306 



The Review of Reviews. 



uinouched, these gods may be amenable at last to 

 the hnvs of heaven. The master of armed millions 

 must wait on their will or court disaster, and the 

 peoples of the earth can only pray that they may 

 be as necessary to the millionaire in the future as 

 they have been in the past. 



Not that J. Pierpoiiit Morgan is a tyrant, for, if 

 not the mildest-mannered of men, his biographer 

 impresses us with the fact that this emperor of 

 world linance fully recognises that : — 

 It is excellent 



To have a giant's strength ; but it is t3'raunous 



To u.se it like a giant. 



Indeed, there is nothing to fear, for Mr. Carl 

 Hovey pictures the most amiable person, whose 

 financial coups are more or less object-lessons in 

 public philanthropy ; and have we not Mr. Stanley 

 Lee in our mid.st, thanking God that all is well 

 with the world in its sitrange dependence upon the 

 money kings for all blessings and ultimate good? 



The old-fashioned democrat who has had visions 

 of the triumphant progress of the nations must be 

 reduced to despair when he finds that when the 

 people are sick, the only physician who can be 

 called in — if he will come — 'iis his lifelong enem\-, 

 the much becalled millionaire. 



If he will -come — "aye, (there's the rub" — but 

 we may take comfort, for we gather from his bio- 

 grapher that, in spite of external brusqueness, Mr. 

 J. Pierpont Morgan possesses the perfect bedside 

 manner, and when the need is real his .ser\'ices may 

 be relied upon, and, in fact, as oonsulting special- 

 ist, his prescriptions have a\-erted more than one 

 financial disaster. In spite of prejudice, the public 

 is forced to refx>gnise a benevolent despot, who in- 

 sists on playing thf jiart of hiappv Providence to 

 derelict railways, wobblv .stet-l combines, etc., 

 threatening to wreck themiselves, and to oxerwliflm 

 others in their ruin. 



This benevolence is all to the good ; but what if 

 our Lfird and King hardens his heart, and is con- 

 cerneil to turn wr«^ker ? In this ca.se the public 

 would ])roi)abiy \vi more ready to as.sess the mis- 

 chief than the good works of which they .suspect 

 nothing — or perhajxs it would be- more correct to 

 Say that they suspect everything. 



Mr. Morgan i.s many-sidtxi in his interests, being 

 a keen yachtsman, a gcxHl farmer, and, as all the 

 world knows, a ]iatron of the arts without a peer ; 

 education and religious caustrs claim him avs a 

 friend, but, strangely enough, he does not pretend 

 the least interest in politics. Mr. Ho\'ey tells us 

 that when the Genn.ui l-lmperor sought to discuss 

 Socialism with Mr. Morgan, he found his gu«=^t 

 utiinterested, presumably, in such a minor topic. 

 A little matter which may keep an emperor awake 

 at nights, hut to a multi-millionaire a matter of 

 small import ! Probably this aloofness from poli- 

 tics is ,1 matter of self-j»res^rvation,, an in=tini.t 



witli the minev m.ikei 



rtYafkcl m;uiipt,'laror. 



The politician is, at least, under the necessity < i 

 appearing to Ije honest and above board, and this. 

 as may l>e imagined, may be a self-impo.sed handi- 

 cap to the financier ; further, the politician has 

 his ups and downs, whereas for the shrewd master 

 of finance there should be no " downs," only on 

 the other fellow. 



There are, howe\er, two sides to e^•erything. and 

 it remains to be seen how long our ma.sters c.ui 

 afford to remain outside the political arena. 



II. — The Anarchists. 



Mr. Vizetelly's liook is somewhat of a pot-boiler. 

 It is more of a sensational catalogue of the crimes 

 of the madmen v/ho wish to make themselves fam- 

 ous by murder and. to inaugurate the millennium by ■; 

 massacre, than a comprehensive philosophical sur- 

 vey of one of the most painful phenomena of men- 

 tal disorder. Nevertheless. "The \\'riting on the 

 Wall " would ha\e been an appropriate title for 1 

 A|r. Ernest Vizetelly's book. The Anarchists: their 

 Faith and their Record. It is true that many <..| 

 the regicides of the jjast two decades were men of 

 the baser sort ; but when one reads the death-roll — 

 Camot, the Emiires.s Elizabeth, King Htrmbert, 

 President McKinlex — one is forced to realise that 

 here is something in the nature of a world mow 

 ntent. The self-ai)i)ointed assa.ssins, whose courage 

 and fanaticism is admitted, do not leave room for i 

 doubt that they Axe the devotees of a religion which : 

 numbers many adherents in evers countrv which i 

 boasts a civilised go\ernment. 



Let those who sit in comfort review in im|iaritii,il 

 mood the history of the reigning houses of Eurr>]H 

 (including something of the endle.ss intrigue of th 

 master churchmen of the ages) ; the Newgate , 

 Calendar will 'm.ike more moral reading. If the . 

 comforitable citizen cannot in very truth acquit the 

 world's rulers of .ilmdst e\-ery concei\-able (or incon- 

 ceivable) crime, what nf the <-itizen who is no citizen, 

 possessing the right to exist, but no right to li\-e? So 

 long as he remains ignor;int all is well, but when he 

 has re.id the indictment, and, reading, understands, 

 it is no longer the same; his hunger — his spiritual 

 hiuiger--does the resit, for these men-deriding our 

 " ordered chaos " are not s^heei" wol\-es. 



The men of the International iielieved in lilierty, 

 and their hatred turned to all those who represented 

 the re.sti-iction of the individual — V\\\g% and their 

 .satelites. The hideous things done in all ages 

 under tlie aeg.is of law and order served the-m for 

 an um'uding text, and the Anarchist took up the 

 holy war with such effect that Mr. Viz( telly's three 

 hundred pages only suftice to outline stmie details 

 of their bloody campaign. 



Even i>e.aceful England has .served the turn of' 

 the Anarchist, imti.i we are threatened with the 

 registration of every foreigner who reaches the.se 

 fj:i?rdly sh'^r<?<!. That we have gc/ne scathless is due 

 not to an ill-plnoed ho-spitalitv, but \^ the toleration : 



. i 



