The Men.

I have been asked to give my personal impressions of the candidates and issues. I think Président McKinley a kindly man, well intentioned. In private life he would make a good neighbor, a pleasant friend. He is, in my judgment, a weak character, overruled and overpersuaded from his own principles by stronger wills or hope of political profit. Character belongs to the moral atmosphere we feel it instinctively. No matter what we think of the men, we admit that Senator Hanna and Richard Croker are strong characters. In the same way it is accepted, even by his friends, that President McKinley is weak. It is not so much that he is able to change from silver to gold, from criminal aggression to benevolent assimilation, from free trade with Porto Rico to protective duties, nor that each of these changes has occurred under circumstances that lend color to the charge of sacrificing a conviction to political dictation. It is not so much that he surrendered the army and the Cuban campaign to politics and prefers the nomination of Judge Hazel by Senator Platt to the opposition to him by the New York Bar Association. I say it is not so much President McKinley's record that he is judged by as it is that indefinable something that proclaims character, even apart from special acts. It seems to me that even should history write down his term of office as a period of great achievements it will not write President McKinley as a great man. He is an astute politician, but not as Jefferson was, feeling the people sympathetically, yet leading them; not as Lincoln was, shrewdly playing every card, but along well-defined lines, never

sacrificing principle to politics. Mr. McKinley is a clever politician, but too clever to be great.

I read in the paper sometime ago a statement of one of his friends to the effect that he was the greatest president since Washington, that he followed the will of the people, and that was what he was put there for. That some people seemed to want a dictator, and the gentleman, I forget who it was, instanced Mr. Cleveland as a dictator who had disrupted his party.

For myself, I believe that the executive should be, for his four years, and within his constitutional limits, a strong, determined character with clearly-defined policies and fearless in carrying them out. If Cleveland and Thomas Brackett Reed be dictators, then I must admit a preference for dictators.

That many people agree with this view is evidenced by the fact that Governor Roosevelt was forced onto the ticket against his will and against the will of the Administration by a popular demand. That he is lending the ticket great strength is admitted. Why is Governor Roosevelt so admired? It may be summed up in the word "backbone.'

Friends and enemies alike agree that, regardless of results, he will speak out his mind and adhere to his principles. He has only one kind of honesty and one kind of morality-not an honesty and morality for himself as a gentleman 70. and a different one for himself as a polida tician.

Mr. Bryan seems to me to have held the people four years after he was a defeated candidate because of similar quals ities. He differs wholly with Governor

Roosevelt on political issues. He is not so impulsive. He is more carefully a general, perhaps, but he has the same. courage of his convictions, the same contempt for the office, if it is to be bought by surrendering his principles, and the same disregard for concealment, shilly-shallying and facing both ways. These qualities have preserved him. He was not specially prominent when nominated in Chicago, and being defeated a small, self-seeking politician would have sunk out of sight. But it is safe to say that Mr. Bryan, even among those who opposed him in 1896, as I did-even among those who still differ with him on the silver question, as I do-has gained in esteem by closer and longer acquaintance. And there are many, I am sure, who feel as I do, that the country is safer in his hands than in the hands of a gentleman who has shown himself not wholly and alone the Chief Magistrate of the Nation.

Mr. Stevenson's record has been an unobtrusive one. The general impression I have of him is that of a man not of strong character, and more bound than Mr. Bryan is to the orthodox ways of the orthodox politician.

The Issues.

as the Pennsylvania Railroad to the Standard Oil Company, or the combination to control and suddenly force up the price of necessaries are somehow morally wrong and economically injurious, but the remedy on true democratic lines seems to me too shadowy to make a clear-cut issue.

If an income tax is desired, or even if the power is to be given to Congress to decide whether such tax is desirable or not, an amendment to the Constitution is required (unless the Supreme Court be so modeled as to cause it to reverse itself a demoralizing, vicious expedient). Neither party touched on the income tax, except that the Democracy re-affirmed the Chicago platform.

The Democrats declare for election of Senators by the people. The numerous and increasing instances of tying up of legislatures and purchase of Senatorial seats makes this so popular a demand it can hardly be called an issue. The only reason the Republican party did not advocate it is because it preferred silence rather than openly antagonize the corporations from which it expects its campaign fund, and which corporations secure their senatorial representation easiest in this way.

The money question was the distinct issue last campaign. So vital was it that it broke the ranks of the Democratic party. The Chicago plank, which is now the Kansas City plank, was defeated. I cannot believe anything has occurred in the interval to put new life in it. The very adoption of this plank at Kansas City by the vote of Hawaii and some states feeble in the electoral college, shows that it is a mere form and not a live issue. I am well aware that the Republican and semi-Republican press are pushing it to the front. The reasons are perfectly obvious-few will be deceived. Issues, I repeat, are not made by conventions, nor by Mr. Bryan, nor by Mr. Hanna.

It is a pity we have no such referendum system as the English, by which we can go to the voters on a single question, but there is one question today so dominant that this campaign will, in spite of everyone, be fought upon it.

The tariff, the protective policy, as

against the tariff for revenue policy, I do not regard as a great issue, for when the Democrats were wholly in power they failed to justify, in the Wilson bill, any expectation which had been formed. Perhaps they will do better this time if they get into power, but I confess I have little hope of a clean-cut revenue bill in which every protective feature shall be discarded.

The issue which is in the air, which is parting son from father and friend from friend-which has filled Congress, filled the press, is filling the mails and incidentally the pockets of some contractors, is the issue-shaff we expand on our own continent or its adjacent islands, in our own climate and where we may reasonably hope to erect a state some day, or shall we expand into distant seas in the tropics, where Nature forbids us ever to hope to create an American state? Shall we be Republic or Empire? Shall we be a world-power, with great navies and armies; shall we hunt after responsibility and entangling alliances, or shall we be a world power as we have heretofore been-by our moral force and great economic potential energy, by the vitality of our population and our institutions? Is it to be self-government, or shall we govern dependencies?

This is the issue. If Bryan is seated. what can he do for silver? Nothing. The Senate is against him, even if he secures the House. But the representation by ratio of population will prevent there being a silver house, as is clearly shown by the Kansas City convention. What can he do for a return to the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence? Much. He will have a House with him, he will have, before his term expires, a Senate with him. But in his sole power as executive, as commander of the armies and navy of the United States, as the treaty-making power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. As the nominator of offices and the absolute appointer of many offices, he can do much to remedy the evil that has been done (as I regard it) and to educate popular sentiment toward a final right doing (as I regard it). To me there is but one issue, but one national peril in this campaign. If any other issue is flooding the country with tracts and speakers, I want to know what it is. Four years ago each party was receiving tracts on the money question by the carload. The air hummed with it. Today the same thing may be said of "Imperialism"-no one talks silver.

C. E. S. Wood.