The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, April 9, 1899, Page 6

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, APRIL 9, 1899. Call <+.enAPRIL o, 18% JOHN D. SPRECKELS, Proprietor. sPobhmndemeitousinsn oo Address All Communications to W. S. LEAKE, Manager. S o A At PUBLICATION OFFICE Market and Third Sts., S. f. Telephone Main 1868. EDITORIAL ROOMS... ..217 to 281 Stevenson Street Telephone Main 1874. DELIVERED BY CARRIFRS, 15 CENTS PER WEEK. Single Copies, 5 cents. Terms by Dail, Including Postage: PAILY CALL (including Sunday Lall). one vea: DAILY CALL (including Sunday Call), 6 months. DAILY CALL cincluding DAILY CALL—By Single SUNDAY CALL One Year. WEBEKLY CALL, One Yea: All postmasters are authorized to. receive subscrip Sample copies will be forwarded when requested. OAKLAND OFFICE..... . ..v..s”...908 Broadway NEW YORK OFFICE. Room 188, World Building DAVID ALLEN, Advertising Representative. WASHINGTON (D. C.) OFFICE......... Wellington Hotel | C. €. CARLTON, Correspondent. ! CHICAGO OFFICE.... Marguette Building C.GEORGE KROGNESS, Advertising Representative. | | SRANCH OFFICES—527 Montgomery street, corner Clay, | open untll 9:30 o'clock. 387 Hayes street, open until 9:30 o'clock. 621 McAllister street, open until 9:30 o'clock. 616 Larkin street, open untll 9:30 o'clock. | 1941 Mission street, open until 10 o’clock. 2291 Market | street, corner Sixteenth, open untll 9 o'clock. 2518 | Mission street, open until 9 o'clock.. 106 Eleventh | street, open untll 9 o'clock. 1506 Polk street, open until 9:30 o'clock. NW. corner Twenty-second ana | open untll 9 o'clock. Charity Ball.” en Locks. ‘Married, Not Mated. 0o end Fres Theater—Vaudeville every afternoon Chutes, and evening. Olympia—Corner Mason and Ellis streets, Specialties. Recreation Park—Baseball. Union Coursing Park—Coursing to-day. Grand Opers House—Sauer Recitals, Wednesday afternoon, | Grand Opera House—Rosenthal, Tuesday afterncon, April %. | Glen Park—Mission Zoo. Central Park—The Steeplechase. | El Campo—The popular bay resort. Amusements every | Bunday. | ————————————————————————————— PROMPT ACTION NECESSARY. T is sincerely to be hoped that Attorney General Ford will find time between now and the expira- | f his term of office to take up and consider ication of his predecessor for a writ of man- g Wells, Fargo & Co. to pay their war red with most of the business with of his office is consumed this proceed- | cendent importance. The express com- in question is taking from the people of this te between $R000 and $10,000 monthly which it uld pay to the Government. It is doing this by means of a bluff, which in an ordinary poker game d be cal nd disposed of immediately. late Attorney General applied to the Supreme date and was referred by that | The latter court is- | Co tribunal to tt t for a writ of m y decided in Michigan when rposed with a motion trans- proceeding to the United States Circuit | this jufcture a change in the Attorney’| flice took place, and since that time noth- | 1e. All Attorney General Ford has to do in connection with the motion interposed by the tax-shirking cor- is to move in Judge Morrow’s court to dis- Every lawyer that the Federal als do not issue writs of mandate except in aid of their own process, and the proceeding transferred in this case on the ground that it involves a Federal on is bound to be defeated here just as it was | ed in the State of Michigan. The necessity of the case is m n Attorney General who will move on the works of the enemy. - In an interview the other day Attorney General | Ford said that he would take up the case as soon as possible. This is not the way ‘to go about the busi- ness. It should be taken up-at once, since it is of more importance to the commerce of the State that Wells, Fargo & Co. should be compelled to pay its | war taxes than that almost any other principle of government should be enforced. The war in the Philippines is now being carried on at the expense of the people. This tax-shirking express company is | paying not a single cent toward its prosecution, but is | evading payment by tying up cases in the courts and | resorting to legal technicalities entirely ridiculous in | character. ! ARREST OF CONFISCATION. At Court. General's o ing has been done to bring matters to an knows HE case of Village of Norwood vs. Baker, rc-% Tcem!y decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, will have a deterring effect upon the frauds often perpetrated under the guise of street assessments. As the law stood before this decision | was rendered street improvements in municipalities frequently operated as confiscations. It hasbeen gener- ally held that in the case of unaccepted streets, that is, | streets not to be kept in order by general taxation, | the cost of the improvements could be lawfully as-| sessed against the adjacent property by the rule of | the front foot. In some of the States the extreme doctrine has been laid "down, either expressly or by implication, that where the cost exceeded. the value | of the property the deficit could be collected through | a personal judgment against the owner. In this/| State that extremity of robbery was avoided, and it | has been held that the measure of possible recovery for street work must be limited to the énforcement of a lien upon the property itself, and that when a man’s land has peen taken the spoliation must cease., But our”Supreme Court has also’declared that the righfl to assess and to recover on this kind of work is not | dependent upon any benefit to the property assessed. | One lot might be injured and anether: lot improved, | but each would have to contribute in proportion to ! its frontage. The case of Village of Norwood vs. Baker lays | down an intelligible rule, founded on principle, that, | in respect to streets, will go far to reconcile law and | justice. It determines that when an.assessment for | street improvements is substantially in excess of the correlative benefits it is invalid under the Federal | constitution, for the reasons that it proposes, first, to take for public use without compensation property | Leld in private ownership; and, second, to deprive a} man of his property without due process of law. The salutary effect of this ruling will nowhere be more gencrally welcomed than in San Francisco, | where over and over again people have been “im- proved” into insolvency: The history of street work, like the record of the water front in connection with | the State, is replete with shameful evidences of the use of the local government to gratify the rapacity of contractors and of conscienceless speculators. The Su- | under the laws of this State, with a capital of from ;s;,ooo,ooo to $10,000,000. The prospectus conveys | ference is plain that China will treat us as the favored | Senator Morgan. | ably find they have been provided with a dissolving THE PHILIPPINE TRADE. HE Chinese Consul-General in this city has is- sued the prospectus of the United States and China Trading Company, to be incorporated & and repeats much information as to the Chinese trade, and quotes at large from Sir Charles Beresford on that subject. The opinion of the Consul-General is that the United States, having been non-aggressive in China, will be preferred by that Government in the granting of trade concessions and protection in their enjoy- ment. The European nations are characterized ‘in the document as ‘“‘aggressive and ‘grasping,” and the in- nation. Silence is maintained, howevér, upon the light in which those aggressive and grasping Euro- peans will look upon any attempt to give to us exclu- sive privileges and benefits in China. England, Ger- many and Russia are ajready there, busy in staking out Sphtffii of influence and zones Of commerce and posts for military occupation. Whatever grace China shows toward us brings us in conflict with the in- terests of these prior occupants, and, while we will have ne dispute to settle with China, our contentions with her other powerful parasites may involve us very seriously and to an extent not offset by the com- mercialadvantage gained. z The prospectus impleads the Philippine trade with that of China, and herein betrays'a feeling that Chi- nese interests in the islands require us to help sus- tain them. It says that there are one million Chi- nese in the Philippines, and that Chinese merchants control their commerce. The proposed California corporation is to make connections with these Chi- nese merchants already established there and make use of their facilities for distribution. The Chinese estimate of the wealth to be gained by exploiting the Philippines is as sumptuous as that of The Consul-General says: “The principal products of the Philippines are ' sugar, hemp, tobacco, rice, coffee, cacao, gums, arrowroot, indigo, cotton, pepper, cochineal, ‘betel root, areca nut, cocoanuts and nut oil. In the forests grow ebony, bamboo, logwood, rattans amtl numerous hard- woods, gum-bearing trees and plants. The islands are also fabulously rich in gold, and copper, coal and iron abound in large quantities.” No wonder that after that dazzling catalogue the representative of China is able to that the pro- posed corporation will enter into possession of a veritable Golconda. The development of this new field, however, will require labor, and this can only be had from China. Americans cannot work in that climate. The million Chinese already in the Philip- pines form a population already in possession. The | present population of the Philippine Islands is 87 to the square mile, against the average of 81 for Europe, Asia 48, Africa 15, Oceanica 8, North America 8, South America 3, and the world's average of 26. The native races are not given to industry volun- tarily, and it is clear that they must be forced to work | and lashed into taxpaying, as Professor Wooster vs they were under Spain, or a laboring popula- tion must be introduced from China. It is therefore highly probable that if the future develop in line with this prospectus issued by the Consul-General of China, the United States will pro- tect the introduction into the Philippines of a million more Chinese, who will repeat there the history of their, invasion of the Straits Settlements, Ceylon and the other tropical countries into --which they have penetrated. FAKES, FIGHTS @ND FINANCES. T the meeting of the Board of Supervisors last fl Monday the first steps were taken to conform with the act enacted by the last Eegislature authorizing incorporated clubs to give public exhi- bitions of twenty-round boxing contests at any time upon the payment of a license fee, the amount of which is to be fixed by county Supervisors. Super- visor Perrault presented a resolution fixing the license to be paid in San Francisco at $5000 a year, and it was | referred to the City and County Attorney for consid- eration. At the same meeting the permit granted the National Athletic Club for the boxing match between George Green and the “Mysterious Billy” Smith was approved. The meeting permitted between Green and Smith has taken place and has furnished a valuable and in- structive lesson to the Supervisors in considering the Perrault resolution. There was no boxing in the match. Smith announced that he would not box for the amount of money in sight and walked out of the ring. The patrons of the show got their money's worth in experience, though doubtless many of them are convinced they were swindled. With such an illustration of the ease with which the public can be defrauded in such exhibitions, the merit of the Perrault resolution is too apparent to need ar- | gument. Something must be done to put an end to these disreputable fakes. Since the State law de- prives the city of the power to forbid prize-fighting when called “a twenty-round boxing match,™the only course leit is to guard against the repetition of frauds. That can be accomplished only by fixing the license so high that none but clubs of financial responsibility .an afford to undertake such exhibitions. 2 It is also right that the county should derive con- siderable revenue from the boxing contests, since the pugs and their following put the taxpayers to a good deal of expense for police service. The amount of the license proposed by the resolution is not at all too high. If the City and County Attorney reports favor- ably on its validity, it should be adopted at once. The people of San Francisco have borne too long in patience the impudent pretensions and the insolent fakes and frauds of the lower class of. prize-fighters. A high license fee would ‘¢xclude those fel- lows from the ring and.théy would have to go to.work or be arrested as vagabonds... The ring would be rid ot their trickery and the city of their presence. The irresponsible clubs that have made money out of such fellows would have to close up and quit. From every point of view, therefore, the enactment of the ordinance would be a benefit to the community. It is difficult to understand why the British should have taken the trouble to scize the Tonga Islands all of a sudden. unless it be that they just happened to notice for the first time that the islands are a part of the earth. The disappointed patrons of the ring who, after thce Mysterious Billy Smith fake, were consoled by the gift of tickets of admission to another contest, will. prob- view show. Coroner Hill readily admits that he carries a super- abundance of fat about his waistband. The impres- sion is rapidly gaining ground that his head is also acquiring an excess of embonpoint. With the marked activity in opposition to the pres- ent lighting monopoly in San Francisco the expres- | feathers of that kind, but for the nationalization of preme Court of the United States has rendered a great | sion “How’d you like to be the gasman?” is nothing sablic service, ;" & - Meedalon ) o8 \ue',i.-’.h'm-"i “"_u;, PEAES S A WARWHOOP FROM KENTUCkY. WLouisrille Courier-Journal has made reply to a correspondent who asked: “Accepting, for the sake of argument, your view that silver, if not a dead issue, is at least a dead weight, with what would you replace it, and how would you line up the party in 1900 so as to give us a fighting chance?” The Courier Journal, which poses, be it remem- bered, as an organ of conservative Democracy, re- plies that before it began the work of reconstruction it would “throw out the debris of Populism which has accumulated among the general mass of Demo- cratic wreckage,” and then, having cleared the decks for action, “it would proceed to formulate a line of domestic policies having these: four ends in ‘view”: First—The destruction of combinations of capi- tal designed to limit production, to ralse prices and to promote monopoly. Second—The raising of the public moneys by taxes fairly divided between production and con- sumption; beginning with a tariff for'revenue only and ending in a graded income tax,'oppressh'e to no class or interest. Third—The recovery to “the people’ of all fran- chises belgnging to’ the people, but, divérted from public to private uses, by the purchase of ctorpora- tions and individuals; . corruptly -wofking through State and municipal legislatures. AR Fourth—Such a recrgnniza‘t‘iun and reform of our judiclal system as will remove the courts farther from the influence of the rich and ‘make:them more accesstble to the poor; a result not to be reached by excited appeals and revolutionary.menaces, but by calm, conservative methods, originating in the be- nign and orderly ‘operations of an enlightened pub- lic opinion. So that is what they call conservatism in Ken- tucky! A return to the old disastrous free trade ex periment, the retaking by the Government of all rail- toad and other franchises granted to corporations, some kind of change in our judicial system, Federal and State, and the wholesale breaking up of com- binations suspected of trying to raise prices and pro- mote monopolies. § It would require a campaign book of a thousand pages to explain what that platiorm means. What are the combinations ‘of capital that are trying to raise prices and how are they to be destroyed? How are taxes to be fairly divided between production and consumption, and how is the income tax to be graded 50 as to be oppressive to nobody? How are the peo- ple to recover all the franchises diverted from public to private uses, and what will they do with them when | they get them? What sort of reorganization of the judicial system is to be made so as to remove the | courts farther from the influence of the rich and ren- der them more accessible to the poor, and how is it to be effected without excited appeals and revolu- tionary menaces? The proposed platform is, in fact, out of the do- main of reasonable argument. It is so vague and so suggestive of antagonism between rich and poor that it could not be argued calmly even by the coolest- headed of men simply because no two could everagree | as to the meaning of a single pf:mk in it. It is about | as wild a piece of demagogy as Bryan himself ever put forward. If that be the best Kentucky conserva- tism can offer, it might as well retire from politics an.i leave the Chicago platiorm undisturbed. ITH a multitude of words so numerous as to form an essay rather than an editorial, the SOCIALISM .IN GREAT BRITAIN. OMMENTING upon the increase of socialism | C among the working classes of Great Britain, and the failure of the Liberal party to formilate a policy satisfactory to. the people, the Newcastle Chronicle recently made use of a very striking com- parison. It said: “The Unionist employers in Par- | liament who complacently cackle about the compensa- tion act remind us of nothing so much as the Christ- mas goose which thinks it is chased for its feathers.” The implication is clear. The man who chases the Christmas goose is out for blood. He desires not a few feathers, but the whole bird. The British work- ingman is now pursuing the land owners and the cap- italists not for compensation for injuries received at | his work, nor for old age pensions, nor for any % land and something like state socialism on a large, | comprehensive scale. Since Gladstone retired from its leadership the Liberal party in Great Britain has gone to pieces. It is now even more disorganized and demoralized than | Democracy in America. It has no leader and no plat- form. The men who are highest in its councils dis- | agree among themselves, and not one of them can rally a formidable following in the country. This | collapse of Liberalism has given radicalism a chance to assert itself, and the evidences of its growth are be- coming portentous. The Chronicle says: “Politics, and especially popu- lar feeling upon politics, are in a state of lethargy because the country is prosperous and the people as a whole are slothfully content and given more to vu{gar pleasures than to the passionate ideals of the Chartist convention. But the next great economic crisis in this country, causing much popular distress and the | reopening of the unemployed problem in a more serious form, will mean a rude disturbance in the air. It will probably mean socialism.” Whether this prediction is to be verified at the coming of the next commercial depression is depen- dent upon the ability of the Liberal leaders to put forth a policy sufficiently vigorous to draw the masses from radicalism into the Liberal ranks. Cer- tainly when hard times come upon them the people will not remain sluggish and content under Tory rule. Some opposition party will carry the country and assume power, and it appears the socialists are quite ready to accept the responsibility. Clearly the British goose is not being chased. for its feathers.’ After the Samoan incident it is probable that .the Emperor William will try to be good. He has trified just once too often with Grandma Victoria, forgetful that the hand of that lady was ever on the interna- tional slipper. He knows better now. His expe- rience in the back yard of nations with Uncle Sam and the “Widdy of Windsor”. should last him a life- time. He'll not forget it, at any rate, until he has re- covered sufficiently from the correction to be able to sit upon that part of his anatomy due south of the imperial equator reddened by the impact of queenly footwear. ; e When we have beaten and crushed the Filipinos of Luzon we will not have to weep for more worlds to conquer. There are about a tholisand islands in the Philippine group and it will be a long time before Othello’s occupation there will be gone. MR ae T The formation of the proposed National Referen- dum party is not likely to do much more than afford every tinhorn reformer in the country an opportunity to blow himself and think he is beating the band. SIS The Jamaican revolt against the Government is likely to be hot stuff, for the island is full of rum and ginger. 5 John Fiske, a wise man, in the Boston sense of the term, and one whose fame has been noted at times even in our cosmopolitan city, has conflded to the exclusive and almost secret society that reads the Atlantic Monthly his dogma on the mystery of evil. Taking as his text the familiar words: “Your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil,” he maintains that what we call evil is a force, or a condition, essential to the moral evolu- tion of man. “The whole universe,” he says, “is animated by a single prin- ' ciple of life; and whatever we sge in it, whether to our half trained under- standing and narrow experience: it may seem to be good or bad, is an indis- pensable part of the stupendous scheme.” It will be seen that while .this relieves us from old-time anxieties by removing the'devil from our horizon, it throws a heavy responsibility upon the original author of evolution. In elaborating his argument Mr. Fiske maintains that we regard as evil the .conditions from which we are emerging by the processes of evolution and esteem as good those to which we are tending. ' Thus he says: ‘“As we survey the course of this wonderful evolution it begins to become manifest that moral evil is simply the character- istic of the lower state of living as looked at from the higher state.” That means the more experience we have the more evil we know. The good of to-day is the curse of to-morrow. For example the people will at one time shout for a man, work for him, call him a statesman, vote for him and elect him Governor; and after trying him forty days in office will find him deal- ing out the worst brand of pernicious activity on record—but of course that illustration doesn’'t apply to California. It was borrowed from Kansas for the sake of euphony. This philosophy is of some value to the world. It has all the merit of a bread poultice and will relieve the men- tal irritation caused by many of those minor evils of life which are more vex- atious than t big ones. It is worth while applying it to some of the prob- lems that have been fretting the coun- try during the past week; and there is no better time for experimenting with the application than this balmy day of rest—for as this Sunday follows im- mediately after Easter it has no new bonnets to show, and therefore there is no fashionable necessity for going to church. To many good souls that really merit a life of unalloyed comfort, one of the most distressing things of the week has been the amount of gorgeous, reckless rhetoric poured forth column after col- umn in a rapt and almost adoring adu- lation of the matrimonial alliance be- tween an heir of the house of Vander- bilt—brother-in-law of the house of Mariborough—with a daughter of the house of Fair. It has seemed to many people that the publication of this phosphorescent mass of ‘‘rotten stuff” about the vulgar ostentation of wealth was an_evil—that it was something which pandered to a spirit of flunky- ism among us, or served to feed a mor- bid appetite for gossip about the doings of the rich. That, however, was not fo. The great mass of peoplée who read those daily columns of gush' are not flunkies by any means. They are men and women whose minds aré so harassed with de- sires for a dollar or a dress suit that wealth is t’ e one object of idolatry. A millionaire seems to them an ideal creature. They aelight to read of golden plates, heaps of diamonds and splendid silks just as other people like to read of art and science and poetry, or to liste to music, but they are not toadies. They would shy a brick at a plutocrat 1if they had a chance. Men and women whose lives are made up of incessanc toil under sordid conditions, who are chronically impe- | cunious, who long for a holiday to frollc in the sunshine or the gaslight, to wander by the seashore or to dance in a Nob Hill mansion, but who hardly ever have as much as a day of really unrestrained enjoyment in a year, turn with delight to stories of Dukes and Earls and millicnaires, of stately palaces, ropes of pearls and exhaust- less wealt: by an inevitable law of their being, just as starving men dream of rich banquets by reason of the promptings of the empty stomach. To the human being tormented by a half- starved life there is a satisfaction in contemplating those who have every- thing. The feeling is not a vulgar flunkyism, but something of an ideal aspiration, akin to that which Shelley calls: “The love of the moth for the star; Of the night for the morrow; The longing for something afar From the sphere of our sorrow.” Nor was the ostentatious display of profuse extravagance in the ceremony to be wholly condemned. From a social point of view it is perhaps bad, since it tends to set up the corruptions of luxury in places where the refinements of culture should have an undisputed sway; but from an economic point of view the extravagance of the rich is to be commended. The sooner the fools among them are partéd from their money the.better it is for all concerned. It is, therefore, worth while to applaud them when to illumine festal night they burn money enough to make an aurora borealis. f What is godd to men and women of one level of intellectual development is an evil to those of the next higher level. On the highest plane of life to-day are those who find delight in what has been attained for humanity by men of genius; on a lower stage are persons who are eager to learn all the little scandals and petty details of the lives of great men, and who are not satis- fied until they have heard all the tales of the servants and read all the private letters ‘and notes of the gifted ones; lower still are those whose admiration is for the sumptuosities of the rich; beneath them is the class that yearns to have a description of the under- clothes of the millionaires and learn the size of their stockings. Finally we have the class that likes to read abaut murderers and to see pictures of the | weapons with which the deeds were done. One of these classes is about as human as another, and if we could anly supplement the church, the press and the schoolhouse with a wholesome whipping post we might do jutice to An appropriate salutation for yesterday was,' “How them all without sentencing anybody to Hades. i 4 O*O*O*OWO*@*@*Q*QM*@-{:—@*@*@_*M@*O—K@*O*MN*@%*O*@*O*g : EDITORIAL VARIATIONS.§ H : ] BY JOHN McNAUGHT. E ;*0*@*0*0*0*@*@*0*9*@*0*@% DADEOAOXOXS- #O#OHFOFOH 2 4 ; the week has been the course of politics in Cleveland and Chicago. A pamphlet | issued by the Good Government League of Cleveland states that one of the can- didates for Mayor, McKisson, went into | a ward populated largely by a poor | class of Jew immigrants who cannot speak English, and informed them, through an interpreter, in the course | of a campaign speech, that if they | would vote forshim he would, if elected Mayor of Cl.veland, take steps to com- pel the French Government to release Dreyfus immediately and pay him dam- ages for false imprisonment. The Good Government League de- nounced the speech as an evil; as an illegitimate method of campaigning; as a fraud practiced upon the American voter. All the same, the League in that very pamphlet informed the voters in strajght English, without an interpre- ter, that «f their candidate should be elected Mayor he would break up the political machines, put an end to the spoils system, drive the corporations out of politics and make Cleveland a clean city. Now that was a bigger lie than the Dreyfus lie, but it will take a better po..tical expert than I am to determine which is on the higher stage Evil after ail is largely a matter of taste. It will be conceded, of course, that some evils, like murder, or a breach of promise, are of such shock- ing bad taste that any one guilty of them ought to be hanged or shot, but that is no reason why we should fret over the majority of those incidents which show the depravity of our neigh- bors and prove them to be lower than ourselves, A broad, liberal toleration will save us from many an irritation. For example, the fact that the intel- ligence of San Francisco delights in The Call and is content with it is no reason why the fools should be denied their Examiner. In elaborating his theory of the evo- | lution of man Mr. Fiske says: “The | physical differences between man and | | | | | the ape are less important than the physical differences between African and South American apes. Zoologically man is simply one genus in the old | world family of apes.” That state- ment raises a curious question as to| what would have been the condition of | man to-day if he had developed from | the American ape instead of the old | world ape. If our primeval progenitor | had been some gracile ape like the Douroucoulis Nyctipithecus (profanely called the owl-faced monkey) disport- | ing an innocent life in the sun-lighted, | flower-perfumed forests of this favored | land, instead of a big, black beast roar- | ing in the jungles of darkest Africa, is | it not probable that by this time we | would have reached such a degree of | perfection that all of us would be co- tillon leaders with a Greguway grace— | and not a Supervisor in the bunch? ‘While the doctrine may be in the East, it is none the 1 true | that the farther West you go the more virtuous you are. A proof of it is to | be found in the contrast between the conduct of the V.estern soldier in the Philippines and that of the Eastern soldier in Cuba, as depicted by them- selves in private letters to friends at| home. Here is a case in point, drawn from the news of the week. A volun- teer writing from a Florida camp says: “Five of the boys married Cuban wives and brought .them home. They all have either a small lemon or orange grove, while one of the boys captured a dusky maiden who has a six-hun- dred-acre coffee plantation. Sixteen others married Cuban girls, but they drew blanks. and when the troops came | home they left them to shuffle for | themselves.” Reflect upon the morals of that con- duct just long enough to fix in your mind the disloyalty of the Eastern braves to the girls they left behind them and then warm your heart with this extract from the letter of a soldier at the front in the Philippines: “Our lady nurse was with us in the trenches that night. She sat right next to me, and every time I took a shot she had another cartridge ready for me, | They shot closer than they ever did before and the bullets wére just nipping over our heads.” Such a contrast as is afforded by | these letters speaks for itseif and needs no comment. All will admit it was shocking bad taste for the Eastern braves to forget the girls at home and g0 to investing in Cuban belles as if they were tickets in the Havana lottery —to be kept if they drew prizes and shuffied off if they did not. The con- duct of the Western man, who took his nurse with him to the trenches and fought almost in her arms, is not only better than the Eastern practice by comparison, but is positively good—so very good indeed that one can imagine | him pausing for a moment from his | Filipino target practice, leaning over | to his fair companion and whispering through the star-lit battle air, while the bullets whistled musie: “Sweet nurse, if this be war, may we never have peace.” | Mr. Fiske concludes his confidence by saying: “Thus we have arrived at the goal of my argument. * * = The mystery of evil remains a mystery" still. * * * But assuredly its deepi impress upon the human soul is the in- | dispensable background against which shall be set hereafter the eternal Joys‘ of heaven.” It is just as well to let it go at that. s On a Tour. Rev. I. M. Atwood, D.D., editor of t Universalist and superintendent of U: versalist churches, is making a tour of the United States, and will preach in Oak- | land Sunday, April 16. HIs journey in- cludes the southern part of California. He is accompanied by )¥rs. Atwood. —————— | Treat your friends to Townsend's Cal. Glace Fruits, 50c Ib., in fire etched box or Jap baskets. 627 Market street. g ————— Specia] information supplied dally to business houses and public men by the | Press Clipping Bureau (Allen’s),510 Mont- | gumery street. Telephone Main 1042. * Malice in Kansas. An Atchison woman has appeared in a dress worn by her husband’s first wife, and the indignant neighbors have started | the story that she goes out to the ceme- tery and dances on the first wife's grave. —Kansas City Journal. - - THE CALIFORNIA LIMITED, Sante Fe Route. Three times a week; 3% days to Chicago, 4% | days to New York. Handsomest train and most 5 N g Ty lete ice. Full particul t i of_irritation a coltnvezleni e- particulars at m‘l(u-‘. | ist has ever made a suc | neighborhood in order | le. | portunities for sacrifice | negation IAN MACLAREN S A PREACHER AND NOVELIST It. was an introduction worthy of California. The uniformed page boy of the Palace staggered into the parlor under the weight of a huge paper par- cel. And little Mrs. Watson, Ian Mac- laren's wife, received it in her lap, a wealth of glorious blossoms rolling out from the loosened cover. There were roses, carnations, liles, lilacs and a dozen other glowing blooms, not for- getting the far-famed eschscholtzia, California's favorite flower. “What a splendid welcome,” ex- claimed Mrs. Watson as she bent over the fragrant heap. ‘‘And there s no card either. Just imagine! Last night we plowed our way through twelve feet of snow and this morning we are in the land of sunshine and flowers. It’s too wonderful.” Jan Maclaren, the novelist, sat at the table opposite and smiled pleasant not in too pronounced a manner, but with just that subdued grace charac- teristic of the cultured cleric. How- ever, you must not confuse the Re Dr. John Watson of the Presbyterian church with Ian Maclaren, the writer of “Beside the Bonnie Briar Bush,” and many other famous Scotch stories of the “Kailyard School.” The two men lead a kind of idealized Jekyll and Hyde existence. In the pulpit of érowded church at Sefton Park, Liver- pool, Dr. Watson is the earnest preacher, the skilled theologian; here, on his lecturing tour through the United States; he is the eloquent speaker, the genial man of the world, whose reputation is magnetic enough to draw crowds wherever he goes, even through snowstorms and blizzards. “1 am traveling now purely as a ci- vilian, and not as a clergyman,” he went on. i The doctor's dress indicates as much. He has dropped the clerical broadcloth for the loose, easy fitting tweed of the experienced traveler; and, as if to ac- centuate the change of costume, he has even gone £o far as to don a red n tie, a color which sets at defiance the traditions of the Scottish K Still, costume notwithstanding, & clean shaven face, his broad, though ful forehead, his keen dark eyes, ha hidden under bushy eyebrows, mark him as one set apart for the service of the church. In fact, with his tall, mas- sive frame, his firm step, his general air of one born to command, Dr. Wat- son, attired in _suitable canonicals, would ha made an ideal English Bishop. And that he is not on the high road to this dignity is not the fault of the Presbyterian church of Scotland. “I have been tried twice before the theological court,” he remarked, “on account of a religious work I wrote four, rears ago, ‘The Mind of the Master. They charged me with heresy because of the doctrines I expressed, but in each instance the charge failed. They have still the right to try me again, on the general merits of the case, but,” he added with a grim smile, “I do mnot think they will.” “And what would hav they found you guilty “I should have been divested of my orders, and of course expelled from my church.” “And then?” “Why, then, it would have been the Church of England. I shall never aban- don my religious vocation, and of all churches I lean most toward the Angli- can. “Now you must not imagine,” con. tinued the doctor, “that this prosecu- tion had anything to do with my Scotch stories. If there is one thing more than another which I abominate, it is theology in fiction. Theology is a science and’ should be -treated as & thing apart, in its proper place. happened had That is why I always publish my religious writings under my own name, -John ‘Watson, while for my imaginative sto- ries I use the nom de plu Maclaren. There are thr theologies in my tales, accor beliefs of the characters wt portrayed. “No, they are not taken from real life, my people of Drumtochty; that is a popular fallacy. They are compos: photographs, built up, a bit he bit there. Probably there are in land women Jike Kate Carnegie, or doc- tors like McClure and Davidson; but there are none which are identical in every detail. I consider that no novel- ss who actu- ally copied from real life. Why, v cut out at once.all the imaginative and creative element. That was Disraeli's great fault. He merely described liv- ing individuals, instead of creating ideals of his own. And in recent years there have been cases of the same kind, though I would, rather not speak of my contemporaries in fiction. AK Not to mention the bad taste of the thing, we may draw an analogy from art. The difference between a real and character is exactly that betv a photograph and- an artistic sketch. The one merely shows us things just as they are; the other vivifies them, in- vests them with an atmosphere of ro- mance; gives them an air of fascina- tion. “Look at Kipling's people, created by his wonderful genius. They are abso- lutely lifelike; vet, I venture to say, not one of them is an actual copy from real existence. The master hand has touched them and they breathe. Why, I have been 50 closely identified with some of my characters that only the other day, in the East, a university chancellor introduced me to the audi- ence as Mrs. Carnegie’s hushband. And they have asked me many times t@® write a novel about the subsequent life of this lady and her husband. But I do not think I shall; my forte is the short story.” In planning his prospective work Ian Maclaren frankly admits the decadence of what adversé critics term the “kail- yard school” of fiction. “There has been enough written about the sub- ject,” he said. “Barrie and Crockett and yself, not to mention numerpus other“writers, have quite exhausted it. T shall turn my attention to other mat- ters. In my last volume ‘Afterward’ there were only two Scotch stori: all the rest were English. And now that I have finished the annals of Drum- tochty, there is nothing left to write: about. By the way, speaking of imag- inary names, I may mention a curious fact. I invented the name of Drum-. tochty, which was really my first par- ish of Logie Almond, and felt quite proud of the creation. To my surprise, I found later that there was actually a district in Scotland of the same name, and that many people had visited the to - locate tne scene of my stories.” ‘The heroism of self-abnegation is to be the theme of Maclaren's future work, and it is more than probable that he will take as the theater of his sto- ries the great commercial center of Liverpool, where his parochial interests “I am becoming more and more convinced,” he remarks, “that in the world of commerce there are mbre op- and self-ab-. than in professional life. Why, look at the heroism of some of these men of business, at the risks they daily run, at the burdens which they uncomplainingly bear on their shoul- ders. There is romance in commerce. Daily in the course of my parochial du- ties I have met with unexampled in- stances of devotion, of men and wo- men whose lives have been brightened by their care for others. Tt is an op- portunity which has been little util- ized by the novelist, and I propose to seize it.” Truly, this weary world will not com- plain if Tan Maclaren’s magic pen can turn from Scottish themes and weave romance into the prosaic, money-grub= bing life of busy Liverpool. i - . B, ROSE-SOLEY.