The San Francisco call., 1899-02-12
WITH ENTIRE, FRANKNESS.

BY HENRY JAMES.

This country can well afford to make
recompense to the ex-Queen of Hawaii.
1t took from her lands to which it had
no more claim than to the clothes on
her back, and it ought in very decency
to return the lands or pay for them.
Alfred Henry Lewis, one of the able
newspaper writer's of the East, has
started at New York a weekly, which
he has named "The Verdict" and
which, as it seems entirely just and in
accordance with the facts, will be sus-
tanned. 1.-THE Verdict is so fearless and
so decently expressed; strikes so vigor-
ously at the evils of the commercial. and
political worlds, that to read it is re-
freshing, which is more than can be
said for the other metropolitan week
lies, most of which truckle to snobs and
sell themselves to corruption. The first
impulse upon scanning them is to ask
what they are for.
have often wondered at Town Top
les" one Of the widely read of the lot
In It's columns there is a marked dis
play OF ability. In many points of cur
rent interest its opinions are clearly
defined, and in terms lucid and scholar
ly. Yet throughout, its sanity is inter
spersed with bits of low and vicious
personal gossip, filings at respectability,
fnnuendoes it has not the courage to
formulate into direct charges, and
which being formulated would have no
place save in despicable and loath-
10
jokes are a. stencil, and it's stories for
the most part breathe the spirit of the
degenerate, the libertine and the bawd
Altogether, its good features do not off
set the bad. Puck" Judge" and
Life" are clean, but they are narrow
and provincial. Certainly, the field is
not fully occupied, and weekly con-
Quoted on broad plane, wholesome,
and without a tendency to bend the ed
itorial knee, treating the poor man as
the rich, and the politician as the ras-
cal he generally is, ought to find
ready and ample support.
1t is hard to understand how this ad-
ministration can afford to pose as
shielding the contractors who sold bad
beef to the Government for the use of
soldiers in time of war. If there has
been such a crime committed, and the
evidence seems to point to it, each con-
tractor is traitor, and each official in
any manner standing between him and
exposure is a most unmitigated scoun-
drel, of whose presence the administra-
ton should be glad to be rid. There
ought to be a court martial Of General
"a hoC do .Io, oh, J,a
should be forced to prove, or he should
be turned in disgrace from the army.
individually, believe the charges to
be true. I believe that public affairs
are honeycombed with knavery, and
that rascal with money can add to
his unholy store by methods such as
would send a poor man to stripes and
a cell. I believe that the partial re-
tention of Eagan is a disgrace, that
Alger is unworthy of confidence, and
that the only reason Miles is not called
upon, or at least so reluctantly, called
upon, to substantiate his accusations,
is that he is known to be able to do so.
To my mind, the fact that a politician
is competent to write a large check and
chooses to make 1t payable to the treas
urer Of q campaign committee is no
reason why he should be given high
Office, nor why, after he has demon
strated his unfitness for a place of
trust, he should not be kicked out If
this government has reached the stage
at which it can ignore such serious
charges as those brought by the rank
ing general of the army, it is as rotten
as the canned offal by which our SOL
in MI will
go to smash, not on the rock Of impe-
rialism, but from internal decay.
The fear of disaster to result from an
imperial policy, 1 confess, does not
touch me. do not think the old Rom
an republic established a precedent by
which this modern republic can be
guided any more than the hourglass did
for the clock. Violation of our own ex-
pressed tradition and theory this policy
certainly is, but that that theory was
wholly good and the tradition some
thing to be held sacred, is another ques-
ton. The seizure of the Philippines is
greed crystallized. The rule of govern
ment has, 1 believe. been tinged with
greed since the beginning of the world,
and the effort to expand proves us not
worse than other people, but simply no
better, while the claim that we are bet
ter is common presumption, anyhow.
Our real troubles are to come from
within. When we see the arrogance Of
wealth steadily growing; when money
can make laws, and then administer or
defy them as it chooses; when a lot of
contractors can sell filthy and man-kill :.
ing food to soldiers, and find protection
in the very governmental power which
should furnish the lash wherewith to
whip them to the penitentiary, it is
time to stop Dragging about high ideals
and cultivate the beautiful and advan-
tageous practice of honesty. Some
alarmists profess to see in Imperialism
the downfall of this country I do not
see it's downfall from any cause, but
only the dreadful chance, which, in my
humble notion, will be at hand when
the people refuse longer to submit to
the rule of commercial and political
bosses, nor to be lulled by the informa-
ton that they are their own masters,
when they know they are not But then
the plutocrat may reform? Oh, yes.
ALI things are possible with God.