THE STATE REVIEW 



19 



after a fight that aroused all the sporting 

 instincts of the people. 



Now To Make Good 



But won it has been, both here and there, 

 and now the question is how shall the vic- 

 tory be made good? There are improve- 

 ments to be made in the new rules of the 

 pame of politics if they are to prove of any 

 great value, for at present they mal-:e it so 

 difficult for candidates to get nominated, 

 unless they are already in office, that many 

 a good man otherwise willing, will refuse to 

 try. It is no joke to get fifty thousand 

 names signed lo a petition even if you are 

 in a business that may be well advertised 

 on the envelopes which carry the petition 

 blanks to all parts of the state. And if 

 there is ro one man who is able and will- 

 ing to make such an outlay as this or who 

 is so pre-eminently the man for the position 

 that all his party men turn instinctively to 

 him, our nominating votes may be scat- 

 tered in a most confusing manner, as were 

 those of the Wayne county Democrats who 

 are said to have favored 113 different men 

 for lieutenant governor. But we have sev- 

 eral months before us in which to think the 

 matter over and to decide whom we shall 

 send to Lansing next winter to make the 

 needed improvements' and do a little legis- 

 lating about that constitutional convention 

 in which we will become academically very 

 much interested atout this time next year. 



Mr. Orton's Method 



In the current number of the Outlook is 

 an editorial entitled "Not an American 

 Star," in which the writer criticizes the 

 Cincinnati Times-Star for the method it 

 uses in an endeavor to silence President 

 Dabney of the University of Cincinnati, who 

 had voiced opinions which were disagree- 

 able to it, but to which, the Outlook writer 

 says, the newspaper found it difficult to 

 reply. And finding it difficult to reply, the 

 Times- Star sought to intimidate Dr. Dabney 

 by informing him that as (he head of a pub- 

 lic institution he should say nothing that 

 might give offense to any persons who are 

 taxed to support his institution and pay his 

 salary. Says the Outlook: 



"The Cincinnati Times Star ought to be 

 published in Russia or, stay! Turkey 

 would be better. For in Russia they are 

 beginning to have an aspiration for free 

 speech, and the Times-Star has not the 

 first glimmering dawn of an idea of what 

 free speech means." 



With this much of an introduction The 

 State Review publishes a letter sent to its 

 editor and to an officer of the local for- 

 estry committee, the purpose of which is 

 just as evidently to shut off free speech by 

 seeking to attack The State Review in the 

 rear as was the Times-Star's editorial an 

 attempt to silence President Dabney by sug- 

 gesting to him that he might lose his means 

 of livelihood if he persisted in giving voice 

 to his convictions: 



\Vnat rle Discovered 



"Editor of State Review, 



"Grand Rapids, Mich. 



"Dear Sir: 



"A few weeks ago, on my notifying your 

 office that I did not desire to subscribe for 

 The State Review, of which I had been re- 

 ceiving a few numbers, I was told that I 

 was receiving it as a member of the For- 

 estry Association. I have been unable to 

 read your paptr^ as they came, and I ha e 

 only recently looked over the numbers for 

 the last few weeks. I must now ask you tn 

 discontinue sending me this paper. I can 

 not in any way contribute to the condu:t- 

 ing of a reactirmaiy palitical newsp;p3r 

 under the guise of a " forestry'' and "gcod 

 roads" organ. I do not refer to any one 

 feature alone, but I have read over recently 

 Mr. Hose's five articles on the election cf 

 United States Senators, and this appears 

 to be a fair sample of your program. A'.- 

 though you stated in the issue contain'ng 

 the first article that you were simply giving 

 a hearing to "the other side," your editorial 

 in the issue containing his third article ('..>. 

 236) would seem to indicate that ths first 

 statement was a 'feeler,' and that y^ur pol- 

 icy is correctly represented by his article-. 

 "Mr. Rose, o'cupying a comfortable terth 

 and an excellent salary, paid by ths people. 

 has deliberately insulted his fellow citizens; 

 and his articles, representing as the/ prob- 

 ably do, the general atmosphere in thi torly 

 of which he writes and by the grace of 

 which he holds his position, are an addi- 

 tional and strik'ng proof of t^e unh'a't' y 

 and unrepresentative cond'ti~ns exi tirg in 

 the senate. What his fellow citizens th'nk 

 about it, can be judged by the'r votes sent 

 to The Herald on this question, about two 

 hundred to one against Mr. Rose and his 

 specious and laborious reason'ng. For the 

 sake of the gentleiren who are in some way 

 responsible for your publication, thore in- 

 terested in forestry end g:od roads, it is to 

 be hoped that you will find someone public- 

 spirited enough and able to spend the time 

 necessary to show the worthless foundation 

 cf fact upon which Mr. Rose assumes to 

 build and the false logic by which he se3ks 

 to construct his argument. 



Some Or rlia Points 



"In one article Mr. Rose says that with 

 popular election we might have had in the 

 senate such men as Gov. Waite of Colorado, 

 Gov. Penoyer of Oregon, Jerry Simpson cf 

 Kansas, Tom Johnson of Ohio, and Pingree 

 cf Michigan. With reference to Waite and 

 Peroyer I have not sufficient information to 

 judge. But this I know: If there is any 

 system of election which will secure in the 

 senate such men as the late Congrassman 

 Simpson and Mayor Johnson of Cleveland, 

 in place of the present and re:ent ruling 

 members of the senate. Aldrich, Gorman, 

 Quay, Penrose, Depew, Platt, Elkins, For- 

 aker and others of like character (not to 

 speak of the convicted criminals, Burton 

 and Mitchell) then the people cannot adopt 

 such a system too soon; for as regards 

 moral qualities and intelligent devotion to 

 public interests, the atove named senators 

 are so far beneath either Johnson or Simp- 

 son as to be unworthy of comparison with 

 them, and as regards moral qualities and 

 honesty of purpose, they are far beneath the 



late Gov. Filigree. Probably Mr. Rose would 

 have included La FclleLte if he had not 

 already fought his way into the senate. 



"Mr. Rose alludes to what he calls 'black- 

 hand articles upon the treascn cf the sen- 

 rte.' Of c;urs? we d:> n:t know what Mr. 

 David Graham Phillips is to write in h's 

 future articles; but in his first three arti- 

 cles in the Cosmopolitan on 'The Treason of 

 the Senate,' he has stated nothing, except 

 in the less important details, that was not 

 already known to nearly every intelligent 

 person who has been carefully reading the 

 history of the last 25 years and thinking on 

 questions from the public point of view. It 

 was not necessary to go to Mr. Phillips' 

 articles to learn that Senator Aldrich, ensur- 

 ing his perpetual membership in the senate 

 ly the most shameless corruption of a small 

 minority of the electors of Rhode Island 

 \\ho have the constitutional right to rule 

 the majority in that unhappy state, has 

 from the first represented no one but the 

 private corporations of enormous wealth 

 and power with which he is connected and 

 allied; cr that Senator Platt has represented 

 in the senate the United States Express 

 Company and allied corporate interests to 

 the utter exclusion of the people who are 

 supposed to be his constituents; or that 

 Senator Depew has been during all his pub- 

 lic life simply a 'decoy duck,' as it were, 

 used by the New York Central Railroad Co. 

 and its allied interests to keep the people 

 pood-natured while their patrimony was 

 being appropriated; or that Senator Gor- 

 man has consistently represented the sugar 

 trust and other financial and industrial 

 pirates to the exclusion of his nominal con- 

 stituents, finding profitable employment at 

 the hands of many private interests who 

 can use a Democrat just as readily as a 

 Republican when opportunity offers. These 

 things are well known to all thinking peo- 

 ple, and the use of 'black hand' adjectives 

 will not frighten many. 



The Body Blow 



"As an illustration of the rops-of-sand 

 character of Mr. Rose's argument, I would 

 call attention to his conclusion (p. 244) that 

 because 'nearly the entire voting popula- 

 tion of the country belongs to one or the 

 other of the great political organizations 

 that suffer in this wanton cross-fire,' there- 

 fore 'if the sweeping charges are true, then 

 nearly the whole American people are per- 

 fidious and base; and that if the trusted lead- 

 ers of these political organizations are base 

 and mean, then the country is base and 

 mean and on a most shaky foundation.' Of 

 course any school boy who has dabbled in 

 logic ought to know that the meanness and 

 perfidy of Aliirich, Gorman, Quay, and the 

 others, does not prove the meanness and 

 perfidy of the rank and file of either the 

 Democrats or Republicans in their respect- 

 ive states, any more than the proved crim- 

 inality of Burton and Mitchell establishes 

 the criminality of the rank and file of these 

 senators' constituents. I will not take the 

 trouble to pursue this subject further. I 

 will say, however, that I am sending a copy 

 of this letter to Mr. C. S. Udell, who took 

 my name as 3, member of the Forestry As- 



