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THE ATLANTA SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA, GA., TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1913.
THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL
•
ATLAHT&, GA., 6 lOETB EOSSTTH ST.
Entered at the Atlanta Postoffice as Mall Matter of
the Second Class.
JAMES R. GRAY,
President and Editor.
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Atlanta. Ga.
Parcel Post and Farm Produits.
It Is a significant and a very gratifying fact
that the parcel post is being used more largely for
marketing farm products, such as eggs, fruits and
vegetables. From the day of its inauguration, the
new service proved distinctly popular with mer
chants, widening their field of trade and enabling
them to meet more satisfactorily than ever before
the needs of out-of-town customers. But not until
recent weeks has the quickening and broadening
influence of the parcel post upon rural districts be
come duly manifest. It was to be expected, of
course, that the city with its more alert and thor
oughly trained commercial instinct would be first
in utilizing this system but not until the parcel post
means as much, or .even more, to the country will
its highest purpose be accomplished. The fact that
the farmer is now availing himself of these oppor
tunities is the mosi important development thus far
recorded in the larger sphere of our postal interests.
It is important to the city household no less than
to the farmer himself, for it means that the con
sumer and producer of table commodities Eire be
ing brought into .more direct and, therefore, more
profitable relationships. The high cost of many food
necessities has been due largely to inadequate means
<jt exchange between those who produce and those
who consume. Indeed, the processes of exchange
often involve a greater expense than production it
self, with the result that the farmer realizes a scant
profit and the ultimate purchaser pays a burdensome
price. The parcel post, affording as it does a direct
and speedy and comparatively cheap medium of ex
change, will play a decisive part in reducing the cost
of living and in increasing the profits of truck
gardening.
The wider use of the post for this purpose is
ascribable largely to the recent order of Postmaster
General Burleson, which practically doubled the
weight of packages that may be sent under parcel
post regulations and which at the same time mate
rially reduced the postage rate. The Postmaster
General and his associates deserve cordial credit for
their efforts to make the new system available to an
ever-increasing number of people and especially to
the people of rural districts.
That Dangerous Cotton Tax.
It is reliably, though unofficially, reported at
Washington that Democratic leaders in the Senate
have practically agreed to effect a change in that
section of the tariff bill which places a tax of fifty
cents a bale on contracts for future cotton delivery.
Business men everywhere, and particularly in
the South, will hope that there may be not merely’
a change but an outright abolishment of this unjust
and dangerous provision. The proposed tax has no
rightful place in a tariff measure. It will accomplish
no worthy end. But it will imperial a great fienld of
commercial and agricultural interests. It will injure
the farmer and the manufacturer as well as the cotton
merchant and will set in motion a train of hardships
and losses, the end of which no one can foresee.
Right-minded men all agree that gambling in
cotton should he outlawed. But no man who un
derstands the real purpose and use of future con
tracts for cotton can doubt for a moment that they
are as legitimate as they are necessary. Such con
tracts afford the merchant his only safeguard
against the ceaseless fluctuations of the cotton mar
ket. The merchant may obligate himself today to
deliver to a mill a certain number of bales at a
fixed price. But unless he has some means of
“hedging” or protecting himself against those con
tinuous and often violent changes, to which cotton
more than any other commodity is subject, he may
find, that he cannot fulfill his agreement without
ruinous loss. Indeed, it is essential to the very
existence of the cotton trade that the merchant have
some opportunity to protect himself against these
fluctuations; and tha is the opportunity which the
future contract provides.
The effect of this useful system is obviously
toward maintaining a fair price for cotton, for the
dealer could not afford to offer such a price,' if he
were compelled to incur all the risks of his business
with no safeguard. Clearly, therefore, a large por
tion of the proposed tax would have to be paid out
of the farmer’s earnings; and in the final analysis
such a tax would prove tremendously harmful to all
those important interests which the production, the
merchandise and the manufacture of cotton include.
Cotton exchanges, should be duly regulated but
their legitimate uses should not he blindly ignored.
However desirable It may be to prohibit wild and
unwholesome speculation, Congress should certainly
not destroy nor discourage a thoroughly normal and
necessary .process ox the country’s business life.
The attempt to riu the cotton trade of gambling by
virtually abolishin, the future contract is as foolish
as it would be to use a pair of tongs in trying to
get a cinder from a man’s eye. These mock re
formers would not reach the cinder but they would
certainly ruin the eye.
What the Nation Thinks of
' Wilson’s Mexican Policy.
One of the most interesting and helpful results
of President Wilson’s special address to Congress
on the Mexican situation is the responsive ring of
approval it has brought from thinking men in every
party and in every action of the country. If Huerta
ever had reason to doubt that the administration was
speaking for the entire American people, he is now
convinced of his error, for every voice of public
opinion that commands respect has, united in earnest
commendation cf the course the President is pur
suing.
, hus the New York Tribune, as stanch a spokes
man of Republican politics as could be found, de
clares that the nation must "approve and support
the dignified, benevolent and resolute policy which
was put forward ir. the President’s message.”
The Sun affirms that “the attitude of the admin
istration, so manifestly inspired by lofty ideals of
duty and of method, represents exactly the attitude
of our Congress and, generally, of the American
people. ‘
The Herald speaks with insight as well as en
thusiasm: "No more striking evidence of the tru
ism that in the United States political opinion
"stops at the border,” could be asked or given than
that furnished by the reception accorded by Con
gress to President Wilson’s Mexico address. Repub
lican Senators and Representatives, as strongly as
those of the President’s own party, gave unequivocal
approval of the efforts the executive department has
made to promote peace in our neighboring republic,
and of the policy to be pursued in the immediate
future.”
The Evening Post remarks that the President
“has absolutely united the country behind him.
Scarcely a single partisan or prejudiced voice is
raised against his general attitude. This is the
more remarkable in that the President’s plea, while
strongly insisting upon the national dignity and the
duty laid upon the United States, is a’l for peace,
all for friendship with Mexico, all for non-interven
tion, all for the most resolute denial of any selfish
purpose in our attempts to bring about a peaceful
settlement.”
The Boston Transcript is confident that Mexico
and the world are now convinced “that the voice of
the President in this crisis is the voice of the na
tion;” and the Springfield Republican declares that
the course Mr. Wilson advises "is the only one to
pursue and the American people will show their
patriotism to the best advantage by solidly sup
porting him.”
The Chicago Tribune says, “The President’s action
is based on the deepest and broadest foundations
of American international policy, foundations some
times ignored but always ignored at cost.” The
Chicago Inter Ocean counsels the American people
“to stand firmly with their President in seeking such
a triumph of moral force and pressure as most clear
ly distinguished from physical arugments of any
kind.”
And the San Antonio Express, speaking from the
first-hand experience of one on tire troublous South
ern border, observes: “Congress cheered the Presi
dent; we who know conditions in Mexico, we who
are more capable of judging because of our prox
imity to and our familiarity with the affairs of the
neighboring Republic, congratulate him on his wis
dom and strength.”
Thus, almost without a dissenting voice, does the
press of the United States sanction and support the
far-sighted and nigh-minded policy the administra
tion is carrying forward. It is doubtful if ever be
fore in the country’s history a President ever in
spired confidence so cordial and widespread in deal
ing -,ith a crucial issue.
Every overcoat can stand - a new lining.
The New Federal Game Law.
To sportsmen and conservationists, October the
first, 1913, is a date of peculiar interest, for, it is
then that the new federal law designed to protect
mig. ;ory birds goes into effect. The Department
of Agriculture, to which Congress entrusted the task
of making specific regulations for this purpose, has
been especially :areful to adapt its rules as nearly
as possible to those of the various States where well-
considered game laws are already In force. It was
in just this connection, however, that a serious prob
lem arose. In 1912 more than fifty different hunting
seasons obtained in the United States, the result of
which, as one observer says, "was to make a chain
of open seasons; there was no refuge, no neutral
ground and the birds were the prey of somebody all
the year around.”
To remedy this condition of affairs, the country
has been divided into two natural divisions, one of
which comprises those States where the birds breed
and the other the territory where they winter. “In
the first,” we are told, "are the States lying north
of the fortieth parallel and the Ohio river; the other
States are south of that parallel and west of the Ohio.
This will make two seasons instead of half a hun
dred. The open season In the first zone is from Sep
tember the first until December the sixteenth; in
the second from October the first until January the
sixteenth, though in Maryland. Virginia and the Car
olina:. it is from November the first to February the
first.” Besides these regulations, there will be a
prohibition of all hunting whatsoever on the Ohio,
Mississippi and Missouri rivers in order that water
fowl may have a secure passage from their winter
feeding grounds i the lower Mississippi valley to
their nesting land.. In the north.
“Of course,” remarks the Boston Transcript,
“there will he efforts to effect a change M the
law. We can anticipate that from experiences
in our oicn State. There has never been a
check put upon the unlimited slaughter of val
uable birds but men have gone to the Legisla
ture with all sorts of specious arguments to have
it lifted. But the law is a good one both on
grounds of humanity and economy; and if the
game wardens can now reasonably meet the re
sponsibilities imposed upon them, they should
be able to see that the proposed extension of
them is also respected."
The protection of insect-destroying birds is espe
cially needful > fanning interests. Birds are the
natural safeguards against the pests of field and
orchard; they are worth millions of dollars to
American agriculture. True sportsmen are cordially
disposed to well-considered legislation of this
character, realizing that it is the only guarantee
against the exterr-inatlon of birds. Indeed, there Is
but one voice of protest and that is the pot hunter’:.
Whether from wholesome sentiment or motives of
economy, all right-thinking people favo- erery rea
sonable effort, on the part of the federal as well as
the StatB government to check the fearful and fool
ish slaughter of valuable birds.
You might just as well be frank and admit that
you are inclined to be more or less gOBslpy.
Putting an End to Panics.
E CONOMIC conditions in the United States are
quietly undergoing a profound and, at the |
same time, a very wholesome and constructive
change. The legislation with which Congress is now
concerned reflects a persistent demand on the part
of the American public that the country’s business
affairs be placed upon a freer and safer basis. The
tariff bill, which is soon to become a law, will
strike the fetters from individual enterprise and
normal competition, will lift a crushing weight of
monopoly and the eby release new commercial and
industrial energies. The banking and currency bill,
which is equally hopeful of enactment, will carry for
ward and consummate the wise work thus begun; it
will provide the definite means and the material
through which this new freedom can be fully utilized.
These two measures are among the most impor
tant and far-reaching in the nation’s legislative his
tory, the one assuring a fresh era of business ex
pansion, the other a flesh era of business confidence
and security. The. are the omens and chief pledges
of that great economic change which is steadily
coming to pass; and they are filled with encourage
ment not only foi the country’s common interests
but for the individual citizen as well, for the mer
chant, the hanker, the manufacturer, the farmer, the
working man. so law was ever yet a panacea or a
-aal solution for all the problems, whether political,
social or economic, that every peoph must work out.
But these laws at least will afford a remedy for
many of the larger and more violent ills our people
. have suffered.
The new banking and currency system, for in
stance, will unhout tedly re—n/ve those artificial con
ditions from which distressing panics have arisen.
Indeed, we may hope with good reason that when the
elastic and responsive system now proposed is well
established, financial panics will cease to threaten
this country and the innumerable losses and dis
couragements which follow in a panic’s wake will he
things of the past.
One of the provisions of the pending bill which
looks to this end is that whereby private control of
the nation’s monetary resources will be supplanted
by government or public control in order that cur
rency and banking machinery may operate for the
good of the people as a whole without undue advan
tage for particu.ar groups or centers. If there is one
sphere of public interest which ought to be under
impartial and trustworthy direction, it Is that of
finance. Yet, as conditions now 'are, this is far from
true. The farmer now -leans on the country banker
and he on the city banker, the city banker leans on
New York, while New York is accountable to no
power higher than Its own ungoverned will. Hence
the far-reaching and sometimes perilous influences of
Wall street. If a particular group of men decide
from motives political or otherwise that money shall
be tight and credit rigid, money straightway becomes
tight and credit becomes rigid, regardless of natural
circumstances and ne< ds the country over. Thus it
is possible for a few autocrats of finance to create
the conditions of a panic. It need scarcely be said
that power so vast cannot safely te left In the hands
of any one circle of men. The Wilson administra
tion purposes to take this power from private con
trol and vest it directly in the Government which is
responsible to all citizens alike, and which by virtue
of its strength and constant guardianship will inspire
that universal confidence cm which business security
depends.
There is another provision in the pending bill
which will go far toward preventing panics. It is
that which checks the concentration of monetary re
sources at one or two financial centers. Heretofore
the country has depended almost entirely on New
York for means to meet special demands of credit and
enterprise. The South, for instance has looked to
New York for aid in moving crops; its bankers
and farmers have had to accept such terms as New
York chose to dictate. Each year as the crop-moving
season approached, money would become scarce, rates
of interest would rise, sometimes to a prohibitive
figure, and funds for carrying forward ordinary com
mercial or Industrial projects could scarcely be ob
tained on any terms. It is just such conditions
as these that impede business and engender a feeling
of pessimism. By forestalling such conditions,
through a system t..at will make ample funds avail
able in all parts of the country at all times, the
new banking and currency plan will remove one the
prime causes of financial panics.
How true this is is evidenced by the sustaining
effects that immediately followed Secretary McAdoo’s
announcement that the Government would place
fifty millions or more of its money at the disposal
of Southern and Western hanks on convenient terms
for crop moving purposes. Since that timely offer
was made, the business atmosphere, as everyone
knows, has grown steadily clearer. Rumblings of
distrust and alarm have died away and the South
is entering Rp harvest season, strengthened with
new sinews and brightened with new hope. It is
the assurance that they are not dependent upon a
remote and unresponsive financial center that has
so cheered ad Invigorated the business interests of
our section. One of the main purposes of the bank
ing and currency measure now before Congress is
to make this assurance lasting and pervasive, to
make such aid as the treasury department has ex
tended to the South and the West permanently
available. And so soon as that Is done one of the
underlying causes of what we term panics will be
removed.
The administration bill provides among other
things for the establishment of twelve regional re
serve banks in different parts of the country and
also for a supervisory federal board through which
the Government, will have competent control over the
workings of the new system. The regional reserve
banks will serve to prevent the undue concentration
of money at one or two financial centers; they will
accomplish for all seasons what Secretary McAdoo’s
special offer accomplished in a period of particular
stress. The federal board, assisted by an advisory
council of bankers, will constitute the essential pub
lic control which is now lacking in banking and cur
rency affairs. Thus two great safeguards against
panics will be providen. Thus, too, wil. he afforded
the means for utilizing that larger measure of busi
ness freedom which is opening to the United States.
President Wilson clearly enunciated the two great
principles of hanking and currency reform when he
.declared In his mesag,. to Congress:
“We must have a currency not rigid, as now,
but readily, elastically responsive to sound credit,
the expanding and contracting credits of every
day transactions, the normal ebb and flow of per
sonal and corporate dealings. Our banking laws
must mobilize reserves, must not permit the con
centration anywhere in a few hands of the mon
etary resources of the country, or their use for
speculative purposes in such volume as to hinder
or impede or stand in the way of other more
SWEET ALICE
BY DR- FRANK CRANE
(Copyright, 1913, by Frank Crane.)
“O don’t you remember Sweet AMce, Ben Bolt,
Sweet Alice so good and so true?"
There is not much being said about her nowadays.
Naturally she never gets into the
newspapers; she is not that kind.
And the novels of the day seem
to pass her by for more thrilling
types, although once she was
quite the vogue. But for all that
she is still doing business at the
old stand.
I refer to the simple,*loyal, lov
able girl who loves just one boy,
the one who Is to be her husband,
the one into whose career all her
life is to be gladly poured.
1 would not dare these days to
say she is the highest kind of
woman. She couldn’t be a suf
fragette nor a leader of any
“movement." She is just girl. When she grows up
she is just woman. She is not famous nor in anywise
conspicuous.
But she is the kind men go crazy over; the kind to
live for and Ue for.
And while the great and grand woman-leaders of
our time are being garlanded and feted I may be, al
lowed perhaps to hand this one little flower of appre
ciation to Swtet Alice.
Yes, I know it is sentimental; it is gush. But the
heart that won’t gush once in a while Is pretty dry.
I don’t covet it.
The loyal devotion of one man to one woman is
still the thing that todaj r excites the most universal
admiration.
There are all sorts of loves; but the love that is
stuck to is the best.
Nothing in McKinley’s career so popularized him
as his tender and constant attention to his invalid
wuie.
Before Pickett led his braves to that fatal charge
at Gettysburg he wrote to his sweetheart, and in tell
ing her how he loved her alone he found something
that nerved him tu courage.
It may not be much to inspire and ennoble a man,
to make him unafraid to tell and to live the truth, to
keep him clean, "without fear and without reproach,"
but that is what the Sweet Alice girl can do.
J like-to think of the army of lovers in the world.
Just a week or so ago the college towns v/ere buzzing
full, but no incidents of commencement time meant
more than those walks where they went a-twozing,
hand in hand in the summer night, and talked of how
passing wonderful it was that they should have found
each other and that love came. If there’s any more
important business than making love I don’t know
what it is.
I like *o think of the innumerable little households
where the young husband gloats over Sweet Alice and
her babies and still tells her fond and foolish noth
ings that warm her heart.
I like to think of the pairs that have held loyally
together through sun and storm, of the two that are
grandparents now, but still find no hours so full of
content as those they spend together and apart from
the world.
This love is the best; the love that is weathered
and beaten; that has been assailed by every outward
enemy and all inward weaknesses, but still holds and
glows; the love that death itself cannot slay, the love
that lives on yonder in the unknown, as sure and eter
nal as the God who gave it, who wrought it, this mira
cle of miracles.
The Carnegie Peace Palace
By Frederic J. Haskin
Victor Hugo's Egotism
(New York Tribune.)
We hear that when the late Henri Rochefort was in
England (through no wish of his own) he refused to
learn English, for Victor Hugo had said: “I avoid
English. I never read or speak a word of It. I must
protect my style.”
We think, however, that Victor was not in partic
ularly good voice that day. He displayed what, to our
taste, was a far more endearing egotism when he en
tertained a group of celebrities at dinner one evening
during the siege of Paris. What they ate deponent
saith not—roast cab horse, no doubt, or possibly a
snake or two from the Jardin des Plantes—but the
conversation was delicious.
"Listen, messieurs!” said Hugo. "I have a plan to
save Paris. I, Victor Hugo, will put ion my uniform
and go out alone against the enemy. I shall be shot.
But when the Germans see that they have killed Vic
tor Hugo it will be the end of the siege.”
Then it was the ever-tactful Prof. Languedepoivre
cut in with "For you!”
legitimate, more fruitful uses. And the control
of the system of banking and of issue which our
new laws are to set must be public, not private,
must be vested in the Government itself, so that
the batiks may be the instruments, not the mat-
sers, of business and of individual enterprise and
initiative.”
The important features of the pending measure
are those which embody these principles. Changes in
the details of the bill, there will doubtless be; hut
it is safe to predict that these two essential provi
sions, that of public instead of private control and
that which prevent the concentration of money at a
few centers by particular interests, will stand un
changed. These are the great bulwarks which will
protect the country’s common business against panics
and which, indeed, will make panics virtually impos
sible. They will assure the stability that comes from
competent, disinterested control of monetary re
sources and will thereby largely remove the causes
of business disturbance and alarm.
A panic has been aptly defined as "a state of
mind.” It is in most cases an unreasoning fear.
Psychologists have debated whether a man first be
comes frightened and then runs or first runs and
then becomes frightened; and the weight of opin
ion, we believe, inclines to the latter theory. Cer
tain it is that if no one started to run in times of
financial stringency that overpowering fear which
constitutes a panic would not develop. Bank de
posits would not be wildly withdrawn; the gates of
credit would not slam to: Investments would not sud
denly be checked, commercial and industrial enter
prises would not be halted; men would not be thrown
out of work; indeed that endless train of losses and
hardships which a panic sets in motion could be
entirely averted If the public mind were made proof
against spasms of financial tear.
That is what the administration’s banking and
currency bill alms to accomplish. It purposes to
make our monetary system so stabie and at the same
time so responsive to the country’s common needs
that it will inspire a steady and universal confidence
in the light of wiicfc all business will press normally
and hopefully forward. With all its wonderful vigor
and resources, the economic life of the United States
has long been groping amid the shadows and troublous
paths of an outworn financial order. The nation’s
real genius has not been free to prove its splendid
mettle. But a new and better day Is breaking. The
workmanly plans of the Wilson administration are
nearing fulfillment and close behind them looms an
era of prosperity and security iu which all people
will share.
The dedication of the Carnegie Peace Palace at The
Hague gives world-wide interest to the celebration of
Vhe birthday of Queen Wilhelmina, always a festive
occasion for her majesty’s sub
jects in Holland. The Carnegie
Peace Palace represents a gitt
of $1,500,000 bestowed by An
drew Carnegie to the nations of
the world, and is a monument of
a wealthy American's faith in
universal brotherhood.
Official delegates have Deee
sent to the ceremony from the
forty-four civilized nations repre
sented at the second Hague con
ference in 1907. The event is
taking place just after the meet
ing of the twentieth universal
peace congress and before the
meeting of the interparliamentary union which assem
bles early in September. The minister of foreign af
fairs of The Netherlands and the diplomatic repre
sentatives of ail the world's powers at The Hague,
who compose the council of the permanent court of
arbitration, have directed the erection of the building
and have put forth every endeavor to make the palace
worthy of the world -it represents.
• • •
The council, desirous of securing ideas from the,
foremost architects of the world, offered liberal'prizes
for plans for the erection of the palace. This
suited in a strong competition among 218 prominent
Architects. The plans submitted by M. L. M. Cardon-
nier, of Lille, France, were Anally decided upon, and
the first prize and contract were awarded to him. In
the building operations, A. G. Vander Steur, of Haar
lem, Holland, has been associated with the architect
as engineer and superintendent of construction. To
these two men and the council of the permanent court
of arbitration belongs the honor of tho world's first
architectural achievement for peace.
• • •
The site selected for the Peace palace was once a
garden of a palace belonging to Queen Wilhelmina’s |
grandmother, where the queen spent many happy
hours of her ehildhbod days. It comprises sijsteen
acres on a shady ayenue half way between The Hague
and Schevenengen, the famous Dutch seaside resort.
The ground was purchased for the «um of $300,000.
The exterior form of the architecture of the palaco
is purely Dutch, in keeping with the beautiful build
ings of the country in which it stands. A picturesque
garden, with many rare plajits, and a large grove of
beautiful trees are at the back of the builfling. In
front is a wide terrace and the main entrance is
reached by an Inclined plane rather than by a flight
of steps. The most substantial building materials
have been used, for the administrators were especially
anxious to insure the permanence of the palace. Brick
and stone were used in the construction and the roof
is of blue slate. The foundations are 260 feet square
and surround the central court of 144 by 111 feet.
• * •
The main floor is devoted entirely to court rooms
and consultation chambers. The great court room,
where all the big conferences will be held, is 70 feet
long, 40 feet wide and 33 feet deep. The other court
room is about half as large and occupies a corner of
the main floor at the base of the tower. This smaller
room will be used for ordinary arbitration cases. A
large international library, unequaled in any part of
the world, where important volumes and documents
from every country are of easy access, is also on the
main floor. Reading rooms and consultation rooms
connect the two court rooms. There is also a suite, of
rooms to be used as headquarters for the secretary
of the interparliamentary union.
• •
In the basement are the offloes for the secretary
of The Hague court and his staff of assistants, a room
for newspaper reporters, telegraph office, restaurants,
rooms for janitors and assistants, heating and light
ing plants. The building has all the latest engineer
ing devices for comfort and safety, and no pains have
been considered too great to make its appointments
perfect in every detail.
• • •
Each of the forty-four nations represented at the
second Hague conference has taken great pride In
contributing in some way to the ornamentation of the
building. Several nations have even sent building and
finishing materials. The United States is represented
by a large marble group of statuary portraying in
allegory "Peace through Justice.” It will be placed on
the main landing of the monumental staircase pro
vided by Mexico and will be a worthy token of the
nation whose citizen made possible the building. A
replica of this group to be placed in the national
capital is much desired in Washington, D. C-
• • •
Brazil sent the mahogany for finishing the great
court room, and Great Britain provided the four stained
glass windows that lurnish the lighting in this room.
France has sent exquisite Gobelin tapest-'ies used to dec
orate the small court room. Two ornamental gates for the
entrance of the grounds have been furnished by Ger
many, while Belgium has given the bronze doors at
the front entrance of the palace. Granite for the ar
cade and balustrade was sent by Norway, Sweden
provided the granite for • the basement. Greece and
Italy provided the marble used in the main corridor.
Switzerland has given a clock for the tower. Den
mark provided for th e foundation in the central court.
Russia is represented by a handsome malachite vase
eleven feet high which will be placed in the main en
trance hall. Japan has given gold embroidered tap
estries. The largest two are sis yards in length and
eight yards wide. Four smaller ones are six yards
long and four yards wide. They are of exquisite work
manship, embroidered with flowers, fishes and birds
showing the highest Japanese art.
• • •
The dedication of this Peace palace, coming as it
does between two important peace confrences at The
Hague, is an outward sign of a universal awakening
to the fact that international law is a ^better means
of securing justice than war. That the world is being
educated in this belief is shown in the general in terec-.
manifested by the masses, statesmen and the govern
ments themselves.
7 he President Unconvinced
And we can stand the last hot days with molt
fortitude when we think that the old overcoat
can’t do service another season.
President Wilson is said to have found no reason
in any representations that have been made to him for
a change in the policy adopted with regard to the
Huerta government in Mexico. His determination to
consider this as a moral question is admirable^
It is hard to believe that other nations have sought
to force the administration into another course, and
it is said in Washington that reports of pressure
brought to bear have been greatly exaggerated. It
would be, indeed, a fine piece of presumption for any
country to represent to the United States that refusal
to recognize the existing government in Mexico was
ground for compla^it.
Ambassador Wilson, when he reaches Washington,
may be depended upon to endeavor to persuade the
president that interest urges and honor permits the
recognition of Huerta. Mr. Wilson was promptness
itself in representing to Washington the wisdom of
such procedure. Madero was not laid out for burial
before a recommendation of Huerta’s government
from Mr. Wilson was laid before the secretary of state.
It was hardly less enthusiastic than the recommenda
tion Huerta submitted of himself.
Mr. Wilson may be persuaded of the wisdom of
his opinion, but the viewpoint of the American resident
in Mexico City is not one which embraces the issuo
nationally. It is purely local, even if not purely
selfish.
The United States can confer no benefit on Mexico
and obtain none for itself in recognizing as a govern
ment one erected by duplicity, treachery and assassi
nation.-—Chicago Tribune.