many things he would not willingly have learned if he had not had his imagination awakened. Thus for example, he had witnessed John McCullough play "Julius Cæsar." Some days later he came to us to ask if the things really occurred which he had beheld, and if Cæsar, Antony, Brutus and Cassius actually lived and had acted and thought as they did on the stage. This afforded the opportunity to interest the boy in Roman history. It, indeed, started him in a study which we doubt if he could have been induced to take up, had not the door of history been opened by the vivid pictures presented to his imagination in this play.

On another occasion he came to us to know if we believed the hero acted right in a certain crisis, and if certain things were the best that he could have done under the circumstances; and this afforded an opportunity to impress some ethical truths that we could not have effectively presented had not the boy come with eager inquiry stimulated by thoughts aroused by the play.

Watching the effect of the stage on this plastic mind, and seeing how the boy lived for days in the thought-world created in his mind by the plays, first directed our attention to the potential value of the theater as an engine for moral as well as intellectual development.

The second illustration we desire to cite as an example of the influence of the drama, has to do with the play of "Young Mrs. Winthrop." Many years ago we witnessed that charming play in company with a wellknown educator. After seeing it, our friend said:

"I would give a great deal if some friends of mine who have drifted apart, and others who are drifting from each other, could see that drama."

A few years later we were discussing the potential value of the theater with a lady from a Western city, when she said:

"Did you ever see 'Young Mrs. Winthrop' played? Well," she continued, "let me tell you something that will interest you in con

nection with that play. When it was produced in our city, over two years ago, two friends of mine, a husband and wife who had quarrelled and separated, (we think she said that divorce proceedings had been instituted; if not, they were about to be commenced) were both at the theater when the play was acted. After it was over, the husband went to the wife, who was weeping, and asked to have a talk with her. Together they went to her home. A full reconciliation followed, and to-day there is not a happier home in our city than theirs."

These illustrations serve to emphasize the thought we would impress.

To us it is a promising sign of a change that shall make the theater a positive force for the higher education of the people, that during the last few years a number of very notable plays of positive worth have appeared, and for the most part have been highly successful. "The Middleman," "The Man of the Hour," and Charles Klein's "The Lion and the Mouse" and "Daughters of Men," are typical examples of plays which must impress thoughtful people with the value of the stage and the importance of recognizing and making the drama one of the great factors for social righteousness.

We of to-day have a great responsibility resting upon us. No man lives to himself, and in a period like ours, when the forces of materialistic commercialism are so aggressively battling with moral idealism, it is vitally important that we summon to the cause of spiritual growth or true progress every agency that appeals to the reason, heart and imagination.

To-morrow is big with possibilities for humanity if we do our duty. Therefore, in the language of Victor Hugo, "Let us devote ourselves to the good, to the true, to the just. . . . Here is the truth: to sing the ideal, to love humanity, to believe in progress, to pray toward the infinite.”

Boston, Massachusetts.

B. O. FLOWER.

TH

effective legislation to protect themselves from the great law-defying and moral criminals, is found in the power wielded by the money-controlled party machines in thwarting the popular will and securing enough handy-men of the campaign-contributing corporations to defeat, emasculate or by means of jokers render unconstitutional all measures that would prove a real menace to the crim

Now the enemies of popular government are not only of the nation's own household, but they are posing as her chief friends and protectors and they are reinforced in city, state and national government. They have at their beck and call a large number of the most powerful daily papers of the land. They have retained an army of the most brilliant intellectual prostitutes that the bar of any nation has ever produced. Their hold on the national resources or the wealth of the country is so great, through ownership of the railways, the telegraph, telephone and express companies, and almost all other public utilities, and control of the banks, insurance companies and the great trusts and monopolies, that they can instantly control millions upon millions of dollars to maintain a position of defiance against the law of the land, to manufacture public sentiment against any incorruptible statesman, be he President of the United States or leader of the opposition, to control party machinery by vast corruption funds contributed to campaign committees and for elevating their handy-men to places of trust, while discrediting and driving into retirement all persons who cannot be bribed, seduced or frightened from resolute defence of the principles of free government and the rights of the people.

How Popular Government is Being
Overthrown.

The master secret of the growing powerlessness of the people in their efforts to secure

ized class as effective for their practical mastership of government and the people's resources as were the great feudal lords of the Middle Ages; and with the steady advance of corporate power in the control of the party machinery of the dominant parties and its hold on the great papers of both parties, it has grown more and more brazen and insolent in its attitude toward the people and all popular leaders of any party who consistently seek to curb the criminal aggressions of corporate wealth and to destroy corrupt practices in connection with government. The recent systematic attempt made from the Atlantic to the Pacific by the feudalism of privileged wealth and the Wall Street gamblers and high financiers, through the great newspapers of both parties which they control and through various other opinion-forming agencies, to discredit President Roosevelt and weaken his influence after he delivered his message of January 31st, is but one of several illustrations of how this new power that is overthrowing popular rule summons to its assistance its army of retainers, handymen and serfs to discredit or destroy any one, no matter how high his station, who attempts to destroy lawlessness, corrupt practices and gross injustice evil conditions that are absolutely overthrowing popular government.

Further illustrations of how the feudalism of wealth and the party machines are overthrowing popular government are found in the nullification of the will of the people or the overthrow of honest elections in various great cities, as, for example, in Philadelphia, when, after it had been overwhelmingly proved for years that the corrupt political boss and his mechine, backed by privilegeseeking wealth, had been guilty of ballot-box stuffing, political intimidation, padding elec