Page:Nation v71 no1832.djvu/13

 The Nation.

1138

‘was during Mr. Cleveland's Administration, ‘whether we shall stay on the gold basis or Grop to a allver basis. In order to get rid of the Philippine trouble, ought we to take the freo-ailver nostrum? Is not the remedy ‘worse than the disease? ‘The descent to the shades of Avernus is easy—Sed revocare gradum;. . . Hoe opus, Mo labor, cat. It ts certainly a poor recommendation of a candidate to say of him that he can't do any harm, although he wants to do it. I have read in the Notion the Socratic dia logue in which Senator Hoar 1s repre- sented as making no distinction between the virtue of one who 1s a principal in a erlme and one who ts passive and looks on, ‘but dose nothing to defeat it; and Socra- tes condemns McKinley for negotiating the Spanish treaty, and excuses Bryan for not exerting. his influence to prevent its ratifi- cation. But tn the ‘mmortal dialogue in which he confutes the sophist, Socrates holds men not only responsible for the evils they do, but for those they do not use their power to prevent being done. If he had deen guided by the maxim that it is wise to be silent when it fs dangerous to speak, he would not have died a martyr to Truth. Plato could not bave reconted his speech to the judges who condemned him, and men ‘would not weep over the page of the ‘Pha- do’ that tells of the scene at sunset in the dungeon, ‘Ween, Athens! here thy Wisest looked his last." But Bryan was active in securing the adop- tion of the treaty that expanded us. He Advised {ts ratification without amend- ment. If a crime was committed, Bry- ‘an is an accessory before the fact. In his great argument on the trial of Knapp for murder, Mr. Webster demonstrated that one who stood by and kept watch was equally guilty, as an accessory, with the one who struck the blow. So far as thelr record in Congress 1s concerned, parties are in pori deltoto on the Philippine question. Senators who took Bryan's advice and voted to ratify and expand, are still the trusted leaders of the Democratic party. ‘The treaty was not to become effective ‘until Spain received the twenty-million pur- chase money. Every Democrat in Congress, 1 belteve, voted for the appropriation. It ‘would have been no breach of public faith to huve refused it. Spain would then have kept the islands. A man who voted tho money to buy these islands and relieve Spain of the burden of governing them, is now estopped from complaining of Expansion. ‘Then Democrats, equally with Republicans, have supported the Administration by vot- ing money and men to carry on the war in the Philippines. It 1s at least s hopeful sign that the Philadelphia Convention evad- ed the issue of permanently holding them by declaring that “wo are in favor of the largest measure of self-government for the Philippines consistent with thelr wel- fare and our duty.” Every man opposed to incorporating Asiatic possessions into our political system can endorse that declara- ton. Logically, it means our abandonment of the Philippines. Ino. 8, Mospr. Saw Faasctaco, Joly 28, 1900 ‘Taxasont Deranruexr, Wararmorox, March 2, 190, Deas Sra: 1 am{n recetpt of your letter of the 10th inat., in whlch you say you eaclove a clipping from one of the Ban Francisco papers. ‘The clip. ‘ping referred to was not found with your letter.

‘You say you do not understand why the Govern- ‘ment is able to malotain the sliver dollar on pa- rity with gold, unlesa it is redeemable in gold just ‘a the greenback is.

Perhapa the controlling reason why the Govern- ‘ment is able to maintain the silver dollar at a pa- rity with gold la that a wide avenue for Ita use was. provided when the silver dollar wae made recelva- dlefor public dues. Being good for 100 cents in payment of customs and internal revenue taxes, Just as the gold dollar {s, there was established & ‘ort of indirect redemption In gold (or its equiva- lent, customs dues or taxes) where the number of silver dollars is limited. Collections from customs and internal revenue exceed $500,000,000 a year. ‘The Government having given ita pledge that three silver dollars will be received for public dues, itis, therefore in the power of the holder to obtain the equivalent of gold, substantially, by paying such ilvor dollars for taxes.

Respectfully yours, L. J. Gaoe, Secretary.

Mr. John 8. Mosby, San Francisco, Cal.

(Neither the new currency law (March 14, 1900), nor any other law, makes the silver dollar redeemable In gold, Our recollection s that Secretary Carlisle, in response to an inquiry, said that he would redeem silver dollars in gold if it became necessary in order to maintain parity between the two. This he would have been justified in doing under the clause of the Sherman Act (July 14, 1890), which declares It to be “the es- tablished policy of the United States to maintain the two metals on a parity with each other on the present legal ratio.” In other words, a Secretary friendly to the gold standard would find ‘means under existing laws to keep the silver dollars at par, while an unfriend- ly one might not. It does not follow that the unfriendly one could upset the gold standard by paying out silver dol- lara in large quantities. Large quantities are not generally within his reach. Near- ly all are absorbed in the circulation of the country, and, as Secretary Gage shows, any quantity that the Treasury would be able to pay out under pros- Perous conditions of trade and industry, could be turned over to the Government ‘at par in payment of duties and taxes. Of course, the conditions of trade and industry are liable to change. It is con- celvable that bad times may come, and with them shrinkage in the demand for silver dollars and silver certificates, 80 that the receipts of the Treasury shall be composed exclusively of them. In ‘such an event the silver standard would establish itself, unless the Secretary should take positive steps to avert it, Ep. Nariox.]

INTRINSICATE. To THE EpiToR oF THE Nation:

SiR: My reply to “C. A. H.” ts, that I showed, in my short letter, all that T un- dertook to show, namely, the occurrence of intrinsicate, and bearing signification not warranted by the Itallan intrinetoato, in a writer earlier than any of the Elizabethan dramatists by whom, so far as is at pros- ent known, it was mentioned or adopted. Of Italianisms and other foreignisms which, whether midwifed dead or destined to live,

were, in the sixteenth and seventeenth con- turles, candidates for introduetion into our Janguage, I have amassed a large collection, perhaps some day to be published.

‘July 24, 1900, aE

Notes.

Among the fall publications of G. P, Putoam’s Sons will be a uniform edition of George Borrow's works, edited and an- Rotated in part by Prof. W. I Knapp, Bor- Fow's biographer; and a novel, ‘Ned Myers; or, A Life Before the Mast, discarded from the revised edition of Fenimore Ooop- er’s works in 1859.

McClure, Phillips & Co. have in prepara- {lon an authorized translation of Leroy- Beaulleu's ‘Renovation de I'Asie,’ recently reviewed in these columns, with an intro- duction by Henry Norman; “The Archbishop and the Lady,’ a story by Mrs, Schuyler Crowninshield; and ‘Yankee Enchant- ments,’ by Charles Battell Loomis.

A writer of no little promise, Miss Jose- phine Preston Peabody, will tssue a second volume of verse, ‘Fortune and Men's Byes: New Poems, with a Play,’ through Small, Maynard & Co., Boston.

‘The Proceedings of the remarkable Oon- ference in May last, at Montgomery, Ala., of the Southern Soclety for the Promotion of the Study of Race Conditions and Problems in the South are to be published on August 15 by the B. F, Johnson Pub- Msbing Company, Richmond, Va. The price will be one dollar before publication, and $1.60 afterwards. The publication of these Aiscusstons at the South itself 1s « hopeful ‘ign of the times, along with the vory exist- ence of the Society. While much that was reactionary found expression, much also of the talk was what would have been called ‘incendlary"”—4. ed under the King [Cotton}.”

‘The persistently anonymous author of ‘Elizabeth and her German Garden’ ‘American admirers the jew edition with additions"—something Mke a quarter in bulk (Macmillan). Tbe the style, the picture of foreign manners, the impressions of natore (there fs a passage on page 118 that one might expect to meet in Turgeneff), will long at- tract readers to this slight but charming

The August Critic identifies " with Princess Henry of Pleese (QMiss Cornwallis West), and gives a por- trait of her.

Mr. Gollancs’s little “Temple Classics” (Dent-Macmillan) proceed with “Tully's Of- fices Turned out of Latin into English by Roger L'Estrange,’ the editor following in the main the first edition of 168. The translator's preface 1s no small part of the worth of this little volume. His protest or scruple against the use of lite- rary masterpieces as text-books for pars- ing and construing has not ceased to be repeated by the wise for more than two centuries, Meanwhile, teachers have failed to proft by his advice to drench their pupils with (In this case) the ‘Offices’ in English before “‘the scholar be put to hack ‘and puzsle upon them by snaps in the ort- ‘The student's small loss of inter- 18 explorer would be more than offset

by the general view and comprehension

�