WILSON'S REST CURE FOR BUSINESS ownership, the killing of American individualism, the only escape from demonstrated perdition that the wisdom of Congress can promise?" Mr. Roosevelt Assails the Wilson Policy. BUT all these felicities of universal public ownership do not lie just beyond the next hill but beyond the à succeeding hills, and President Wilson assures us that the present hill is all we need to surmount. After that there is to be rest and security for the harried business man. Mr. Roosevelt, however, scouts this idea. In his : Pittsburgh speech he says: "The present national administration is pursuing a course that prevents the existence of prosperity, and that does not offer a single serious or intelligible plan for passing prosperity around should prosperity, in spite of the administration's efforts, at some future time return to our people." Both as regards the trust legislation and the tariff he insists that what the nation needs is "continuing executive action through administrative commissions of ample power." It is highly probable, therefore, that in the ensuing congressional campaign we shall find the President and his followers occupying a standpat position advocating the rest cure for business, and the R publican leaders calling for a new revision of the tariff schedules and the Progressives calling for a revision not only of the tariffs but of trust legislation as well. By what the N. Y. Evening Post calls "an obvious political coup," which must have made men of large affairs rub their eyes in surprise, the President last month gave this sudden shift to the political kaleidoscope. President Wilson's "New" Attitude Toward Big Business. IN behalf of his nominations for the Federal Reserve Board, President Wilson issued last month a statement in which he said: "It would be particularly unfair to the Democratic party and the Senate itself to regard it as the enemy of business, big or little. I am sure that it does not regard a man as an object of suspicion merely because he has been connected with great business enterprizes. It knows that the business of the country has been chiefly promoted in recent years by enterprizes on a great scale, and that the vast majority of the men connected with what we have come to call big business are honest, incorruptible, and patriotic. . . . It is the obvious business of statesmanship at this turning point in our development to recognize abil WIPING AWAY HIS TEARS 79 REMOVING A BUSINESS UNCERTAINTY SHOWING HIM PROSPERITY -Voos in N. Y. Truth -Smith in Chicago Tribune National Association of Bank Supervisors. "The President," says the N. Y. Evening Post, "who has so long been charged with austerely shunning the visits and the counsels of men engaged in the great industries and in commerce, who has been accused of knowing nothing and caring less about business, has now made what is, in effect, a new departure." The Promise of a Rest OTHER comment on this "new departure" expresses the banking house of Kuhn, Loeb & Company, which has played an important part in the financing of the Southern Pacific, the Chicago & Alton, the Baltimore & Ohio, the Union Pacific and many other railway systems and large industrial concerns. Being requested to appear before the committee, Mr. Jones cheerfully complied, but Mr. Warburg declined and asked the President to withdraw his nomination, on the ground that the distrust shown by this action of the committee created a situation that might impair his usefulness as a member of the Board. The President persuaded him to let the nomination stand, but the deadlock remained, Mr. Warburg refusing to go before the committee and the committee refusing to act until he does appear. It was at this point that the President issued his statement already quoted disavowing opposition to business, big or little, and asserting his belief that "the vast majority of the men connected with what we have come to call big business are honest, incorruptible and patriotic." surprise and satisfaction. The Philadelphia Ledger, which a few weeks ago was denouncing the President for his "mad interference with the well-being of the nation" and his "intolerance and obstinacy," now speaks of "an openness of mind formerly unsuspected" and adds: "Common sense has begun to assert itself at Washington and there is some reason to believe that it will eventually dominate the Senate." From being a strenuous foe to the trust bills, the Philadelphia Ledger now concludes that it is the duty of all good citizens to help put them into shape and to get them passed and out of the way. The Newark Evening News thinks that if the President's present attitude astonishes the busi-IN THIS clash between the President and the Senate ness men, that is because they have not heretofore B The Senate Committee OUT another hitch in the President's program to sail the ship of state at once into quiet waters occurred last month when the Senate committee on banking and currency began to balk over the nominations of Thomas D. Jones, of Chicago, and Paul M. Warburg, of New York, for the Federal Reserve Board, which is to have charge of our new banking system. The other three nominations-Harding, of Alabama, Hamlin, of Massachusetts, and Miller, of California-were approved by the committee without difficulty; but by a vote of seven to four the committee reported adversely on Mr. Jones and without dissent it laid over the nomination of Mr. Warburg until he consents to appear before it for examination. The opposition to Mr. Jones arises because of his position as a director in the "Harvester trust" and his large holding of stock in the "Zinc trust." That to Mr. Warburg arises because of his connection with The Case of Warburg and The committee, the press seems, so far as its utterances side, at least in the controversy over Mr. Warburg. If, have as yet come to hand, strongly on the President's inees before a Senate committee were a customary says the Knoxville Sentinel, this summoning of nomthing, probably nobody would take offense. Under the circumstances it is not surprising if certain types of acceptable men refuse to submit to such a course of procedure. The Cleveland Plain Dealer thinks the Senate's "super-criticism" not only threatens injury to sound banking but is likely to deter first-class men from accepting other federal appointments. The Richmond News-Letter finds the Senate's course "typical of the small politician's prying distrust of business men.' Boston Transcript believes the Senate should at once repudiate the action of its committee, tho it thinks that trust" is under prosecution in eight or more states, Mr. Jones's eligibility, at this time, when the "Harvester "may well be questioned." There is no real reason that the Detroit Free Press can see why Mr. Warburg or Mr. Jones should subject himself to the proposed "ordeal," and it regards the committee's opposition as "entirely captious." The Newark Evening News traces this opposition to "squalid acrimonies over division of patronage." The Baltimore Sun notes that condemnation of the committee's course seems, from the press comment, to be "almost unanimous throughout the country." The Albany Press puts the case thus: "It is indeed a pretty pass if all presidential appointments are to be put on a grill before a committee of pin-headed politicians and humiliated and subjected to insulting questioning by pettifogging jackasses. No self-respecting man will stand such treatment." But the Philadelphia North American lifts up its voice in a two-column editorial on the other side. "The campaign in behalf of Mr. Warburg," it notes, "has been exceptionally widespread and vigorous, and has been marked by significant agreement between Tory newspapers and administration organs. . . . Yet of all the financiers in the United States, there is none, we believe, whose nomination to the Federal Reserve Board would be more offensive to the principle that credit should be freed from sinister influences." THE IDEALISM OF IF F IT so happens that Providence and the American farmer, in the next three months, bring a marked change for the better in the business outlook of the country, then it is almost inevitable that the elections in November will be fought out on the foreign policy of the administration as the chief issue. Mr. Roosevelt, in his attacks upon the administration, assails it at this point, and not only the Progressive but the Republican leaders and journals sustain his attack. President Wilson, in his recent utterances, recognizes the fact and sets forth with great earnestness his defence of our present policy. A campaign waged chiefly on our foreign relations will be something almost unparalleled in our history. It might be the best thing that could happen to the country. Our whole foreign policy has been in the past a sort of hit-or-miss affair, with no well-defined principles beyond the traditional Monroe Doctrine. A campaign might help to clear up our ideas and aid us in finding our right place among the nations of the world. It might give us also a higher idea of the importance of our diplomatic service. With the development that has been taking place of late years in our ex port trade, with our development of a colonial policy since the Spanish-American war, and with the frequent recurrence of delicate international questions in our relations with Japan, China, Russia and other nations, the need of something besides a rough and ready shirtsleeve diplomacy is becoming apparent to all but the blindest of jingoes. Bills are already before Congress for the establishment of a sort of West Point for the training of future diplomats, as suggested some time ago by President Lowell, of Harvard, vigorously urged by Curtis Guild, formerly ambassador to Russia, and advocated by Senator Lodge. President Wilson Makes a Fourth-of-July Address. IN RESPONSE to the attacks upon his foreign policy, President Wilson made an address at Philadelphia, on the Fourth of July, which the Louisville Courier Journal considers "the best both in matter and manner which he has delivered since he became President of the United States." He referred to the Declaration of Independence as follows: "We set up this nation and we propose to set it up on 81 it was intolerable to suffer when we uttered the Declaration. If American enterprize in foreign countries takes the shape of exploiting the mass of the people in those countries, said President Wilson, it ought to be stopped, not encouraged. "I am willing," he went on to say, “to get anything for any American that money can buy, except the rights of other men. I will not help any man buy a power he should not exercize over his fellows." THE The President's Altruistic Foreign Policy. HE criticism of the President's foreign policy does not extend to his ideals as thus laid down. There is in most of the criticism an undertone of respect for the purpose he has in view as something noble and exalting. But there is, even in Democratic journals, a note of skepticism as to the practicality of acting according to his ideals in our international relations. "There are passages in the Philadelphia speech," says the N. Y. Tribune, "which illustrate afresh his tendency to confuse the general moral mission of the United States with the diplomatic policy its government must pursue in The dealing with other established governments." moral mission may be to give a greater measure of freedom to the people; but the government of this country "has no political or diplomatic mission to go into other countries and reconstruct their institutions for the benefit of the submerged elements." We have no more right, the Tribune thinks, to intervene in Mexico for that purpose than in Turkey or Russia; no more right than our minister to Greece had for the interference in the affairs of Albania for which he has been asked to resign. If the United States is to start in to impose its moral ideas by force upon the rest of the world, those ideals will soon lose their luster. The Louisville Courier Journal takes about the same view. Equality and freedom, it finds, are varying terms, and racial distinctions exist which are compelling in their character. It points to the status of the Negroes and the Chinese on our own soil. It regards Mr. Wilson as both a statesman and a politician in domestic matters; but, in foreign affairs, especially in Mexico, it thinks. he is at sea owing to his bent toward idealism. Disappointing Character of Recent Diplomatic Appointments. the rights of man. We did not name any differences be- BUT it is not the application of the President's theo tween one race and another. We did not set up any barriers against any particular race of people, but opened our gates to the world, and said all men who wish to be free may come to us and they will be welcome. We said this independence is not merely for us-a selfish thing for our own private use-but for everybody to whom we can find the means of extending it. Now, we cannot, with that oath taken in our youth; we cannot with that great idea set before us when we were a young people, and practically only a scant three million people, take upon ourselves, now that we are a hundred million, any conception of duty other than what we entertained at that time." What, asked the President, are we going to do with the influence and power of this great nation? Are we going to use it for our own aggrandizement and material benefit? If so, that means that we are going to use it to make other people suffer in the way in which we said ries to Mexico that elicits all or even the greater part of what the N. Y. Times calls "the huge volume of petulant, ill-informed and greatly exaggerated dispraise." The treaty with Colombia brings a larger amount just now than our Mexican policy brings. In fact, it is the Colombia treaty that gives to the critics of the administration the real cue for their campaign. On the Panama Canal tolls the press of the country as well as Congress has been with the President. While the same can not be said regarding his Mexican policy, there is, nevertheless, manifest a disposition to suspend judgment and to await more definite results The Nicaragua treaty, while disconcerting to the Democratic leaders, is too close to the policy of the Taft and Roosevelt administrations to afford good campaign material to the opposition. The Philippine policy has elicited heated attacks and dire predictions; but it has been too cautiously developed so far to furnish much ammunition to the foes of the administration. The policy in Santo Domingo does not seem to have been changed, tho our minister there has been changed, with dubious results. Just two things give point and "punch" to the criticism that is now very much in vogue. One of these, as we have said, is the Colombia treaty, and the other is the general character of the selections made by the State Department for the diplomatic service. Even as stanch a friend of the administration as the N. Y. Evening Post says of these selections that "the net result is disappointing." The President, it says, has named two or three high-grade ambassadors, and appointed or retained a few capable ministers; but the rest of the list it regards as mediocre or even lower. "We had the right," it says sadly, "to expect better things of an intellectuel like Mr. Wilson." The Grievances of WH been such as to make the United States a figure of fun in the international world," and the Colombia treaty "caps the climax of that policy." He regards it as "merely the belated payment of blackmail, with an apology to the blackmailers." Until this treaty was negotiated, he had not supposed that any administration "would thus betray the honor and interest of the American people." He goes ahead to state the case as follows. The President of Colombia at the time of Panama's revolt was embodied in the person of a dictator who had absolute executive and legislative power. He had thrown the President into jail, assumed the office himself and for years refused to allow Congress to meet. He negotiated a treaty with us, giving the right of way for the canal for the sum of $10,000,000. After we had abandoned the Nicaragua route, he refused to execute the treaty, tho he had the power to do so without the action of Congress. Instead, he called his Congress together, which rejected the treaty, the real reason being assigned by one of the speakers, who stated the purpose of the government to cancel the extension of time already given to the French company and to wait until then before executing our treaty, so as to be "in a better position to negotiate" with us. As we had agreed to pay the French company $40,co0,000 for their rights and the work they had, done, the object of the delay was very evident. It was to be able to get this $40,000,000 from us in addition to the $10,000,000. Any such course, says Mr. Roosevelt, would, in his judgment, have brought the French government to take a hand on the Isthmus, and we would have lost, by our own supine folly, the right to build the canal. "The case demanded immediate and de WHAT What Roosevelt Did in the around the horizon seems to come to a head and assume Making Uncle Sam an Interna- AS SOON as he reached quarantine, on his return from Spain in the latter part of June, Mr. Roosevelt issued a long statement attacking the Colombia treaty. It was his first frontal attack upon the Wilson administration and was, therefore, of great political interest. He declared that "the handling of our foreign affairs by President Wilson and Secretary Bryan has HAT was the action which Mr. Roosevelt took? On the answer to this question hangs the whole issue regarding Colombia. As soon as the treaty was rejected by Colombia, Panama revolted and declared her independence, her citizens "acting with absolute unanimity." Says Mr. Roosevelt : "We did not in the smallest degree instigate the revolution. The people of Panama were a unit in demanding the revolution. We never fired a shot at any Colombian. The only act of ours which could in any measure be construed as hostile to Colombia was our landing sailors and marines on the Isthmus to protect the lives of American women and children, and in this matter we merely did what had been done in at least twenty of the previous fifty-three revolutions." "We promptly recognized the independence of Panama and at once negotiated a treaty with her, under which the canal has been dug. What we did in Panama," Mr. Roosevelt insists, "no more entitles Colombia to reparation than President Wilson's course in Mexico, in forbidding the importation of arms and ammunition for the suppression of the revolt there, entitles Mexico to reparation from some future administration at Washington. If the proposed treaty is right, then our presence on the Isthmus at all is wrong and we are in duty bound to restore Panama to Colombia, canal and all. "If we as a nation have been guilty of theft, we should restore the stolen goods. If we have not been guilty of theft we should not pay blackmail." WHY COLOMBIA WANTS OUR $25,000,000 83 "I would be ashamed of this flag," said President Wilson at Philadelphia, July 4, in a notable defense of his foreign policy, "if it ever did anything outside of America that we would not permit it to do inside of America." ΤΗ HREE years after the revolt of Panama, James T. Dubois was sent to Colombia as our minister. He was instructed by Secretary Knox that any proposals for the adjustment of difficulties must emanate from Colombia. He proceeded, however, "quite aside from his instructions and acting upon his personal responsibility," as stated by the Secretary, in a note at the time to President Taft, to sound the Colombian government as to its demands. He reported that Colombia demanded either arbitration or compensation for injury sustained in the loss of Panama, and was ordered. by telegraph to drop the matter. Before the matter was dropped, Mr. Dubois had embodied in the shape of an "informal memorandum" a proposed expression of regret by this government which was almost identical with the "apology" now included in the treaty. No such expression, Mr. Dubois himself says, was ever considered, however, either by President Taft or Secretary Knox. It was, he says, in "an informal memorandum which I, upon my own initiative, informally presented to the Colombian government in order to feel the pulse of that people." It was he also, apparently, who gave the Colombians their first hope of a large sum in com justification. Equally so is the insinuation that any action of this government prior to the revolution in Panama was the result of complicity with the plans of the revolutionists. The department sees fit to make these denials, and it makes them finally." Secretary Root had spoken with equal emphasis, but he had negotiated a treaty in 1909 which would have provided for the payment to Colombia of $2,500,000 in ten annual payments. These payments, however, were to be at the expense of Panama, not at our expense, Panama agreeing to assign this amount out of the sum we had agreed to pay her. It was, therefore, recognition not of any claim for damages against us but of claims against Panama. Another payment of $10,000,000 had, however, been tendered by us, not as damages but as the purchase price of two islands belonging to Colombia and an unlimited option to build a canal by the old Atrato route, when the commerce of the world should demand it. This was the extent to which Colombia's claims had been recognized up to the time Mr. Dubois proceeded, without instructions and on his own initiative, to ascertain Colombia's demands. pensation, mentioning the sum now named in the treaty. MR. DUBOIS now comes to the defence of the BOTH Secretary Hay and Secretary Root had disclaimed in emphatic language any responsibility of this government for the secession of Panama. Mr. Hay, in a letter to General Rafael Reyes, January 5, 1904, said: "Any charge that this government or any responsible member of it held intercourse, whether official or unofficial, with agents of revolution in Colombia is utterly without present treaty, in reply to Mr. Roosevelt's attack upon it. The revolt in Panama, he asserts, was conceived by "a handful of men who were to be the direct beneficiaries of the revolution," and not one out of a hundred of the Panamans knew anything about it until the flag of the new republic was raised by an American officer, in the uniform of the United States army. It is a matter of record, according to Mr. Dubois, that Colombia had never seriously intended to seize the French company's property, and he disputes Mr. Roose |