bimetallist resolution, can anyone doubt that the Kanitz free coinage bill, introduced a second time, with the prestige of success in the United States and in France, will evoke an enthusiasm that will sweep away all opposition? And when Germany has been won over, the victory is assured. Thus this "reconciliation bill," though equivalent to the utterance of a truism, may be more effective in point of tactics than a measure involving immediate practical action. Had Germany passed the Kanitz free coinage bill when it was first introduced, hers would have been the glory of the leadership out of financial chaos. But her monometallists, drawing ghastly pictures of a possible snub, opposed any initiative on the part of Germany, apparently thinking it more glorious for a great country to be led than to lead. Then, since Germany disdained the mellow fruit, why should not America pluck it?

The bimetallists should thankfully accept the name "hayseed party" given to them in derision by their opponents. The surest way to benefit the whole country is to benefit the farmers. No more interesting movement has ever been witnessed than that of the "embattled farmers," rising in their angry might, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, in the four leading countries of the world, to demand free coinage. Like all farmers' movements, this latest one is characterized by tremendous energy, tenacity, and courage-and no wonder, seeing that farmers' sons form the bone and sinew of the world's armies. "But," said an old farmer the other day, "there is no use trying. Farmers can't hold together." Is this true? Or may not the time have arrived when farmers have advanced far enough to hold together? Certainly, so long as the farmers in Europe demand 1:15 while those of America demand 1:16, they will simply neutralize each others' efforts.

Agrarians of Germany! Société des Agriculteurs de France! Farmers' Club of England! Farmers' Alliance of the United States! Would you like to have some assurance that your efforts will not all be wasted? Then do not scatter your forces over a dozen points, but concentrate them on one. When that one has been gained, you may with doubled hope and strength strive for the next point. For the present, DROP EVERYTHING ELSE and inscribe on your banners only these words:

United we stand, divided we fall!

AT LAST.

BY JAMES G. CLARK.

My soul looks up in voiceless praise
Beside the tranquil sea,

While visions rare of other days
Come drifting back to me;
Sweet echoes of the olden songs

I sang the wide lands through,
To lonely hearts and hungry throngs,
Return with meaning new.

I hear the rush of streams that rise
In memory's mountain springs,
And music born of earth and skies
Around my spirit sings;

All sounds of discord, pain and strife
Have rounded into tune,

And thorns that pierced and vexed my life
Have changed to flowers of June.

I know not when the sun may dip
His forehead in the foam

And beckon to my tide-rocked ship
To seek the Isles of Home;

I know not when my sail shall glide
Behind the sunset hills,

But peace-to manhood's prime denied-
My being folds and thrills.

POSTAL TELEGRAPHY.

BY LYMAN ABBOTT, D. D.

The ARENA asks me to contribute to a symposium on "Should the Government Control the Telegraph?" a short article stating in as cogent a manner as possible my views on this most important question. As this is to be only one of several articles I may assume that others who are experts will contribute detailed facts and figures and that I may confine myself to a statement of fundamental principles.

The Policy Recommended.-The United States government should ascertain what it would cost to duplicate at the present time the Western Union Telegraph plant. It should then offer to purchase the plant at that price from the Western Union Telegraph Company. If the telegraph company declines the offer the government should proceed to construct a telegraph system which should run throughout the United States. Under this system the telegraph office and the postoffice would be in the same building and in the smaller towns and villages in the same room. The postmaster would operate the telegraph, personally or by an assistant or assistants, and the Western Union Telegraph Company would be left undisturbed in the right to use its own plant in the conduct of business. The public could choose between the public and the private telegraph. In case the Western Union Telegraph Company sold its plant to the United States the latter would have a practical, but it should not be an official, monopoly. Private enterprise should be left free to compete with the government.

Advantages of the Plan.-1. The United States has an unquestioned constitutional right to pursue this policy. The maxim that it is the function of government to govern is no longer accepted as axiomatic by any considerable number of Americans. No arguments would induce us to abandon the postoffice and relegate the carriage of letters to private enterprise. That it is the function of government to provide for thought-intercommunication between the people is accepted practically by the entire nation. There is nothing inconsistent with our traditions, habits, or constitution in extending this principle so that thought-intercommunication

shall be provided by electricity as well as by steam or stagecoach.

2. The Western Union Telegraph must pay an interest of five to ten per cent on watered stock to its stockholders. The United States Government would have to pay an interest of two and a half or three per cent on the actual cost of construction. If I am rightly informed, this alone would make a difference of not less than five per cent on not less than fifty millions of dollars. The Western Union Telegraph Company must pay an office rent and an operator's salary in every town and village. In all the smaller places the postoffice would afford ample office accommodations for the telegraph and the postmaster or his assistant could operate the telegraph with little or no increase of salary. In England twelve cents is the minimum charge for a message to any part of the United Kingdom. It is said by experts that twenty-five cents as a minimum charge for a message to any part of the United States would pay the interest on the investment and the cost of administration. It is not important to determine whether this estimate is accurate or not. It is certain that the cost of telegraphing could and would be greatly reduced.

3. As a result the use of the telegraph would be greatly increased. It is now the privilege of the few; it would become the convenience of the many. A uniform rate and a reduction of expense would operate exactly as it has operated in the postoffice. Messages would be multiplied as letters have been multiplied. Popular communication would be by electricity. Lightning would become the servant of the people; it is now the servant only of a moneyed aristocracy. Every postoffice would be a telegraph office; for in remote hamlets to which the wire did not reach there would be telegraph blanks, and the stage coach would carry the message to the nearest telegraph office whence it would be forwarded by wire.

4. That this is no fancy of a dreamer is shown by the experience of Great Britain. Within three or four years after the English government assumed the control and ownership of the telegraph the offices had increased thirty per cent, the messages fifty per cent, and the number of words sent two hundred per cent, while the cost to the people had decreased forty per cent. It is true that the government telegraph in Great Britain has not always been self-supporting, as the postoffice in the United States is not always self-supporting. But this is partly due to extravagant prices paid by the English government for pri

vate telegraphs in the outset, and partly due to a laudable but excessive ambition to increase public facilities more rapidly than the public income fully justified.

5. The thought-intercommunication of a nation ought never to be left subject to the control of private parties. It is generally believed that in many instances the intelligence flashed over the wires of the Western Union Telegraph Company has been effectually used for purposes of private speculation before it reached the parties for whom it was intended. In one notable instance it was generally believed that the returns of a presidential election were kept back until interested parties could avail themselves of the knowledge privately obtained for speculative purposes. It is not necessary to determine whether these suspicions were well grounded or not; it is sufficient to note that they exist, and that the public has no means of protecting itself against the perpetration of such wrongs so long as the telegraph is in the hands of private parties. If the telegraph is a department of the government the public can hold the government responsible for its administration and need not wait for legal proof of an abuse in order to correct it.

The whole matter may be summed up in one brief paragraph. There are certain public functions absolutely necessary to the life of the nation. Government is one, but only one, of these functions. Popular education is another; the carriage of the mails another; and the transmission of telegraphic messages has become still another. Whether the government shall itself perform these functions or leave them to be performed for it by private enterprise is a question to be determined wholly by a consideration of another question, namely, In which way will the public welfare be best served? Theory and experience combine to answer that, as the public can better transmit its own mails, so it can better transmit its own telegraphic messages than by leaving either to be done for it by private enterprise.