RHODE ISLAND. 



ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 747 



Revision of the Constitution. The question 

 of a revised Constitution was again submitted to 

 the voters June 20, the amendments proposed 

 amounting to a revision. They were substantial- 

 ly the same as those voted upon in 1898. The 

 proposition was defeated, 4,057 voting for, and 

 12,472 against. 



Protection of BirdS. Under an act providing 

 for the establishment of a Board of Bird Com- 

 missioners, the following were appointed: Fenner 

 H. Peckham, Thomas W. Penney, E. R. Lewis, 

 William H. Thayer, and A. O'D. Taylor. They 

 are to receive no salary from the State, and all 

 expenses must be provided for by voluntary con- 

 tribution. It is their duty to see that violations 

 of the laws relating to birds not only, but also 

 to rabbits, hares, and squirrels, are punished. 



The Last Chief. Gideon Ammons, eighty- 

 ight yefirs of age, the last of the chiefs or presi- 

 dents of the council of the tribe of Narragansett 

 Indians, was found dead in the woods near his 

 home in Charlestown in November. He was 

 elected a member of the council in 1847, and re- 

 mained one till 1878, holding the office of presi- 

 dent many times. By the act of March, 1880, 

 the reservation, about 5,000 acres, was ceded to 

 the State. But Gideon Ammons claimed that the 

 tribe still owned a strip extending from the shore, 

 worth $1,075,000, not included in the cession. 



Roger Williams Rock. A public park has 

 been made on the spot where Roger Williams 

 landed in 1(530 and heard the salutation from an 

 Indian on the hill, " What cheer, Netop? " What 

 was left on the surface of the rock on which he 

 landed, Slate Rock, was blasted into building 

 material twenty-one years ago. Five years ago 

 the city council appropriated $3,000 for making 

 the lot into a park, but the work has been de- 

 layed. A huge bowlder now marks the site of the 

 rock. The park is now several hundred feet from 

 the water, the front having been filled in from 

 time to time. 



Political. The State election took place April 

 5. Nominations were made by 4 parties. 



The Prohibitionists met at Providence, March 

 1, and nominated for Governor, Joseph A. Peck- 

 ham; Lieutenant Governor. Alonzo C. Gardiner; 

 Secretary, William P. Bradley; Treasurer, Smith 

 Quiniby; Attorney-General, Thomas H. Peabody. 

 Besides approving the general principles of the 

 party, the resolutions said on State affairs : " We 

 acknowledge with shame that our own State is 

 under the domination of one of the most corrupt 

 political dictators that ever lived, and we call 

 upon all good citizens to combine in an effort to 

 overthrow him. 



" We demand, therefore, if we are to have a re- 

 vised Constitution, that it be prepared for the 

 people's judgment by a constitutional convention 

 composed of men elected by the people for that 

 purpose." 



The Democratic convention at Providence, 

 Miirch 14, named as candidate for Governor, 

 George W. Greene: Lieutenant Governor, Robert 

 H. Wade; Secretary, Miles A. McNamee; Treas- 

 urer, Edmund Walker; Attorney-General, George 

 T. P.rown. The platform said, in part: "In this 

 Mate both the theory and the practice of gov- 

 ernment by the people have become obsolete. The 

 theory is denied, because, according to the inter- 

 pretation put upon the State Constitution by the 

 dominant faction of the Republican party, sover- 

 eignty is now. vested in the votes of two fifths of 

 the people of the State with one vote added. This 

 faction asserts that a minority of the electors can 

 keep the Constitution of the State forever un- 

 changed. 



" Every citizen must admit that the govern- 

 ment of Rhode Island for all practical purposes 

 is vested in a corrupt political machine. Under 

 its orders laws have been recently passed which 

 can never be amended or repealed. From this 

 intolerable condition of public affairs no relief 

 seems possible save through a constitutional 

 convention whose delegates are chosen by the 

 people." 



The Republicans, at Providence, March 15, re- 

 nominated all the elective State officers. The 

 resolutions were mainly in support of the policy 

 of the party on national issues and in praise 

 of the existing State administration. They con- 

 cluded as follows: 



" We therefore appeal to all friends of good 

 government, of sound money, of the supremacy 

 of the law, and of the best and highest interests 

 of the State, not to be misled by the specious ut- 

 terances of those whose performance has so often 

 falsified their promise, and who have presented a 

 free-silver candidate for Governor upon a plat- 

 form containing no word concerning their finan- 

 cial policy, who strenuously urged the inaugura- 

 tion of a complete change in the Constitution in 

 a manner unknown to the Constitution, and in 

 defiance of the opinion of our court of last re- 

 sort, and who make the question of this unlaw- 

 ful change in the fundamental law paramount to 

 all other issues." 



The election gave all the offices to the Repub- 

 lican candidates. For Governor the vote stood: 

 Dyer, Republican, 24,308; Greene, Democrat, 14,- 

 002; Herrick, Socialist-Labor, 2,941; Peckham, 

 Prohibitionist, 1,279. The Legislature will stand: 

 Senate 31 Republicans, 6 Democrats; House 58 

 Republicans, 13 Democrats, 1 Prohibitionist. 



ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. Pope Leo 

 XIII, on Jan. 22, published a letter to Cardinal 

 Gibbons entitled Americanism, which terminated 

 the dispute as to the soundness of the doc- 

 trines ascribed to Father Isaac Hecker, founder 

 of the order of the Congregation of St. Paul. 

 These doctrines had been bitterly attacked in 

 the previous year by French critics of a transla- 

 tion into that language of Father Elliot's Life of 

 Father Hecker; and under the title of American- 

 ism the more virulent of these critics attributed 

 to the Catholic Church in America radical depar- 

 tures from recognized Catholic teaching, and 

 called upon the Pope to pronounce upon them 

 authoritatively. The letter was expected at the 

 end of 1898, but was evidently held back until 

 time should have softened to some extent the 

 asperities of the controversy. 'Although upon its 

 appearance it was promptly claimed by each side 

 as a victory, the document itself favored neither. 

 His Holiness cleverly avoided any declaration up- 

 holding the contention of the French doctrinaires 

 that the errors ascribed to the American Church 

 were really received by it as truth, while at the 

 same time he let it be understood that these 

 teachings, if they really existed, were dangerous 

 and heretical. His attitude toward the main 

 point of the French charge was indicated in one 

 of the opening paragraphs in the letter. " You are 

 aware, beloved son," he wrote, " that the book 

 on the life of Isaac Thomas Hecker, more espe- 

 cially by the work of those who have undertaken 

 its translation and editing in a foreign language, 

 has aroused no small controversy as to the intro- 

 duction of certain opinions concerning the meth- 

 ods of the Christian life." And in the closing 

 paragraph in the letter he vindicated the name 

 Americanism from the reproaches heaped upon it 

 by the foreign controversialists by simply giving 

 it a definition. " From what we have said, be- 



