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THE ATLANTA SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA, GA., FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 1913.
THE SEMI-WEEEY JOURNAL
ATLANTA, GA., 5 NORTH FORSYTH ST.
Entered at the Atlanta Postoffice as Mail Matter of
the Second Class.
JAMES 3t. GRAY,
President and Editor.
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President Wilson is an example of a man whom
the job exactly fits.
Now that the inauguration is over, most roads,
as usual, lead to Atlanta.
The Wonderful Prosperity
Of Free Trade England.
On the eve of a thoroughgoing and downward
revision of American tariff schedules, it is reassur
ing to note the prosperity which English trad& and
industry enjoy without any tariff protection at all.
It was some ten years ago that the British "Conser
vatives” or "Tories,” whose politics may he likened
in some respects to that of the Republican party in
the United States, started their campaign for a levy
of import duties. They predicted that if free-trade
continued England’s commerce would slacken and
fall back, that home industries would suffer and
almost die, that there would be no employment for
labor-and no profits for capital; in short, that the
country’s business would be ruined.
But all these gloomy prophecies are flatly belied
by the record of Great Britain’s commercial growth
within the very period of the futile efforts
to place a so-called "protective” tariff about
her ports. “Since 1903,” says the New York Evening
Post in commenting on official statistics recently
compiled, “the total value of the foreign trade of
the- United—Kingdom has increased forty-nine per
cent, a thing that the most hopeful free trader would
not have dared to look for ( Since 1893, the imports
have increased thirty-six per cent and the exports
by the enormous amount of seventy-one per cent.
In spite of thq, tremendous strain and loss produced
by gigantic strikes in the past two years, the home
business and industry in the United Kingdom are in
a highly prosperous state, unemployment has come
down to a very low figure and wages are rising.”
The Democrats have no program of absolutely
free trade for the United States nor of any revolu
tionary and pellmell changes in the existing tariff
schedules. They realize that a system which has
been long decades in developing cannot be wiped
out forthwith. They realize that tariff revision must
be undertaken and carried out in a spirit of prudent
regard for the economic interests that are interlaced
with the present system. But ;i their purpose to
revise the tariff “unhesitatingly and stead
ily downward," they are fortified with the practical
example of mighty and prosperous England and are
impelled by the practical demands of the American
people.
Our art appreciation will soon be quickened by
the attractive folders the summer resorts will be
sending out.
March 17 is the day when America is given over
formally to the Irish.
Popular Panama.
Though it is doubtful that Panama will ever be
come a pleasure resort, its attractions to sightseers
just now is remarkable. During the short month of
February, six thousand two hundred and thirty-
seven visitors from divers parts of America were
landed at Colon, travelers who had no direct interest
or connection with the building of the canal, but who
were led thither to see the great task in the crown
ing stages of its completion. The New York Times
aptly comments that “as Panama is so far from al
most everywhere else that it takes a good deal of
time and not a little money to get there, the drawing
power is evidently commensurate with its magni
tude.”
The tourist tide to the Panama zone may be ex
pected thenceforth to increase. Those who now
make the trip are advance comers who for the most
part have some appreciation of engineering feats
and wish a clear view of the canal’s structural work.
The full force of popular curiosity is yet to make
itself manifest, hut it is steadily developing. The
canal will appeal to men everywhere as one of the
world’s great wonders.
Tourist trips to Panama are becoming cheaper and
more convenient, and they will doubtless grow more
and more so. The isthmus is being provided with
modernly equipped hotels, so that the visitor is as
sured of every comfort. Of particular importance
is the fact that the country itself has been redeemed
from the plagues that once made it perilous to
health. Indeed, the work of the United States gov
ernment in rendering the zone sanitary is scarcely
less remarkable than the building of the canal itself.
The marvel qf the entire achievement will take a
stronger and stronger hold on the public’s imagina
tion, and in time no traveler will find his ambition
satisfied until he has seen the canal.
The world do move, and in England they are
figuring on reforming the house of lords.
It Is very apparent that the present administra
tion doesn’t get Its inspiration from rum and to
bacco.
“I
The Wilson Way.
LOVE the people but' I do not like to stage
me to their eyes,” says one of Shakespeare’s
worthy dukes, “nor do I count the man of
safe discretion who does affect it.” That is the tem
per of sincere democracy; and that is the manner,
the simple unpretentious manner, of the American
who now governs at the White House.
Overworked and misconstrued as it often is, the
phrase, “Jeffersonian simplicity,” holds a genuine
and a really nobie suggestion. It implies a freedom
from tawdry or useless display! a natural sympathy
and kinship with the ways of every-day folk, a dig
nity that rises above tinsel and outward trappings
and trusts to inherent worth. No personal cir
cumstance of the new administration is more dis
tinctive or refreshing than its adherence to what
may be called “the Wilsonian simplicity.” The new
President has not set out purposely to break White
House precedents; he has simply gone on living his
own life as any citizen would, with never a thought
to hedge himself about with the pomp or spangles
of office.
One of his first acts was to relieve the newspaper
men of a binding tradition that forbade them to
quote the President in the first person. He rea
soned that if he had anything to say, he had as well
say it directly and that there was no objection to him
being quoted, if he were quoted truthfully.
Last Sunday the President went to church. It
never occurred to him that his attendance at the
service should or would be different from that of
any one else similarly disposed. But on approaching
the church where he intended to worship, he saw
that the sidewalks were packed with crowds drawn
thither out of sheer curiosity. He took in the situa
tion before he himself was observed and straightway
told the chauffeur to drive to another church, where
he entered and departed comparatively unnoticed.
The next evening Mr. Wilson and his family, ac
companied by guests, went to a play. Now, it has
been a custom that when a President enters the
theater, the orchestra shall solemnly render- the
“Star Spangled Banner,” while the audience stands;
that the Presidential box shall he gorgeously deco
rated, that the President shall be accompanied by
a retinue, glittering with braid; and that the Presi
dential party shall be furnished complimentary
tickets. Mr. Wilson saw no occasion for such dis
play or special favors. He was going to the theater
for recreation not for exhibition; he wanted to see
a show, not be one. And so, he entered unheralded
and unattended by gaily uniformed officers; and he
paid for his own tickets.
The President has expressed his intention of not
keeping for his private social use the govern
ment yacht, “Mayflower,” which for long seasons
past has been 'employed as a pleasure craft for teas
and dances given by the White House family. If
Mr. Wilson finds need for any ship of the navy for
official purposes, he will call it into service but, as
the Washington dispatches relate, “he will not keep
at his beck "and call for pleasure trips the Mayflower
or any other craft of her type.”
These are hut a few instances of the President’s
thoroughly natural and democratic attitude to the
great office he holds. Unaffected and unconcerned
with the limelight, he is ‘doing the nation’s work
from day to day, tremendously in earnest over the
duties of his station but utterly indifferent to its
bric-a-brac. There are public men and there
have been Presidents, who do little things
with great solemnity; Woodrow Wilson has the dis
tinction of doing great things with rare simplicity;
and that is the spirit which makes the Presidency
truly Impressive and noble.
Also the president continues his policy of saying
exactly what he means.
It makes a man feel good when he is pretty cer
tain he is going to miss a train and doesn’t.
Effective Health Campaigns.
The aggressive and fruitfut service of the North
Carolina state board of health is attracting coun
trywide attention. Its work is described editorially
by the New York Sun as “an example of business
like application of sanitary science to the needs of
the people;” and that newspaper commends the
North Carolina plan to the authorities of New York
state.
This should be particularly interesting to Geor
gians for the reason that their own state’s health de
partment is pursuing substantially the same methods
as those for which our neighboring commonwealth
is so cordially praised; and, if the legislature will
be duly liberal in its appropriations, Georgia will
rank in the forefront of the nationwide campaign
for public health.
The funds allotted to the North Carolina board
enable it to issue daily bulletins on subjects of hy
giene and the prevention of disease, direct and sim
ply worded messages to the people, instructing them
as to how they can keep well. One of these bulletins
recently declared that between two thousand and
twenty-four hundred lives were saved in North Caro
lina last year through the public health campaign.
Two thousand lives at $1,700 each, the lowest
generally accepted valuation, represents a saving
of $3,400,000 for this single item, says the bul
letin. If any one says that $1,700 is too much
for a human life, ask him what he will take
for his. Nothing is allowed here for the sickness
prevented or the increased efficiency obtained
through health work; they would bring the total
saving to the state through health work alone up
to $5,000,000 for last year.
And further:
“One of the greatest troubles with health
work is that we do not know, and can never
tell, whose life has been or is going to be saved
from preventable) disease. All we do know is
thaj. in one-sixth of the state 265 people died
from typhoid in 1911 and only 162 died from
tyhpoid in 1912. No one knows who the lucky
103 people were. But one thing is certain, if the
ravages of typhoid had gone on last year as
•they did in 1911, those 103 people would not be
answering to roll call today. They are the ones
that owe gratitude to health work. Are you
one of the luckies? If you think you might be,
why don’t you try to pass a good thing along
and urge more health work in your own town,
county and state? You owe it to your fellow
citizens.”
For several years past the Georgia state bof»d of
health has been issuing popular bulletins which deal
with matters that are of broad and immediate in
terest. These messages to the people of the state
have accomplished much, but vastly more could be
accomplished if the board were given all the finan
cial support It deserves.
The present abundance of water Is doubtless in
tended by nature for the watermelon.
WALLS AND ARMOR
By Dr. Frank Crane
%
One marked way in which the modern world dif
fers in appearance from the ancient world is the ab
sence of walls. Every city in antique days was sur
rounded by a huge pile of stone
wherein were thick gates. No
city in modern civilization has a
wall which it uses for defense;
some of them have remains of
walls preserved as curiosities.
The Chinese built a vast wall
o defend their whole frontier.
The walls about the city of
Rome still stand, but are of no
military use. They are pre
served merely for their pictur
esqueness.
The castles, towers and strong
holds of a former age in Europe
are practically now in the same
category as grandfather’s sword
chat hangs over the fireplace.
In Paris the old wall lines are
replaced by boulevards. Former
ly a city of ten thousand was not considered safe
without a protecting wall to keep out the enemy;
now cities of millions are wide open.
At the same time armor has disappeared. It can
be found only in museums and among the relics in
family halls.
The plain reason seems to be that invention has
lendered walls and armor almost useless. No barrier
of stone can be built that cannot be pulverized by
modern gunfc; no armor made that cannot be pierced
by the modern rifle.
Put yourself, now, in the place of a person living
in the age of Richard Coeur de Lion or Chevalier Bay
ard, and suppose you were told that the time would
come when walls and armor would no more be used;
would it not seem to you unthinkable? You would
be prone to say, “If you take away walls from the
citj- and armor from the duke, how can society exist?
Would not the barbarians speedily invade and extin
guish civilization?”
Logically* they would. Really, they did not.
One of the slowest lessons men learn is that when
they cease to defend they cease to be attacked.
When walls ^were removed invasions practically
ceased. The taking off of armor made the noble’s life
safer. There is no r^asoif, except divine reason, in
this. It is simply a fact.
In the same way the abolition of armies and na
vies by the nations of the world would just a. cer
tainly mean the cessation of the menace of invasion or
any other sort of war.
Isn’t it queer how many thousand years it takes a
stupid world to learn the plain common-sense of Je
sus, who said that the best way to conquer the man
who smites you on one cheek is to turn the other?
New Words Were Blackballed
Thpmas R. Lounsbury in Harper’s Magazine.
Always, indeed, in the history of every tongue,
men have insisted on maintaining a firm stand against
the entrances into it of new expressions of any sort.
In so doing they have honestly believed that they
were actuated not by a senseless but by a holy zeal
for purity of speech. The strongest sort of opposi
tion has been frequently offered to the recognition of
words which it would now seem to us we could hardly
do withou The feeling existed in high places. In
1773 the fourth edition of Johnson’s dictionary was
published. It was the last edition which appeared un
der his own supervision. Boswell tells us that he in
vain urged Johnson to insert civilization. This was
just then beginning to take the 1 place of civility in the
sense of being opposed to barbarism. He refused to
acknowledge the intruder. Humiliating he admitted
to be a word frequently used, but he did not know it
to be legitimate English—whatever that means. So,
though he inserted the noun).humiliation, the corre
sponding verb and adjective are not found in his final
revised edition. Not long after this time development
appeared in the title of a book. Its author was stern
ly informed by one of his reviewers that there was no
such word in the language. William Taylor, of Nor
wich, somewhat renowned for the peculiar words he
used in his writings, sent an article to the Monthly
Review, in which occurred the verb habilitate. It
was at once once struck out by the editor. It was
not English, Taylor was informed, and would not have
been understood. It may be said in palliation if not
defense of this action that it was not until the latter
half of the nineteenth century that the word became
well known, especially tn the sense of whitewashipg
questionable characters.
A woman will cry over a heroine in a novel. She
would probably call said heroine a designing cat if she
met her in real lire.
* * *
Joe Struthers says he has quit trying to be philo
sophical because he notices that bei/ig too philosophicr
al is what gets a man to wearing hay wire instead of
suspenders.
* * *
“I don’t see what makes my wife play solitaire.’’
“It does seem rather trivial amusement.” “Not only
that, but it affords her no possible excuse to. stop
the game and ask ‘What’s trumps?* ”
* * *
He gave advice and never quit. He tossed it ’round
both far and nigh, and was annoyed when some of it
flew back and hit him in the eye.
w *■ *
When a young man is willing to try to explain th®
tariff and a young woman is willing to listen, you
may take it as a pretty sure sign of true love.
PHILANDER JOHNSON.
H O O ’ S H O O
BY JOHN W. CAREY.
Who drags upon the Turkish rug the nabobs with
the dust—the gents who own the universe, yclept the
Money Trust ?
Who sits him in
the swivel chair
in Washington,
D. C., and puts
your Banker Ba
ker through the
well-knew third
1 e g r e e ? W r ho
summons Mr.
Morgan' for a
quiet little chat,
and listehs to the
story that he tells
'him through his
hat? Who tells
his sleuths to
“get that guy”
and “get him
good and quick”
when Mr. Rocke
feller sends him
word that he is
sick? Who’s free
to go ahead and
get the money combine’s nan? (WE’VE got a per
fect alibi.) That Mr. Pujo man.
W.hen you feel resentful against the rain, re
member that 1913 is still behind the normal.
Soon the south will he preparing for the more
peaceful if none the less dangerous invasion of the
Mexican boll .weevil.
^(OUAITRY
rjOME TOPICS
OWlCTED BYJT6S. \T. HJJT.LTD/1
getting out op the white house.
We are gravely told that Mr. Taft and his wife
went out at the back door of the White House as
President Wilson and his wife came in at the front
door on inauguration, day, and the late occupants chose
to hustle to tile depot, jump aboard a train and get
away somewhere out of sight, something like scared
rabbits, on their way to Georgia. .Prithee! Why such
haste?
Why not “take a hasty cup of tea” as did General
Polk before he started to the battlefield of Chicka-
rnauga? I’m sure it would look better to vacate the
premises in a more leisurely manner, less like one had
had been hurried out by the toe of an angry boot,
or been given a ticket of leave with scant limitations!
If I had been Mrs, Taft I’d have sent bag and bag
gage to the Union station early in the morning and
gone direct to the train from the nearby capitol,
rather than give the incomers a look at my back as I
scurried down the back steps and slipped out the back
way as she vacated the White House on the 4th of
March.
It is a most undignified climax to a change of ad
ministration, and I thought so when Mrs. Cleveland’s
departure was painfully chronicled with her babies and
her nurses.
Enough said on this line, but it is a fitting text
on ‘human vanity and the perishing glories of political
ambition.
The good Catholics of Augusta are letting down
Mr. Taft easily (as it is possible) because Mrs. Taft
is said to be an ardent Catholic in her faith and envi
ronment, and the Augustans propose to amuse the
wounded child with a little golf and taffy until tears
cease to flow and the game leg quits hurting.
If I had been Mr. Taft I’d have made a straight
track to Cincinnati and put up with Brother Charley
for a week or so, and I would have gone downtown
early in the day and said “Good morning” like a man
with a head on him. He gives evidence that he was
too small a peg to fit in the hole, and was placed in
positions that greater men should occupy.
^vnd the paths of political ambition seem to lead
to the grave, as there was but one living ex-president
when Mr. Taft reigned in the White House and the
assassin’s bullet nearly robbed us of that one last Oc
tober.
It was - miracle that Teddy escaped with his life,
and also gives proof that he did not die from grief
when he gave up the White House, as so many of
these highly promoted gentlemen have done.
Mr. Taft has had h.s mouth on the public teat ever
since he came of age and ' * is going to test his endur
ance to work for his living, l3ut if golf will let him
down easily, of course, I am glad he knows how to
play golf.
ALFALFA AND ITS POPULARITY.
When I first came to Bartow county, just married,
nearly sixty years ago, I found in our family garden a
strange looking plant and it was used to border some
flower beds. I was told the plant was called "lucerne."
We allowed it to grow as a bordering, but cut it off
with the hoe when it begun to spread out. That was
my first acquaintance with the most remarkable forage
plant of the twentieth century alfalfa- It is now a
staple crop in the majority of the agricultural states
of these United States.
We southerners buy the baled alfalfa to feed to our
horses and mules to make cotton crops with.
A11 sorts of stock are fond of alfalfa hay. It seems
to be a favorite over the standard red clover.
Even before the war we had large clover fields, but
we were timid concerning alfalfa.
gees (it should be written runagees), without any money
fees (it should be written runagees), without any money
and hardly put to it to get cornbread to eat, we had
clover fields on which our old lean, rundown cows and
mules got a living. What would have happened to us
if we had failed to get milk and butter, and to occa
sionally sell some beef to buy flour and meal to eat, I
am sure I cannot say. It kept us alive, and although
we do not incline to clover any more (because we are
like our neighbors, confirmed cotton-tots) I shall al
ways praise the bridge that carried over a lot of im
poverished folks in a time of sore penury and anxiety.
I do wish some of my Country Home readers would
buy alfalfa seed and test the matter of this forage
crop in old Georgia. Clover cannot survive in a
droughty season. Maybe alfalfa would do better.
Aerograms From Antiquity
BY EDWARD J. COSTELLO
CASTLE GIANO, Spain, March 12 (A. D. 1507).—
Cesare Borgia, one of th e most picturesque princes
of the present age, was assassinated here today. The
missile was thrown from one of the walls of the castie,
by whom has not been established. But the assassin
is believed to have been employed by survivors of the
League of Italian Princes, members Of which were
treacherously murdered at Borgia’s behest oq the day
of the victory at Sinigaglia.”
Borgia, or the Duke of Valentin, as he was often
called, was the man of whom it has been said: “He
deserved to be the ideal of Machiavelli (the Florentine
statesman), not because he was more perfidious than
other princes, not for having been the assassin of his
father, for he could not surpass his father in cruelty
and depravity, but for having made crime into a sci
ence, for having set up a school of crime and given
lessons in it.” Perhaps to no other character has a
more spectacular career been allotted. He was the
son of Rodrigo Borgia, an Italian of Spanish origin,
who afterward became Pope Alexander VI.
Cesare was made a cardinal by his father, but, be
ing ambitious, soon resigned the purple to devote him
self to the profession of arms. In 1499 he married the
daughter o’ the King of Navarre, and assisted Loui3
XII in the conquest of the Romagna in Italy for the
Holy See. He became Duke of Romagna in 1501, and
shoi tly afterward, by treachery and violence, made
himself master of Urbino. The leaguj of Italian
princes was formed to resist him, but he kept them in
awe' by force until he had succeeded in winning some
of them against the others, and then treacherously
murdered them on the day of the Sinigaglia victory.
Valentino now seized their possessions, and seemed
to have removed every obstacle in the way of becom
ing King of Romagna and of Umbria, when his father
died. One account has it that the father and son in
vited a cardinal to their table, but drank the poison
which had been intended for the guest. The conse
quence was a severe illness for both from which the
father died.
Borgia, some time prior to this, is said to have
told Michiavelli that on- hig father's death he hoped
to nominate a pope. He had foreseen everything ex
cept the possibility of his being incapacitated by'ill
ness at the demise of his father, and this was pre
cisely wh:_* happened. He was unable to help him
self at' a time when the utmost activity aqd presence
of mind were, requisite for his affairs.
When Julius II accepted the papal throne Cesare
was arrested and conveyed to the Castle of Medina
del Campos in this country, where he lay imprisoned
for two years. Several months ago he contrived to
effect his escape to the King of Navarre, whom he
accompanied in the war against Castile. His sudden
death today was the result.
His sister, Lucrezia Borgia, has been represented
as placed outside the pale of humanity by her wan
tonness, her vices, and her crimes, but it is probable
that a little investigation would refute the more ex
travagant’ of these assertions. Certain it is that Ce
sare set her a bad example when he killed her hus
band, the Duke of Bisceglie.
CHANGING
ADMINISTRATIONS
II. MAKING APPOINTMENTS.
By
Frederic
J. Haskin
A wise man is one who isn’t as many kinds of a
fool as the average.
To the person "who never has had to choose be
tween a dozen rival claimants in the filling of one po
sition the claims of each urged by men who know how
to beg, beseech, and even to de-
r mand, the task that confronts
a president when he assumes
I office and sees 100,000 appli-
r ♦ -^i cants for 11,000 jobs may not
appear so serious. But it is a
task that has almost resulted
in the political undoing of some
presidents, has made many en
emies for others, and has ruf
fled the temper even of such
a placid chief magistrate as
•William McKinley.
* • •
It was a task that tore the
Republican party asunder when
Garfield became president and
received his ,? cussing out” at
the hands of Conkling; a task
that made innumerable ene
mies for Grover Cleveland; a
task that disgusted the younger
Harrison and caused him to become the Human Icicle
in office; a task that only Roosevelt could approach
with equanimity, and that Taft escaped only because
he started out to carry out “my policies.”
* * *
President Wilson’s reputed feeling that the best
argument against an appointment, generally speaking,
is made by th e act of the man seeking if, has not, as
might be expected, deterred the office seekers. They
have felt that that was one of those "white lies” that a
man high in authority must tell to save his office
from swarms of office seekers who try to win his fa
vor. It might be estimated that there are approxi
mately 1,000,000 voters in the United S fetes who are
as willing as Barkis that their distinguished services
should be utilized by the Wilson administration, and
that is probably under the fact rather than over the
mark.
• * •
Certainly, there will be several hundred thousand
active candidates for appointment, and the majority
of these will feel that if they could lay their cause
directly before the President they would be sure to
land the job they seek. They will, therefore, for sev
eral moons make miserable the lives of the forty peo
ple around the White House.
* * •
The president seldom decides any other appoint
ments than those of the members of his cabinet be
fore his inauguration. He waits to hear the claims
of all who are put forward for the bigger berths in
the departmental and diplomatic services, and usually
waits until he has, these decided upon before he takes
up, except in unusual cases, the postal, customs, in
ternal revenue and department of justice places in the
field. Some idea of how the task of the president
has grown from McKinley to Wilson may be gathered
from the fact that while McKinley had only 4,815 of
fices to fill with th© advice and consent of the sen
ate, Wilson has 11,000.
• • •
It will be seen that although the number of posi
tions transferred to the civil service between the In
auguration of McKinley and that of Wilson goes far
up into the thousands, the tremendous growth of the
service of Uncle Sam gives Wilson nearly two and s
half times as much patronage as McKinley had.
• • •
It usually takes three or four days for the mem
bers of a new cabinet to get their bearings after they
are nominated. They are named on March 4, con
firmed on the 5th, and sworn in on the 6th, as a rule,
and sometimes their predecessors help them out un
til the 9th or 10th. Usually about two weeks elapse
before the first important new appointments are
made. When McKinley came into power it was the
16th of March before he sent in his first nominations
—after those of his cabinet—John Hay to be ambas
sador to Great Britain and General Horace Porter to
b e ambassador to France.
• • •
President Wilson will have several thousand ap
pointments t) make in the service in Washington. In
the state department he will have three assistant sec
retaries and a half dozen or more other prominent
officials. Of course, he will be guided largely by the
recommendations of the secretary of state in making
them. A president very seldom goes over the heads
of his chief advisers in making such appointments;
unless the reasons are extremely urgent he defers
almost entirely to tae selections and recommendations
of his cabinet officers. When there are such urgent
considerations he will probably say something like
thus; “Mr. Secretary, it seems that we cannot ignore
the claims of Mr. So and So, and if you can see youf
way clear to appoint him, I shall be pleased.'* Of
course, the secretary, when it comes down to that*
gladly, unless he has the most urgent reasons, waives
his own choice in the matter. More usually the pres
ident shifts the 'burden to the shoulders of his cabi
net officers and refers the contending applicants to
the one under whose portfolio the position being
sought is given out.
• * *
Next to the postoffice department the largest list-
of presidential appointments, outside of the arfny and
navy, is to be found in the treasury department. Here
are three assistant secretaries, and under them the
supervising architect, the director of the bureau of
engraving and printing, the chief of the secret serv
ice, the general superintendent of the life saving
service, the comptroller of the treasury, who passes
upon the legality of all money paid out by the treas
ury, the registrar of th e treasury, a job that nearly
always goes to a negro, the auditors for the several
departments, the treasurer of the United States, th*
comptroller of th e currency, the commissioner of in
ternal revenue, the director of the mint and the sur
geon general of the public health service.
• • •
Such positions as these the president fills in all
the departments in Washington. Outside of Washing
ton he has the 8,000 postoffices of th© presidential
class, 1 fhe several hundred customs and internal rev
enue officials, the. half a thousand positions in the
diplomatic and consular service, the several hundred
United States marshals and district attorneys, and the
like.
• • •
With the positions in the several states, including
the marshalships, the district attorneyships, the col-
lectorships and the postmasterships, the procedure
has been somewhat simplified, and certain position*
are filled upon the recommendations of senators and
others upon the recommendations of representatives,
It is not probable that the policy of the Wilson ad
ministration will depart radically from this, because,
although it generally is regarded as a bad method, 1|
seems to be about the most satisfactory one yet de»
vised for filling these places.
« * * •
•
The president is always limited in his choice by tht
willingness of the senhte to acquiesce in it. A marked
difference of opinion exists as to whether the senate
has any right to recommend appointees or not. Thf
constitution says that the president may make the ap
pointments "with the advice and consent” of the sen*
ate, and senators frequently have contended that thi*
gives the senate such a right. Others take the con
trary view and say that the senate has no power
over a nomination until it is actually made. In prac
tice the contending views are somewhat harmonized
by the recognition the p-csident gives to the recom
mendation of individual senators.
ARMLESS
Benham—I have alw’ays been sorry for the VaM
of Milo.
Mrs. Benham—Why?
Benham—She couldn’t go through her husband’s
pockets.