades preceding the civil war and con- tinued more or less inclined in that direc- tion until some three years ago, when a new generation, which had not become sotted through the influences of wealth ircident to long continued power, shatter- e@ the old ideals of justice and equal rights to all, and nominated as their sianderd bearer your honored guest of the evening. (Applause.) Many see in this the dawn of a new day for the com- ing century. May they be right is our hope. Men, as th incline to one side or the other, find ideals and aspirations i mon with the side to which they tend. To accomplish their aims they must co-oper- ate with those who think with them. This is the sphere of practical politics in the better sense of the term. When actuated by patriotic mo- tives, and employing only the means inci- dent to an honest purpose, a citizen can render his fellows, er the te, no greater than by his intelligent work in perfecting organization and avaiiing him- self of this form of practical politics for furthering e realization of his highest pelitical ideas. His activity is pernicious only when it is actuated by selfish mo- tiv and without reference to the public re. There is also ancther sphere of practical ually dignified by the name of anship, to which it may not be to call your attention. The distance between that which is ideally right and that which is practically possible in re- form and in legislation is always great. To the radical reformer whose eyes are rivited solely on the ideal, this distance, after a few futile efforts, is apt to seem to him like a gulf that cannot be bridged. He surveys it, he shudders, and abandons hope. The practical politician, and I use the term in its highest and best sense, who realize the power of wont end of habit of privilege and conservation and of self interest, and who also has iraplicit faith in the inborn tendency of human nature to prefer that which is right and just when fully understood, abides his time and is not baffled by the tasn. In- stead of attempting to cross the abyss at one leap, which would mean disaster, he adopts the tacti solve a like physical problem. He does not attempt to put in the arch until he has made the foundation for his bridge secure. He builds his approaches and ex- tends his scaffolding from time te time, until the keystone can be safety dropped in place. If this work is honestly and skillfully carried forward, the workmen are safe in its progress and the people are brought nearer to the ideal from day to day as the work goes on. This enables them to see its truth and beauty in a new light. It assumes form of which they had never dreamed and they become as enthu- siastic as the workmen and the master- hand that guides their Jabors. This was the way Lincoln worked. Thtse were Gladstone's tactics. These two are, in my judgment, the names of the greatest practical politicians of the century. Neither of these men ever turned his back to the political ideals of a free poople, nor did he attempt to iead his followers to them over chasms unbridged. If obtacles were encountered, the march was delayed only long enough to remove or surmount them, And, my friends, it is my hope and prayer that at this critical hour, when those in authority have turned the De- claration of Independence to the wall, scme practical politician equal to the emergency may come to the rescue. The president has shown himself wanting in that broad humanity which places right before might. (Applause.) He lacks that moral courage which keeps selfishness at bay while the forces that work for right- eousness gather strength to formulate the verdict of the nation’s conscience. (Ap- plause.) As yet, we have only had the verdict of itspassions and its greed. We need a mancomprehensive enough in | his sympathies to realize that the yolitical ideals set up by this nation were raised aloft for all time; whose judgment of af- fairs is broad enough to devise a plan by which the treasure which we have spent may we have made may be commensated by such commercial advantages in the Philippines as a progressive and honorable policy would dictate; a man whose pa- triotism would see more glory for our nation in extemding an open and helpful nd to a people struggling for freedom than in the possible gain that might re- sult from their subjugation, who would rather guide and protect a people aspiring to nationality and liberty than @estroy and ersiave them, and who withal is possessed of sufficient strength and skill to organize and carry out through politi- | cal action his convictions and judgment. Such a man we need. God speed his com- | ing. I care not whence. If. our honored guest is the man, we want him. Wewant him worse than we did in 1896. (Renewed Applause.) If another man should be put forward for this work and is worthy of it, and able to carry it out We want him; God speed his com- ing. (Applause.) We have work to be done and we need the right man to do it. (Loud Applause.) On Hallow’een. Anna—Were any of the tricks you tried last night successful? Hannah—Yes; I found out whom 2 — am to marry. Anna—You didn’t! » Hannah—Oh,. yes, I did. He asked me to, and I said I would—Chi Journal, 3 A Pertinent Remark. “So Hagar and her little son were driven forth into the wilderness. Was ore said when she departed? yillie may answer. Do you know, Willie?” ae “Yes'm. They said, ‘You may take your clothes and ”’—Cleveland Plain Dealer. ™ : oy ; asia | ' | 5 F 4