text:
Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/327

Rh averted the evil day, could not go on for the want of funds, and the army—such as it was—subsisting on the plunder of helpless villages, perpetrated every conceivable atrocity, and, at last, drove the whole nation to forget private quarrels and unite, as one man, in a war of extermination against the invaders.

When money began to fail, and creditors to clamor, and it became evident, even to his dull senses, that a change must come, instead of reducing expenses, converting everything available into funds with which to pay the army and recruit followers from all ranks of society, then inaugurating a new and vigorous, but honorable campaign, he dallied and trifled, yielding to first one party, then the other, never being in the same mind two days in succession, and, finally, committed the fatal mistake of endeavoring to crush his enemies at a blow of the pen instead of the sword, and by compelling them to fight with the halter around their necks, increase the effectiveness of his own army, which wanted every element calculated to ensure success for his cause. When he signed the black flag decree, he reduced his followers to the level of common cut-throats and banditti, and drove his opponents to desperation.

I do not believe that the establishment of a permanent Empire in Mexico was ever practicable, but Maximilian might have won to himself a large and influential party, which would have sustained him for a long time, and in the end might have retired from the country without dishonor to himself, and with the respect, if not the sympathy of mankind, had he but possessed the smallest amount of practical common sense, and been less easily tickled with empty compliments, paid applause, and the gaudy feathers and tinsel with which


text:
Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/328

316 he covered himself, and strutted his little hour upon the stage.

Probably it is better as it is, and Maximilian served the world better as material with which "to point a moral, and adorn a tale," than he could ever have done as a statesman and a ruler by "right Divine;" nevertheless, one cannot but feel a touch of regret, as he stands amid these ruins, and reflects upon the wide difference between the mournful fact, and the brighter possibility; what was, and what might have been.

The archives contain the decrees and other documents issued by each of the different governments and administrations of Mexico, from the Spanish conquest, down to the present day, with the single exception of those of Maximilian's Empire, which are ignored and treated as of no validity or importance whatever. All the documents emanating from that source are kept separate, as having no part in the legitimate history of Mexico. Among them is one which must stand as a full, complete, and irrefutable answer to all charges of cruelty and undue severity on the part of Mexico and the Juarez administration, in the matter of the execution of Maximilian. The act has been denounced in the most unmeasured terms by the sympathizers with monarchy, and the admirers of royalty in the United States and Europe, and even men whose education and natural instincts have led them, in all other matters, to take the side of the people against those who pretend to rule by "right Divine," have been so far misled by false statements and perversion of fact, as to characterize it as a murder.

Let us see the facts: Maximilian came into Mexico at the invitation of Napoleon III., backed by French

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/329

 Rh and followed by an army of foreign mercenaries. A vote, taken only in places held by the French where the result was a foregone conclusion, and the entire movement a farce of the broadest description, as he well knew, proclaimed him the choice of the Mexican people, and he assumed the title and state of Emperor of Mexico. The defenders of the Republic were hunted down like wild beasts, and killed as fast as captured, until all hope seemed gone, and the Empire appeared so securely established that the professions of good will, mild intentions, and clemency, with which he entered the country, could be safely ignored, and the mask was thrown off, at once. The report was spread abroad in advance—as an excuse for the decree which was to follow—that President Juarez, who had been pursued with the most vindictive energy by the partizans and retainers of Maximilian, had been, at last, driven across the Rio Grande, at El Paso del Norte, into the United States; and thereupon the following proclamation, which lies before me as I write, was issued:


text:
Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/330

 318

Mexico, October 2d, 1865. M

In other words the French and mercenary troops had driven Juarez over the boundary—he never crossed it but the assertion was made for effect—and the Empire now felt strong enough to throw off the mask and hoist the black flag in form; it had done so, in fact and practice, from the very outset, but a show of clemency must be made, in order to conciliate public opinion and blind the eyes of the world at large, until a time arrived when it could with safety adopt a truly imperial policy, such as would be in keeping with the traditions of the house of Hapsburg-Lorraine. On the next day after the publication of the above quoted decree, the famous and infamous "Black Flag Decree," which cost Maximilian his life two years later, was signed and issued. This most remarkable document of our times was as follows:


text:
Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/331

Rh


text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Haldane, Richard Burdon


text:
Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/332

320


text:
Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/333

Rh


text:
Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/334

322


text:
Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/335

Rh The suborned apologists for Maximilian—the records of the Imperial treasury show that the sum of fifteen thousand dollars was remitted monthly to New York "for the press"—have asserted that this infamous proclamation was issued under the false impression that Juarez had fled from the territory of the Republic, and that Maximilian was deceived in this matter by the French. But it will be seen that this proclamation was issued October 3d, 1865, and Maximilian's surrender to, or capture by the victorious forces of the Republic, took place on the 17th of May, 1867,— nearly two years later. During all this time the butchery of prisoners of war under this decree went on, without so much as a protest against it by Maximilian, and the decree itself was never modified, nor action under it suspended for a moment. Surely, when he stood at bay at Queretaro, with the Republican army surrounding him at all points, he could not have been under the impression that the war had dwindled down to a mere guerrilla conflict; and still the butchery of prisoners under this decree went on. Only two or three days before the capture of Maximilian at Queretaro, a young man named Mercado, son of one of the best families of Mexico, was captured by the Imperial forces, and murdered within the twenty-four hours, as prescribed by this decree.

Again, it is alleged that the decree was only intended to beheld in terrorem over the heads of Republicans, and was never intended to be put in force. The falsity of this plea is evidenced by the decree itself, which in express terms forbids the reception of any petition for pardon by the officer, and directs him to report the capture of prisoners after they have been executed, and not before.


text:
Page:The Government of Iowa 1911.djvu/22

 representing 33,228,109 acres of land. The estimated value of these farms is $1,552,106,449, not including the value of buildings and farm implements. Upon these 209,163 farms the great bulk of the wealth of Iowa is produced. Corn is the chief farm product, the annual crop being estimated at 346,577,988 bushels; but wheat, oats, barley, and rye are also produced in goodly quantities, to say nothing of hay, vegetables, fruits, and berries. The total value of farm products in Iowa in the year 1905 was estimated at $203,888,540. The value of live stock (cattle, hogs, sheep, horses, and fowls) upon the farms of Iowa is even greater than the value of the products of the soil, being estimated in 1905 at $218,447,468. If now we add to these two already large sums the value of the Iowa farms and the estimated annual value of the mineral products, such as coal, clay, stone, gypsum, lead, and zinc ($14,961,293), we have a grand total of $437,297,301. But these figures, almost beyond comprehension, still give us only an imperfect idea of the wealth of Iowa. Manufactures are rapidly growing in this great agricultural and stock-raising State; and the value of the annual products of 4788 manufacturing establishments is given as $160,604,161.

The Railroads. — To carry the products of Iowa to the markets of the world, private enterprise has literally covered the State with a network of railroads. Over nine thousand miles of rails traverse the State; and every one of our ninety-nine counties is crossed by one or more railroads. Indeed, it is asserted that few farmers are more than ten miles distant from a railroad station.


text:
Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/336

324 Then it was said that this was only aimed at the guerillas, and not at the regular Republican army. Articles one and two are drawn in terms which cannot be mistaken, and leave no possibility of a question on this point; and if any doubt existed after reading the decree, the records of the Empire itself prove beyond a question, what was meant and what was done.

Among these records, the first document relating to executions under this decree, is a report to the War Department from the State of Michoacan, signed by Colonel R. Mendez, and dated October 13th. In this report Col. Mendez details the particulars of the surprise of General Arteaga by his command, and adds:

Appended to this report is a note by the officer next in command, as follows:

All these officers, and many hundred captured subsequently, were murdered under this decree. Señor Romero writing to Mr. Seward on this subject, under date of Nov. 20th, 1865, says:


text:
Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/337

Rh seen, has already begun to be executed. I have information, of the truth of which unhappily, there is no doubt, that the two generals and four colonels were barbarously sacrificed in flagrant violation of the laws of war, and every principle of justice.

These generals and colonels belonged to the regular army of the Republic, were officers of education and profession, and had fought for the independence of their country from the time the French first landed in Mexico.

General Arteaga had reached the highest rank in the Mexican army, and had recently succeeded ex-General Uraga in command, in the army of the center. He was thoroughly loyal, a patriot without blemish, and enjoyed a high reputation for honesty and probity among his fellow-countrymen of all political shades. His constancy and suffering in the campaign against the French, Austrian and Belgian invaders in the State of Michoacan, for the last two years, would suffice to give him a great reputation, if he had not already possessed one. His humanity was proverbial, as the French, Belgian, and Austrian soldiers who were taken prisoners by his forces at different times can testify.

The other chiefs and officers who were made prisoners with General Arteaga, though they had not arrived at the high position of their leader, were not less respectable and worthy.

These distinguished Mexicans were executed in accordance with the above-mentioned bloody decree of the usurper of Mexico."

Nor has the worst and most damning fact in connection with this fearful crime been related. The officers named, fell into the hands of the traitor Mendez on the 13th of October, and he, being in doubt of the true purport of the decree, or willing, for his own credit, to appear to be so, kept them alive until the 21st of October, and then shot them all in obedience to a peremptory mandate from the Imperial Minister of War, directing


text:
Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/338

326 him, on this and all subsequent occasions, to execute the provisions of the decree to the very letter. Can any honest man stand here with these damning records before him, and maintain that Maximilian did not deserve his fate? It does not seem to me to be possible, and I can only attribute the sympathy Maximilian has received in the United States, to gross ignorance of the facts of history, and his true character.

There is a positive relief in turning from the perusal of this infernal decree, and the record of the butcheries performed under it, to the letters of the loyal men who were the first sacrificed, written to their mothers during their last moments. These letters should be translated into all languages, and published, as the most effective answer to the charges of cruelty and unnecessary harshness in the matter of the treatment of Maximilian, made so freely against the Liberals of Mexico. Here they are:


text:
Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/339

Rh

Things did change indeed; and the remains of Arteaga and Salazar were removed to the Pantheon at Mexico, and entombed with great pomp among the Nation's Dead, a short time before the visit of Mr. Seward to the Republic.


text:
Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/340

328 To the honor of the Belgians in the employ of Maximilian, let it be said that they protested most emphatically against this decree, and the murders which were perpetrated under it.

Two hundred Belgians, who were at the time in the hands of the Liberal forces at Tacambaro, signed a formal remonstrance to Maximilian on the subject, and Colonel Breuer issued the following manifesto:

To the Representatives of the Belgian Nation:


text:
Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/341

Rh remonstrated with him upon the enormity of the deed: "What matters it? They can only revenge themselves upon the Belgians." This alluded to the fact that all the other (French) prisoners had been exchanged.

"We expected that all the Belgian prisoners would "be put to death; but the republic of Mexico being great and generous, like all free nations, deferred to act until after learning the action of the administration of the empire toward this Colonel Mendez.

The emperor is very fond of this man. He has already sacrificed our brave colonel, and he may sacrifice the lives of all the Belgian prisoners.

Gentlemen, it is incumbent upon you to intervene. The Belgian legion desired long since to return to its native country. It did not wish to take part in this iniquitous war, or to serve longer under an empire wherein such deeds are allowed to be committed.

Representatives of the nation, your duty calls you to act wherever the Belgian name is at stake. This is not a question of party, but of nationality.

Representatives of Belgium, remember our motto, "Unity and Strength." It behooves you to speak. "We call upon you in the name of Belgium, whose honest confidence has been abused. Representatives of Belgium, it behooves you to see that the blood of Belgians be not sacrificed. In the name of the country do your duty.

On behalf of the Belgian prisoners taken by the Republican army.

But "whom the Gods would destroy they first make mad." Maximilian never disowned the act, nor raised his finger to put a stop to the other butcheries which followed, and Mendez continued in his favor to the end. The tide turned at last, and Escobedo was compelled to shoot one hundred and sixty-three foreign mercenaries, taken prisoners by him in the battle with Miramon


text:
Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/342

 330 when the latter was defeated at Zacatacas. Then, the whole United States runs: with lamentations and denunciations of "this act of barbarism," on his part. Maximilian was hunted down and brought to the Cerro de Las Campanas, to receive the punishment due to a filibuster, robber, and murderer of prisoners of war, and the royal sufferer had all our sympathy. Is this impartial justice between man and man?

The business of "finding" Aztec relics, pottery, etc., etc., is carried on here and in the vicinity quite extensively, and there is good reason to suppose that many of the articles thus brought to light from time to time, are veritable relics of that ancient race. I am indebted to Señor Miron of Vera Cruz, for some recently dug up at Medalin, which are undoubtedly genuine. On the other hand, many articles of pottery in the form of hideous, half-human, half: brute monstrosities, which I have had offered me as relics recently exhumed from the ancient burial mounds and ruined temples, I am satisfied had not been buried a year, and I would not pay the freight on them to San Francisco if they were given to me.

All around the Lakes of Mexico there are traces of ancient potteries, and I noticed that the bits of broken red earthenware scattered about them, are identical, in composition and color, with those I have picked up in "the valley of the Mississippi, and supposed to be relics of the ancient mound-builders. Among the veritable relics of the Aztecs over the authenticity of which there can be no question, may be mentioned the great Aztec calendar, cut on the face of an irregular block of lava from Popocatépetl, some twelve feet in height by ten in breadth, which has been


text:
Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/343

Rh so often described by travelers and scientific men, from Cortez to Humboldt, and from Humboldt down. This is now built into the western wall of the great Cathedral of Mexico, and can be seen and inspected by everybody.

But more interesting than this, is the collection which I found, lying heaped carelessly together, and unguarded from Vandal hands, in the patio of one of the old Convents—now a school for young ladies—near the Palacio Nacional. If this collection was left thus unguarded, at the mercy of the relic hunters of the United States or Europe, there would not be a piece as large as a chestnut left in forty-eight hours. The people who cut into infinitesimal chips, the three last ties, and broke into fragments and carried off, within two hours, the last iron rail of the Pacific railroad, or those ladies(?) who rushed to the place at the table at which the Prince of Wales had been sitting in an English town a few months since, and quarreled and fought for the possession of the cherry stones which he had spit out of his mouth, would make short work of them.

The chief of these relics is the great sacrificial stone, a block of fine-grained lava, shaped like a mill-stone, ten feet in diameter, and over three feet in thickness, covered with boldly sculptured figures, and elaborately wrought on every part. In the center of this stone is a basin, holding about as much as an ordinary American wooden pail, into which the blood of the human victims ran, when the Priests of the Sun, cut open their bosoms with flint knives and tore out their living hearts. From this basin a channel cut in the face of the stone conducted the blood to the side, from whence it ran down into a large stone trough, which is now to be seen


text:
Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/344

 332 near the great stone itself. Thousands of victims perished on this stone; some say hundreds of thousands; and the blood so permeated the porous lava that the dark red stain can still be distinguished, after the lapse of more than three centuries.

The hideous idols, serpents, and other monstrosities—all rudely cut from great blocks of lava—which adorned the temple of Cholula, lie piled against the wall, neglected and covered with dust, in the vicinity of the great altar stone. I am told that this huge sacrificial stone—contrary to the common belief—is not that which adorned the great temple of Tenochtitlan which stood on the site of the great Cathedral of our day, but was brought from Cholula. It must have been a tremendous feat to move such a heavy weight so great a distance, over such roads, and without steam power. The veritable sacrificial stone of the great temple of Tenochtitlan, is said to lie buried under the Cathedral, where the great cross is now erected, and it is certain that the bones of many thousands of human beings supposed to have perished upon it, fill all the ground where the Cathedral stands.

It is believed by many, that nearly all the old city of Tenochtitlan—the Aztec name of Mexico—is buried under the present city, and some even assert that below that are to be found ruins of a still older city, built by a race before the Aztecs. However that may be, it is evident that Tenochtitlan was built on an unhealthy marsh much below the level of the streets of Mexico, and nearly surrounded by water. The foundations of buildings in the present city are laid very deep, and the walls are immensely thick. All over the city, wherever an excavation is made for building, old Aztec


text:
Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/351

 Rh other not bulky valuables on deposit for safe keeping, the owner being required to make only a nominal loan of one dollar upon them, in order to bring it into the books of the institution. It also takes on deposit, in trust, from the courts, all moneys in dispute, and the proceeds of unsettled estates, and receives one or two per cent, per annum for ensuring its safety. It is contemplated also to found a savings-bank feature of the institution, and by putting the money at interest, aid the depositors to increase their funds without risk.

There are three grand divisions; one devoted to clothing, another to miscellaneous goods, and the last and most important, to diamonds, plate, and costly jewelry. In this last named, I saw goods piled up in separate compartments in a single room, valued at two million dollars upon the books of the institution, and probably worth in the United States, at least four million dollars or five million dollars. The valuation of diamonds is at about the rate of sixty dollars per carat, for perfect stones of that weight,—say, at least thirty-three and one-third less than the value in our market; and I am told that the diamonds, pearls, rubies, and emeralds, which are sold, are largely purchased by people going to the United States and Europe who frequently realize large profits from their sale in those countries. One set, which sold that month at the public sale, for five hundred dollars, has since been sold at one thousand dollars to my knowledge, in New York, and will be sent to Europe to be sold again.

At this time, when there is an immense amount of suffering among the "middle classes," and the old families, who were once rich, but now deprived of all income with no hopeful future before them, at the same


text:
Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/350

338 profits of the business were, for seventy-five years, devoted to paying for masses for the repose of the soul of the pious founder of the institution; but as a gentleman connected with the institution naively remarked to me, "it is fair to suppose that after seventy-five years of prayer, one's soul will be Out of hot water if ever," and the masses are now discontinued, and the annual profits applied to the founding of branch establishments, of which there are three now in the city.

The original capital of three hundred thousand dollars is still intact, and in addition there are accumulations and deposits to the amount of four hundred thousand dollars, so that the capital actually now in use, is seven hundred thousand dollars. Last year the number of loans made at this parent bank was one hundred thousand in round numbers, and the aggregate of the amounts loaned, one million six hundred thousand dollars, or an average of sixteen dollars to each loan. The number of loans seldom falls below two hundred in a day, and often reaches two thousand. Of all the articles deposited in the bank as security for loans, about two thirds are ultimately redeemed. The bank, in any event, never loses. If after all precautions, an article is found to have been stolen before being pawned, the owner must repay the amount loaned.

Señor Cendejas, in order to accustom the Mexican people to the use of paper money in some shape, and to encourage them in accumulating and laying it up against future contingencies, has introduced the system of receiving "confidential deposits," for which the bank issues certificates payable to bearer at sight, which are now current for their face at any point in the Republic. The bank also receives jewelry, plate, diamonds, and


text:
Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/352

340 time that they must struggle to "keep up appearances" before the world, the deposits of diamonds, watches, and fine jewelry are something enormous, and constantly increasing. I was shown,—under cover of the promise of secrecy, of course—set after set of diamonds and pearls of great value, which had adorned the persons of the proudest and most haughty beauties of any land, many of whom are known to history. One set, of antique pattern, but great value, once adorned the brow of "Isabella the Catholic," who sold them to fit out Columbus for his voyage which gave to Castile and to Leon, a New World. I was allowed to draw from its solid gold and diamond incrusted scabbard, and inspect, the sword of one of the famous generals of the early part of this century, on which twenty-seven hundred dollars had been loaned.

Such a commentary on the vanity of human pride and ambition as may be read on each of the four walls of this great, cold, silent, vaulted chamber, I do not care to read again. All the forms which human vanity assumes are there. The jeweled order bestowed by Iturbide, or Santa Anna, or Maximilian, or some European monarch; the golden cup which figured at the baptism of some child of a noble house; the silver plate off which royal guests have dined; the saint in frame of solid gold; the saddle, one mass of burnished silver, on which the successful revolutionist rode in triumph; the watch-chain and trinkets of the courtezan, and the jeweled cross worn on the bosom of the pious and sainted mother of an honored family, lie there side by side, and will go out together, to be sold to strangers, and borne away to strange lands, to be regarded, henceforth as curious mementoes of travel and adventure, and nothing more.


text: Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/353


text: Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/354


text:
Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/359

Rh raised roadway paved with lava, and furnished with fourteen turnouts, or wide stations, each with a chapel, commemorative of the fourteen chief incidents in the life of Our Savior, are constructed from the northern gate of the city, to the enclosure of the church of Guadaloupe, and along this a thousand penitents might be seen at once crawling on their knees the entire distance, stopping at each station to spend some time in prayer and meditation. Of late years the fanaticism of the devotees at the shrine of Guadaloupe has fallen away, and the attendance is less great—though still, almost incredibly large.

The Indians come from all their villages within a radius of one hundred miles at least, on foot, packing their luggage and loads of fruit and vegetables, to be sold to procure funds for offerings at the shrine all the way on their backs. Men and women, boys and young girls, tramp along barefooted over the dusty and stony roads, sleeping by the roadside at night; and children too small to walk, are carried on their parents shoulders, all the way. Even the donkeys and dogs belonging to the family accompanying them, and it is no


text:
Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/376

362 gold, silver, and copper coins and medals, struck in Mexico since the Spanish conquest, with their dies, all in perfect preservation are there, and thousands of old Roman coins, with most of the coins and medals issued in Europe within the last five centuries. There are many specimens of the coins and medals issued by Maximilian. Among the former is one in silver, representing the Virgin of Guadaloupe on one side, and Maximilian on the other, and another which represents Maximilian and Carlotta on the obverse, and the Virgin on the reverse. Maximilian was exceedingly vain of his repulsive face, and placed his likeness on every thing which could be made to bear it. "With all its faults and short comings, the National school of Art and Design in Mexico is infinitely superior to anything similar on the continent; and it will be long before we shall equal it in the United States. Some years since the students planned and erected a magnificent structure for this School outside the San Cosme Gate in the direction of Chapultepec, near the Agricultural College, but during the siege by Porfirio Diaz, the Imperialists occupied it, and his cannon riddled it into a cullender, and it is now a complete ruin. I rode out there one day, and saw where the Californians under Col. Green crawled up in a ditch to within a hundred yards of the walls, and with their Henry rifles shot down the Imperialist gunners at their posts, silencing their cannon, while the batteries of the Republicans sent their shot crashing through and through the structure, until it became a perfect wreck and untenable.

The College of Mines or Mining College was one of the noblest educational institutions of Mexico in its design, and it had been famous for half a century, before,


text:
Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/384

370 upon every street and on every block, and you can only escape their importunities while in your own house or hotel, by giving the strictest orders to your servants to exclude them. Many of these beggars are really needy, sick, maimed and helpless; but many others are graceless impostors. There is no public provision for the helpless and deserving poor, and every year the beggars increase in numbers.

The increase of late years has been very great. Only when you say "pardone!" will the street beggars bow and leave you. The numbers of horribly maimed wretches you see on the streets of Mexico is almost incredible.

The absence of anything like the bustle and noise of a northern city, is noticed at once by a stranger in Mexico. Wholesale trade there is next to none at all, and the retail stores are small, and for the most part poorly patronized. You see no drays loaded with goods for the interior, going through the streets as with us, and the cry of the auctioneer is unheard. Mexico is in no sense a commercial or manufacturing city; its productive industries hardly equaling those of a town of a tenth part of its population in the New England States. You hear the voice of the "church going bell," from morning to night, but listen in vain for the note


text:
Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/385

Rh of the steam-whistle calling operatives to their work, or the hum of busy factories, and the clanking of the laboring engine. Church towers attract the eye on all sides, but you look in vain for the factory chimney.

Hawkers of all kinds of goods, rebosas, and serapes, bridles, saddlery, spurs, boots and shoes, jewelry, and in fact nearly everything usually kept in a country variety store, swarm about the plaza, and under the portals, on all the principal streets. Around the market, a large portion of the country produce and garden vegetables are sold by the men and women who bring it in upon their backs, in great crates or hampers. The chicken, orange, vegetable, and earthenware venders will be readily recognized by any visitor to Mexico. The protuberance of the eyes of all these people, caused by carrying such enormous back-loads from infancy, is their most marked feature.

The citizens of the capital are supplied with water, in a great measure, by licensed water carriers, who sell the contents of a three pail jar borne on their backs, and a smaller one carried in front, all for three cents,


text:
Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/386

372 it in the house. The water carrier generally finishes his work by noon, and by 2 is blind, but quietly drunk on pulque.

A curious but effective illustration of the character of the climate of Mexico, is found in the fact that comments on the weather—the staple subject of conversation with us—are seldom heard, and do not enter into or form a part of the regular topics of the day.

I noticed many times during our stay in the capital, that when Mr. Seward would remark, "It is a delightful day!" or pass some other comment on the weather, the Mexicans present would respond politely in the affirmative, but with an air which plainly indicated that they were in doubt as to what was meant by the remark. One day, after a glorious ride out to Tacubuya and Chapultepec, in which I had most heartily enjoyed the pure air and warm, soft sunshine, I said to one of the younger daughters of the President, a frank-hearted, outspoken, and most amiable young lady, "This is a beautiful day! "She looked at me a moment with the old look of puzzled doubt on her face, and said, "I do not understand you!" I repeated the remark, and she then replied : "Si Señor


text:
Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/387

Rh Como no” (Yes sir; why not?") and then went on to say that all the days were beautiful as a general thing; only now and then a norther making it otherwise. The fact is, that the weather is so generally beautiful, and the exceptions so rare, that the words we use so often every week in our changeable climate, have no appreciable meaning to the dwellers in this favored clime.

The belief in the "evil eye," a superstition of purely Eastern origin, is quite common among the lower classes of the Mexican people. Many times I have seen a poor Mexican mother standing by the roadside, with her young infant in her arms, and on observing one of our party looking towards her, draw the end of her rebosa quickly over the face of the child, lest its fortunes should be blighted and its soul imperiled by the glance of the stranger. The superstition is confined solely to the lower class of the people, but it manifests itself exactly as it does in Arabia and the Barbary States to this day, and evidently came to America with the Spaniards. It is customary in all Spanish American countries to offer a guest everything which he may require for his.


text:
Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/388

374 comfort and convenience, and literally, to put the entire house, and every thing in it, at his disposal for the time being. This practice grows out of a genuine feeling of liberality, and hospitality, but the language used is such as to be quite readily misunderstood by a stranger who measures expressions by the cold matter-of-fact rule in use in colder countries, and attaches more weight to a mere formality than it is justly entitled to. When you enter the house of a friend, or even a person to whom you have a letter of introduction, in Spanish America, he at once tells you, that you are "in your own house," and that you are the master and he your guest, or something to that effect. He really expects you to make yourself at home in the broadest sense of the term, but on the other hand, pays you the compliment of supposing that you have, at least, an ordinary amount of common sense, and will know enough of what constitutes the rules and customs of society, not to abuse, the offer, and outstay your welcome.

If you particularly admire any picture, or article of jewelry or furniture, he will immediately tell you that it is at your disposal, and you are quite


text:
Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/389

Rh to carry it away with you. He does not, in all probability, expect you to accept the offer; but if you are ignorant or ill-bred enough to do so, he will conceal his chagrin, if he feels any, and permit you to carry away anything you fancy, however inconvenient it may be for him to part with it.

Sometimes ludicrous, and even painful results follow this misapprehension of the true value of courteous expressions made by a host or hostess to a guest. I remember a case of an English lady who was on a visit to Mexico, and on making the acquaintance of a family of wealth and position, was one day offered a beautiful and valuable set of diamonds and emeralds, which had been in the family for generations. She was told, of course, that she was welcome to take them away with her, and in the innocence of her heart did so.

The result was, that mutual friends learning the true state of the case, were compelled to go to her and explain how matters stood, much to her mortification. She at once returned the jewels with an explanation that they had proved, on trial, not to suit her complexion and style of dress, and offering in return for the


text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Haldane, Robert


text:
Page:The Government of Iowa 1911.djvu/23

 The Climate. — It is not the soil alone that has made Iowa rich and prosperous: the climate must also be taken into account. Millions of acres of fertile land are scarcely better than a desert of sand if climatic conditions are not favorable to the growth of plant and animal life. The director of the Iowa Weather and Crop Service says: "Situated near the geographical center of the United States, too far inland to receive the equalizing thermal effects of winds blowing directly from the oceans, the climate of Iowa is strictly continental in type. This implies a very wide range in temperature, winters of considerable severity, summers of almost tropical heat, and a large percentage of sunshine as compared with insular regions. As there are no mountain ranges, nor considerable differences in the altitude of the several sections, the climate of the state is quite homogeneous.… In fact, it is the best watered and most productive mid-continent region known on earth. Its worst drouths and seasons of floods have never been famine breeders." A complete failure of crops has never been known in Iowa.

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT.


text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Haldeman, Samuel Stehman


text:
Page:Our Philadelphia (Pennell, 1914).djvu/472

452 policemen. It is true they were there to welcome not me, but the President of the United States who was due by the next train, and were supported by the City Troop, as indispensable a part of my Philadelphia as the sky over my head and the bricks under my feet; true also that, well-uniformed, well-mounted, well-groomed as they were, I felt they would be a credit to any town. But the shock was to find them there at all. Philadelphia in my day could not have run, or would not have wanted to run, to anything so officially imposing; that it could and did now was a warning there was no mistaking. Whatever Philadelphia might have developed, or deteriorated, into, it was not any longer the Philadelphia I had known and loved.

It was the same sort of warning all the way after that. Wherever I went, wherever I turned, I stumbled upon an equally impossible jumble of the familiar and the unfamiliar. At times, I positively ached with the joy of finding places so exactly as I remembered them that I caught myself saying, just here "this" happened, or "that," as I and my Youth met ourselves; at others I could have cried for the absurdity, the tragedy, of finding everything so different that never in a foreign land had I seemed more hopelessly a foreigner.

I did not have to go farther than my hotel for a reminder that Philadelphia, to oblige me, had not stood altogether still during my quarter of a century's absence, but had been, and was, busy refashioning itself into something preposterously new. From one of my high windows


text:
Page:Our Philadelphia (Pennell, 1914).djvu/475

Rh I might look down to the Phihidelphia Library and the Episcopal Academy,—those two bulwarks of Philadelphia respectability—and beyond, stretching peacefully away to the peaceful curves of the Delaware, to a wide plain of flat red roofs and chimneys, broken by the green lines of the trees that follow the straight course of Philadelphia's streets and by the small green spaces of the trees that shade Philadelphia's back-yards: level and lines and spaces I knew as well as a lesson learnt by heart. But, from the midst of this red plain of roofs, huge high buildings, like towers, that I did not know, sprang up into the blue air, increasing in number as my eye wandered northward until, from the other window, I saw them gathered into one great, amazing, splendid group with William Penn, in full-skirted coat and broad-brimmed hat, springing still higher above them.

When I went down into the streets, I might walk for a minute or two between rows of the beloved old-fashioned red brick houses, with their white marble steps and their white shutters below and green above, and then, just as exultantly I began to believe them changeless as the Pyramids and the Sphinx, I would come with a jar upon a Gothic gable, an absurd turret, a Renaissance doorway, a façade disfigured by a hideous array of fire escapes, a sham Colonial house, or some other upstart that dated merely from yesterday or the day before. And here and there a sky-scraper of an apartment house swaggered in the midst of the little "homes" that were Philadelphia's


text:
Page:Our Philadelphia (Pennell, 1914).djvu/476

456 pride—the last new one, to my dismay, rearing its countless stories above the once inviolate enclosure of Rittenhouse Square.

When I went shopping in Chestnut Street my heart might rejoice at the sight of some of the well remembered names—Dreka, Darlington, Bailey, Caldwell, as indispensable in my memory as that of Penn himself—but it sank as quickly in the vain search for the many more that have disappeared, or indeed, for the whole topsy-turvy order of things that could open the big new department stores into Market Street and make it the rival of Chestnut as a shopping centre, or that could send other stores up to where stores had never ventured in my day: stores in Walnut Street as high as Eighteenth, a milliner's in Locust Street almost under the shadow of St. Mark's, a stock-broker at the corner of Fifteenth and Walnut, Hughes and Müller—I need tell no Philadelphian who Hughes and Müller are even if they have unkindly made two firms of the old one—within a stone's throw of Dr. Weir Mitchell's house; when I saw that I felt that sacrilege could go no further.

For sentiment's sake, I might eat my plate of ice-cream at the old little marble-topped table in the old Locust Street gloom at Sautter's, or buy cake at Dexter's at the old corner in Spruce Street, but Mrs. Burns with her ice-cream, Jones with his fried oysters, had vanished, gone away in the Ewigkeit as irrevocably as Hans Breitmann's Barty or the snows of yester-year. And Wyeth's and


text:
Page:The Government of Iowa 1911.djvu/24

 CHAPTER II. POPULATION AND ETHNIC ELEMENTS. The Making of a State. — A fertile soil and a genial climate are two very necessary elements in the creation of a Commonwealth. A third and most important factor is an intelligent, honest, and industrious people. It has been Iowa's good fortune to have such a population, without which, indeed, the figures given in the previous chapter could never have been written. But long before Iowa was settled by white men other peoples dwelt upon our rivers and roamed across our prairies.

Prehistoric Man. — The antiquity of mankind has always been a subject of greatest interest to man himself. As a human habitat Iowa is very old. Whether man was here before the glaciers is not at all certain. Evidences there are that a race or races of human beings dwelt in the Iowa country for countless generations before Columbus ever thought of his great western voyage. And even after the great discovery by Columbus, nearly two centuries had passed before the white man had gone so far into the interior of this continent as the Iowa country.

The Mound Builders. — It is believed that primitive man moved north as the glaciers disappeared, and that this first human inhabitant of the Mississippi Valley was 6


text:
1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Santo Domingo (state)

SANTO DOMINGO [, or officially ], a state in the West Indies. It occupies two-thirds of the island of ../Haiti/ (q.v.) and has an area of about 18,045 sq. m. The administration is in the hands of three co-ordinate “powers”—the executive, the legislative and the judicial. Under the constitution of 1844, modified in 1879, 1880, 1881, 1887, 1896, and 1908, the president is the head of the executive. He is chosen by an electoral college and serves for six years, and he is assisted by a cabinet of seven ministers. The legislature, called the National Congress, consists of a Senate of 12 members, and a Chamber of Deputies of 24 members elected for four years by a limited suffrage. The Supreme Court comprises a chief-justice, six justices appointed by the Congress, and one justice appointed by the president. The republic is divided into six provinces and six maritime districts. Each province and district is administered by a governor appointed by the Cabinet. There is a small army, most of which is stationed at the City of Santo Domingo, and military service is compulsory in the event of foreign war. The navy consists of one small gun-boat. Primary education is free and compulsory: elementary schools are supported largely by the local authorities, and the higher, technical and normal schools by the government. There is a professional school with the character and functions of a university. The Roman Catholic is the state religion, but all others are allowed under certain restrictions. The monetary unit is a silver coin of the value of a franc, called the dominicano, but in 1897 the United States gold dollar was adopted as the standard of value. The roads in the interior are primitive, but the government encourages the construction of railways. A line runs between Sanchez and La Vega, and another between Santiago and Porto Plata. The republic joined the Postal Union in 1880. The exports include tobacco, coffee, cacao, sugar, mahogany, logwood, cedar, satinwood, hides, honey, gum and wax. The collection of the customs and other revenues specially assigned to the securance of bonds was in the hands of an American company until 1899, when this defaulted in the payment of interest and the government took over the collection. In 1905, to forestall foreign intervention for securing payment of the State debt, President Roosevelt made an agreement with Santo Domingo, under which the United States undertook to adjust the republic's foreign obligations, and to assume charge of the customs houses. A treaty was ratified by the United States Senate in 1907, and an American citizen is temporarily receiver of customs. In June 1907 the debts amounted to $17,000,000.

History.—After the downfall of Toussaint l'Ouverture (see ) there followed the initiation of the black Haitian Empire under Jean Jacques Dessalines in 1803. Spain, however, established herself anew on the eastern end of the island in 1806, Haiti remaining independent. Santo Domingo continued thus a Spanish possession until 1821, when, under the authority and flag of Colombia, a republic was proclaimed, and the Spaniards withdrew. In the following year the Haitian president Boyer invaded Santo Domingo, joined it to Haiti and ruled the entire island till his fall in 1843. The Spanish part of the island again became independent of Haiti in 1844, when the Dominican Republic was founded, and since that time the two political divisions have been maintained, and their respective inhabitants have grown more and more estranged. The earlier years of the new republic were marked by the struggles between Pedro Santana and Buenaventura Bäez, who with the exception of a few months under Jiminez, occupied the presidency in turn until 1861. In that year Santana, with the consent of the people, proclaimed the annexation of Santo Domingo by Spain. The Spaniards, however, did not long enjoy their sovereignty, for the harshness of their rule provoked a successful revolution under José Maria Cabral in 1864; and in the following year they withdrew all claim to the country. Bäez was again chosen president, but was driven out by Cabral after a year of power.

From 1868 to 1873 Bäez was once again in office, and during this term overtures were made to the United States with a view to annexation. General O. E. Babcock was despatched by President Grant to report on the condition and resources of Santo Domingo, and while there, in 1869, he negotiated a treaty by which the republic was to become part of the United States. Although ratified by the Dominican Senate, this treaty was opposed in the United States Senate, under the leadership of Charles Sumner, and was finally rejected. In 1871 three commissioners were appointed by President Grant to report further, but although their report was favourable to annexation, no action was taken.

Bäez was succeeded by Gonzalez (1873-1879), under whom the country enjoyed a period of tranquillity. Great political agitation followed, which terminated in 1882 with the election of Ulises Heureaux, a negro, and capable statesman. Under his despotic rule of nearly 17 years, the republic enjoyed greater prosperity and tranquillity than it had ever known. He was assassinated in July 1899, and was succeeded by Jiminez, who was driven out by General Vasquez in 1902. Vasquez, in turn, was deposed by a revolution headed by General Wos y Gil, who became president in 1903, but was overthrown by Jiminez in November of that year. In 1904 Jiminez was expelled and C. F. Morales became president. Ramon Caceres was installed in 1906, and in 1908 a new constitution was proclaimed and Caceres was elected for the term 1908-1914.


text:
Page:Our Philadelphia (Pennell, 1914).djvu/479

Rh Hubbell's masqueraded under other names, and Shinn, from whom we used to buy our medicines, was dead, and the new firm sold cigars with their ice-cream sodas, and my Philadelphia was stuffed with saw-dust.

Not a theatre was as I had left it, new ones I had never heard of drawing the people who used to crowd the Chestnut, which has rung down its curtain on the last act of its last play even as I write; the Arch, given over now, alas! to the "Movies" and the "Movies" threaten the end of the drama not only at the Arch but at all theatres forever; well-patronized houses flourishing in North Broad Street; the staid Academy of Music thrown into the shadow by its giddy prosperous upstart of a rival up-town.

Vanished were old landmarks for which I confidently looked—the United States Mint from Chestnut Street; from Broad and Walnut the old yellow Dundas House with the garden and the magnolia for whose blossoming I had once eagerly watched with the coming of spring; from Thirteenth and Locust the old Paterson House, turned into the new, imposing, very much criticised building of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; from Eleventh and Spruce, that other garden overlooked by the windows of the house my Grandfather built and lived in, as my Father did after him, and, to me more cruel, the house itself passed into other hands, grown shabby with time, and the sign "For Sale" hanging on its neglected walls. Change, change, change—that was what I had come home for!


text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Santo Domingo (capital)


text:
Page:Our Philadelphia (Pennell, 1914).djvu/480

460 II

I am not sure, however, that I had not the worst shock of all when I wandered from the old home, further down Spruce Street, below the beautiful Eighteenth Century Hospital, dishonoured now and shut in on the Spruce Street side by I hardly know what in the way of new wings and wards. As I had left it, this lower part of Spruce and Pine and the neighbouring streets, had changed less perhaps than any other part of the town—has changed less to-day in mere bricks and mortar. It had preserved the appropriate background for its inheritance of history and traditions. Numerous Colonial houses remained and upon them those of later date were modelled. It had kept also the serenity and repose of the Quaker City's early days, the character, dignity, charm. Many old Philadelphia families had never moved away. It was clean as a little Dutch town with nothing to interrupt the quiet but the gentle jingling of the occasional leisurely horse-car.

And what did I find it?—A slum, captured by the Russian Jew, the old houses dirty, down-at-the-heel; the once spotless marble steps unwashed, the white shutters hanging loose; the decorative old iron hinges and catches and insurance plaques or badges rusting, and nobody can say how much of the old woodwork inside burned for kindling; Yiddish signs in the windows, with here a Jewish Maternity Home, and there a Jewish newspaper office; at


text:
Page:Our Philadelphia (Pennell, 1914).djvu/483

Rh every door, almost every window, and in groups in the street, men, women and children with Oriental faces, here and there a man actually in his caftan, bearded, with the little curls in front of his ears, and a woman with a handkerchief over her head, and all chattering in Yiddish and slatternly and dirty as I remembered them in South-Eastern Europe, from Carlsbad and Prague to those remote villages of Transylvania where dirt was the sign by which I always knew when the Jewish quarter was reached. A few patriotic Philadelphians have recently returned hoping to stem the current, and their houses shine with cleanliness. In Fourth Street the dignified Randolph House, which the family never deserted, seems to protest against the wholesale surrender to the foreign invasion. In Pine Street, St. Peter's, with its green graveyard, has survived untarnished the surrounding desecration. But I could only wonder how long the church and these few houses will be able to withstand the triumphing alien, and I abandoned hope when, at the very gate of St. Peter's, a woman with a handkerchief tied over her head stopped me to ask the way to "Zweit und Pine."

III

I know that the same thing is going on in almost all the older parts of the United States, and the new parts too—I know that some small New England towns can support their two and three Polish newspapers, that New York swarms with people who talk any and every


text:
Page:The Government of Iowa 1911.djvu/25

Rh Eskimoid in type. "It is supposed," says Dr. Duren J. H. Ward, "that this little Eskimoid man was followed by the famous Mound Builder, who finally spread his art and civilization up and down the Mississippi Valley and east and west for great distances. His characteristic works are found in Ohio and in Iowa, in Louisiana and in Wisconsin. He has left a vast amount of evidence as to his physical characteristics and the material stage of his civilization; but he is withal a great mystery. His mounds, so numerous, constitute together the most baffling problem in Archæology. What are they, what were they for? Some of them are doubtless the remains of his dwelling places, but many are not. Some have religious significance; some may have been for defence. Doubtless in many of them is buried the owner of the lodge which once existed thereon or thereby. Probably with his bones are to be found his implements of peace and war, and oft-times, too, the bones of his slaves and his wives, who were sacrificed to accompany his spirit on the long voyage to the land of the Great Spirit."

What became of the Mound Builder is a great mystery. He had disappeared, no one knows how long, before the first white man discovered the Mississippi Valley. That he lived in Iowa in great numbers is evidenced by the mounds which may be found on the banks of nearly every stream of any consequence in the State.

The Indians. — The Mound Builder was displaced, or at all events followed, by the North American Indians — a people who to-day are rapidly approaching extermination.


text:
Page:Our Philadelphia (Pennell, 1914).djvu/484

464 language under the sun except English, and can boast, if it is a thing to boast of, more Italians than Rome, more Jews than Jerusalem; that San Francisco has its Chinatown, that the Middle West abounds in German and Swedish settlements—in a word, I know that everywhere throughout the country, the native American is retreating before this invasion of the alien. But it is with a certain difference in Philadelphia. Have I not said that one of the absurdities of my native town—I can afford to call them absurdities because I love them—is that for the Philadelphian who looks upon himself as the real Philadelphian, Philadelphia lies between the Delaware and the Schuylkill, and is bounded on the north by Market Street, on the south by Lombard; that in the ancient rhyming list of its streets he recognizes only the line:

"Chestnut, Walnut, Spruce, and Pine"?

Now, when I left home this narrow section was threatening to grow too narrow and it was with some difficulty the Philadelphian kept within it. Up till then, however, it was in no danger except from his own increasing numbers. The tragedy is that the Russian Jew should have descended upon just this section, should now, not so much dispute it with him, as oust him from it—the Russian Jew, a Jew by religion but not by race, who has been found impossible in every country on the Continent of Europe into which he has drifted, so impossible when that country is Holland that the Jews who have been there for centuries collect among themselves the money to send


text:
1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Santo Domingo

SANTO DOMINGO (see ).—The decade 1910-20 witnessed a succession of abrupt changes in the political status of Santo Domingo, accompanied by corresponding economic and social developments. The civil security and material well-being ushered in by the Dominican-American Convention of 1907 came to an end with the assassination of President Ramon Caceres on Nov. 19 1911. Gen. Alfredo M. Victoria, the dominant military figure, secured the selection of his uncle Eladio Victoria as president. Revolutionary outbreaks of the traditional type followed, culminating in the appointment of a special commission by the President of the United States, to aid in the reëstablishment of peace and order. Conferences resulted in the resignation of Victoria and the election of Archbishop Adolfo A. Nouel as provisional President. Friction developed, and on March 31 1913, Monsignor Nouel resigned and embarked for Europe. The Dominican Congress selected as provisional successor, Gen. José Bordas Baldez. Revolutionary disturbances again broke out and the United States once more lent its good offices by sending a commission, with whose advisory aid Dr. Ramon Baez was selected as provisional president Aug. 27 1914. Some months later Juan Isidro Jiménez was chosen as constitutional president. A brief period of peace and progress ensued, terminated in April 1916 by an outbreak led by

Gen. Desiderio Arias (a chronic revolutionist from Monte Christi), which President Jiménez, aged and infirm, failed to check. Arias seized the military control of the capital, practically deposed Jiménez and assumed the executive power. With another civil war thus imminent, with its patience strained by the events of the preceding years, and with the international situation developed by the World War threatening foreign intervention, the United States now took definite action. Naval forces were landed. President Jiménez resigned the presidency and retired to Porto Rico, and in May-June 1916 the pacification of the country was effected with nothing more serious than minor encounters with revolutionary forces. On July 25 1916, the Dominican Congress selected Dr. Francisco Henriquez Carvajal as temporary president. The United States, refusing recognition until assured of the non-recurrence of civil disorder, proposed a new treaty based upon the convention just adopted between the United States and Haiti (see ), which should repair the shortcomings of the 1907 convention in providing for the collection of customs under American auspices, the appointment of an American financial adviser and the establishment of a constabulary force officered by Americans. President Henriquez refused to enter into this arrangement, with a resultant deadlock intensified by the withholding by the American authorities of the revenues collected by its officers. Matters came to a head with Henriquez's intention not to retire from the presidency upon the expiration of his provisional term but to present himself as a probable successful candidate for popular election. On Nov. 29 1916 by proclamation of the American commander of the forces of occupation, Santo Domingo was placed under the military administration of the United States. Executive departments were taken over by American naval officers, ex-president Henriquez left the country, order was quickly established, and Santo Domingo entered upon four years of civil quiet and economic improvement. The termination of this status was foreshadowed Dec. 24 1920 by a proclamation of the military government that “the time has arrived when it may, with a due sense of its responsibility to the people of the Dominican Republic, inaugurate the simple processes of its rapid withdrawal from the responsibilities assumed in connexion with Dominican affairs.” Announcement was made that a commission of representative Dominicans with a technical adviser was to be appointed, entrusted with the formulation of constitutional amendments and the revision of the laws of the republic, such proposals upon approval of the military governor to be submitted to a constitutional convention and to the national congress.

(Author:Jacob H. Hollander)


text:
Page:Our Philadelphia (Pennell, 1914).djvu/487

Rh him post haste on to England and poor America, for even the Dutch Jew cannot stand the Russian Jew—and, from what I have heard, neither can the decent Pennsylvania Jew who has been with us almost from the beginning. Other aliens have been more modest and set up their slums where they interfere less with Philadelphia tradition. I cannot understand, and nobody has been able to explain to me, why the Russian Jew was allowed to push his way in. But the indolent never see the thin end of the wedge, and there are philanthropists whose philanthropy for the people they do not know increases in direct proportion to the harm it does to those they do know. I was told more than once to consider what Philadelphia was doing for the Russian Jew, to remember that he has paid America the compliment of accepting it as the Promised Land, that his race in America has produced Mary Antin, and to see for myself what good Americans were being made of his children. But though Philadelphia may one day blossom like the rose with Mary Antins, though there might have been an incipient patriot in every one of the small Russian Jews I met being taken in batches across Independence Square to Independence Hall to imbibe patriotism at the fount, I could not help considering rather what the Russian Jew is just now doing for Philadelphia. For it is as plain as a pipe stem to anybody with eyes to see that the Philadelphians to whom Philadelphia originally belonged are being pushed by the Russian Jew out of the only part of it they care to live in.


text:
Page:The Government of Iowa 1911.djvu/26

8 When the country west of the Mississippi was first explored by the whites, the Sioux Indians were found in possession of Minnesota and northern Iowa. This family of red men consisted of the following tribes: Sissetons, Ioways, Winnebagoes, Osages, Otoes, Missouris, and Omahas. The tribes of the Algonquin family, consisting of the Sacs, Foxes, Illinois, Pottawattamies, Ottaways, and Chippewas, occupied northern Missouri and southern Iowa. Of all of these tribes only a bare remnant of the Foxes still remain in Iowa. They are found along the Iowa River in Tama County and are known as the Meskwaki Indians.

Indian Conflicts. — Although the warlike spirit of the Indian had been much broken by his contact with the white man, the possession of the Iowa country was not given up without a struggle. Indian raids and depredations within the limits of Iowa are recorded as late as 1863. The most bloody of these Indian outbreaks was the Spirit Lake Massacre of 1857. The Black Hawk War, which was waged in 1832, was, however, the one great contest between the white man and the Indian of the Iowa country. It was fought in Illinois and Wisconsin, and resulted in the first cession of lands in the Iowa country in September, 1832.

Indian Cessions of Land. — A restless throng of immigrants, with all their worldly possessions packed in covered wagons, were waiting on the frontier eager to enter the Indian country and there to make permanent homes and settlements. Little by little the Indians were induced or coerced to give up their rights to occupy the Iowa lands.


text:
Page:Our Philadelphia (Pennell, 1914).djvu/488

468 I wondered at first why so many people had fled to the country, why so many signs "For Sale" or "For Rent" were to be seen about Spruce and Pine and Walnut Streets. Various reasons were given me:—with the Law Courts now in the centre of the town and the new Stock Exchange at Broad and Walnut, and stores everywhere, nobody could live in town; the noise of the trolleys is unbearable; the dirt of the city is unhealthy; soft coal has made Philadelphia grimier than London; the motor has destroyed distance;—excellent reasons, all of them. But it was not until I discovered the Russian Jew that I understood the most important. It is the Russian Jew who, with an army of aliens at his back—thousands upon thousands of Italians, Slavs, Lithuanians, a fresh emigration of negroes from the South, and statistics alone can say how many other varieties—is pushing and pushing Philadelphians out of the town—first up Spruce Street, nearer and nearer to the Schuylkill, then across the Schuylkill into the suburbs, eventually to be swept from the suburbs into the country, until who can say where there will be any room for them at all? With the Russian Jew's genius for adapting himself to American institutions, I could fancy him taking possession of, and adding indefinitely to, the little two-story houses that already stretch in well-nigh endless rows to the West and the North, Germantown and West Philadelphia built over beyond recognition. I remember when, one day in a trolley, I had gone for miles and miles between these


text:
1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sargent, John Singer

SARGENT, JOHN SINGER (1856-), Anglo-American artist (see ), exhibited in 1910 the open-air paintings “Albanian Olive Gatherers,” “Glacier Streams,” “A Garden at Corfu” and “Vespers.” In 1911 appeared “A Waterfall” and “The Loggia.” His portrait of Henry James was exhibited in 1914, and was one of the pictures damaged in that year by suffragette attacks. He contributed in 1915 a blank canvas to a Red Cross sale at Christie's, which was secured by Sir Hugh Lane just before his death for £10,000. In Dec. 1916 the third series of his mural decorations in the Boston Public Library was unveiled. This concluding series is entitled “The Theme of the Madonna.” The first series (1895) depicts “The Judaic Development”; the second (1903), “The Dogma of the Redemption.” The theme of the whole is “Judaism and Christianity.” In 1917 he was elected a trustee of the Tate Gallery. During the World War he made a number of paintings of scenes on the western front; and his large picture “Gassed” in the Royal Academy in 1919 attracted great attention. In Nov. 1921 his decorations in the rotunda of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts were unveiled.


text: Page:The Government of Iowa 1911.djvu/27


text:
Page talk:The Government of Iowa 1911.djvu/27

This page is only one image - but that image is supposed to be on two pages, and squished to unusability on this scan. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 19:33, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay, that second page was left blank here - Page:The Government of Iowa 1911.djvu/28. So this could work if a suitable image is found. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 19:35, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
 * On third thought, /27, /28, and /30 should be removed - the map exists just fine (if a little folded) on /29. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 19:38, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Marked accordingly. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 19:41, 20 September 2012 (UTC)


text: Page:The Government of Iowa 1911.djvu/28


text:
Page talk:The Government of Iowa 1911.djvu/28

See Page talk:The Government of Iowa 1911.djvu/27. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 19:35, 20 September 2012 (UTC)


text:
Page:Our Philadelphia (Pennell, 1914).djvu/491

Rh little house with the same front yard, the same porch, the same awning, the same rocking-chairs—I had a horrible waking nightmare in which I saw them multiplying—as the alien himself multiplied beyond the most ardent dreams of Mr. Roosevelt,—and creeping out further and further, across the city limits, across the State, across the Middle West, across the prairies, across the Rockies, across the Sierras, until at last they joined East to West in one unbroken line—one great, unbroken, unlovely monument to the enterprise of the new American, and the philanthropy of the old: while only the Russian Jew at the door of the State House, like Macaulay's New Zealander under the shadow of St. Paul's, remained to muse and moralize on the havoc he had wrought.

This may seem a trifle fantastic, but I should find it hard to give an idea of how impossibly fantastic the prevailing presence of the alien in Philadelphia appeared to me. To be sure, we had our aliens a quarter of a century ago. But they were mostly Irish, Germans, Swedes. The Italian at his fruit-stall was as yet rather the picturesque exception, and I can remember how, not very long before I left home, the whole town went to stare at the first importation of Russian Jews, dumped down under I have forgotten what shelter, as if they were curiosities or freaks from Barnum's. But now the aliens are mostly Latins, Slavs, Orientals who do not fit so unobtrusively into our American scheme of things, and who come from the lowest classes in their own countries, so ignorant and


text:
1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sarrail, Maurice Paul Emmanuel

SARRAIL, MAURICE PAUL EMMANUEL (1856-), French General, was born at Carcassonne (Aude) April 6 1856. He qualified for both St. Cyr, and the École Polytechnique but chose to enter the former. He passed out Oct. 1 1877 with the distinction of third place and was posted as a sub-lieutenant to the infantry. His regimental service and promotion followed the normal course; he became lieutenant Oct. 1882, captain in 1887, and chef-de-bataillon in 1897. In 1901 he was appointed Commandant of the École Militaire d'Infanterie (St. Maixent), and the following year was promoted lieutenant-colonel. From 1904 to 1906 he held the appointment of Military Commandant of the Palais Bourbon, being made colonel in 1905. In 1907 he became Director of Infantry at the War Office—an appointment which he held 4 years. He was made general-of-brigade in 1908. Three years later he was promoted general-of-division and on Nov. 1 1913 was given command of the VIII. Army Corps, being later (April 24 1914) transferred to the VI. Corps, which he commanded on the outbreak of the World War. But though General Sarrail's military capacity was recognized prior to 1914 it was principally by his semi-political activities that he was best known; and as a member of General André's military cabinet he played a conspicuous part during a very troubled period of French army history. On Sept. 2 1914, after commanding the VI. Corps with credit in the Battle of the Frontiers, he was appointed to succeed Ruffey as commander of the III. Army. This army formed the pivot of the wheel-back of the Allied forces during the retreat to the Marne, and Sarrail maintained it as such on the N.W. front of Verdun, although authorized and indeed ordered to fall back. This left him in an exposed position, but one in which the swinging-in enemy himself might present a flank to Sarrail's attack. His part in bringing about the situation which enabled Joffre to counter-attack was thus as important and as brilliant as Gallieni's on the other flank. During the trench-warfare operations of 1914-15, however, he was less successful, as he was essentially a leader of temperament, and growing friction with Joffre led to his dismissal from this command after the action of Bourdeilles. Almost immediately thereafter, under circumstances described in the article , Sarrail was appointed Commander of the French Army of the East, and at a later date he became commander-in-chief of the Allied forces on that front. The troubled history

of this command, which lasted till his recall in Dec. 1917, is told in the article referred to. After his return to France he saw no further active service. In April 1918 he was placed on the reserve on reaching the age limit. He became a Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour in Nov. 1914 and was awarded a Grand Cross of the same Order in Jan. 1916. He was given the Médaille Militaire in Sept. 1917. Soon after the end of the war he published his account of the Salonika operations under the title Mon Commandement en Orient.


text:
Page:Our Philadelphia (Pennell, 1914).djvu/492

472 most of them that, what with their increasing numbers and our new negro population from the South, there are people in Pennsylvania who are trying to introduce an educational test at the polls—America having learned the evil of universal suffrage just as England is coquetting with it.

IV

The rest of Philadelphia—the rest of America, for that matter—may be accustomed to this new emigration to my town as well as to all parts of the country. But I had not seen the latter-day alien coming in by every steamer, and gradually, almost imperceptibly, establishing himself. The advantage, or disadvantage, of staying away from home so long is that, on returning, one gets the net result of the change the days and the years bring with them. Those who stay at home are broken in to the change in its initial stages and can accept the result as a matter of course. I could not. To be honest, I did not like it. I did not like to find Philadelphia a foreign town.

I did not like to find Streets where the name on almost every store is Italian. I did not like to find the new types of negro, like savages straight from the heart of Africa some of them looked, who are disputing South Street and Lombard Street and that disgraceful bit of Locust Street with the decent, old-fashioned, self-respecting Philadelphia darkies. I did not like to find the people with foreign manners—for instance, to have my hand kissed


text: Page:The Government of Iowa 1911.djvu/30


text:
Page:Our Philadelphia (Pennell, 1914).djvu/493

Rh for a tip in the hotel by a Lithuanian chambermaid, though I should add that in a month she had grown American enough to accept the same tip stoically with a bare "Thank You." I did not like to find the foreigner forcing his way not only into the Philadelphian's houses, the Philadelphian's schools, the Philadelphian's professions—professions that have been looked upon as the sacred right of certain Philadelphia families for almost a couple of centuries. I have heard all about his virtues, nobody need remind me of them; I know that he is carrying off everything at the University so that rich Jews begin to think they should in return make it a gift or bequest, as no rich Jew has yet, I believe. I know that the young Philadelphian must give up his sports and his gaieties if he can hope to compete with the young Russian Jew who never allows himself any recreation on the road to success—and perhaps this won't do the young Philadelphian any harm. I know that if the Russian Jew keeps on studying law, the Philadelphia lawyer will be before long as extinct as the dodo—a probability that if it wakes up the Philadelphia lawyer may have its uses. All this, and much besides, I know—also, incidentally, I might add the fact that the Russian Jew, who is not unintelligent, has mastered in a very short time the possibilities of arson and bankruptcy as investments. But if there were no other side to his virtues—and of course there is that other side too—I should not like to think of the new Philadelphian that is to come out of this incredible mixture of Russian Jews and


text:
Page:Our Philadelphia (Pennell, 1914).djvu/494

474 other aliens as little like us in character and tradition.

The new Philadelphian may be a finer creature far than in my hopes for him, finer far than the old Philadelphian I have known—but then he will not be that old Philadelphian whom I do not want to lose and whom it would be a pity to lose in a country for which, ever since Penn pointed the way to the constitution of the United States, he has probably accomplished more than any other citizen.

Personally, I might as well say that I do not believe he will be a finer creature. It seems to me that he is doing away with the old American idea of levelling up and is bent on the levelling down process that is going on all over Europe. And so foreign is he making us, that I would not think J. very far wrong in declaring himself the only real American left, if only he would include me with him.


text: Our Philadelphia/Chapter 18

title: Our Philadelphia/Chapter 18


text:
1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lankester, Sir Edwin Ray

LANKESTER, SIR EDWIN RAY (1847-), English biologist, was born in London May 15 1847, eldest son of Edwin Lankester (1814-74), a well-known physician and naturalist and F.R.S. He was educated at St. Paul's school, Downing College, Cambridge, and Christ Church, Oxford. In 1870 he was made Radcliffe travelling fellow, and in 1872 was elected to a fellowship at Exeter College, Oxford. During 1874-90 he was professor of zoology and comparative anatomy at University College, London; from 1891 to 1898 he was Linacre professor of comparative anatomy at Oxford; and from 1898 to 1907 he was director of the natural history departments of the British Museum. He was created K.C.B. in 1907. He received hon. degrees from most of the universities of Europe and became a member of many

learned societies in England and America. His numerous publications include Comparative Longevity (1871); Degeneration (1880); and the more popular Science from an Easy Chair (1910); Diversions of a Naturalist (1915); Science and Education (1919) and Secrets of Earth and Sea (1920).


text:
1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lanrezac, Charles Louis

LANREZAC, CHARLES LOUIS (1852-), French soldier, was born at Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, July 31 1852. Entering the military academy of St. Cyr in 1869, he fought in the latter part of the war of 1870-1 as a sub-lieutenant of infantry. Graduating from the École de Guerre (staff college) in 1879, he held in succession various staff and instructional positions, in particular at the École de Guerre during the period in which, under the influence of Maillard, Langlois and Bonnal, the new French doctrine of strategy and tactics was being established. To the furthering of this doctrine Lanrezac himself contributed a study of Napoleon's spring campaign of 1813 (La Manœuvre de Lützen), but it was chiefly through his personal methods of instruction that his influence made itself felt. He became colonel in 1902, general of brigade in 1906, general of division in 1911, corps commander in 1912, and finally in April 1914 he succeeded Galliéni as a member of the Conseil Supérieur de la Guerre and commander-designate of the V. Army in case of war.

In this capacity, Lanrezac, as Galliéni had done before him, soon came to the conclusion that the V. Army, on the left of the French line, would be exposed to the weight of a decisive German attack coming through southern Belgium. But General Joffre and those members of the general staff who, under him, had prepared “Plan No. 17” for the war concentration of the French army, thought otherwise, and when war came at the end of July in the same year, the railway concentration of the army was carried out as planned, without the modifications in the defensive sense that Lanrezac's views, if accepted, would have required. Moreover, the later French doctrine of strategy and tactics, which had sprung up since 1910 and was championed by the younger school of staff officers, rejected the new Napoleonic theories of Lanrezac's generation, tended to the almost complete exclusion of the defensive as a mode of war, and its advocates were fully prepared to commit the fate of France to the chances of an immediate general offensive in Lorraine and Ardennes. This being presumed to succeed, events beyond the extreme left of Lanrezac's army might be ignored, and his fears might be (and undoubtedly were) put down to his predilection for that defensive-offensive which he had constantly taught. The Grand Quartier Général thus began the campaign with a prejudice against Lanrezac's theories of war.

It was not until Aug. 15 that the reality of the danger to the V. Army began to be accepted by Joffre, and measures were taken to bring that army towards Namur and Charleroi; and even then the fact that the greater part of the German striking wing would be W. of the Meuse was not definitely admitted either by Joffre or, for that matter, by Lanrezac himself. Thus the battles of Charleroi and Mons were begun under the most unpromising conditions as regards unity of purpose. Moreover, Lanrezac's own subordinates allowed themselves to be carried away by the doctrine of the offensive, and engaged in a confused battle with Bülow's II. Army in the tangle of suburbs and mining villages round Charleroi, in spite of Lanrezac's formal order to stand on the defensive on the open heights S. of the Sambre. And, lastly, tactical liaison with the British on the left and personal liaison with its commander, Sir J. French, were both imperfect. In such circumstances misunderstandings could hardly be cleared up or good relations established either with the distant Grand Quartier Général or with French during the unexpected and trying retreat of the Allied left wing which followed. But Lanrezac, aided by his chief-of-staff General Hely d'Oissel, managed to bring off his army, and so far to restore its normal organization and moral that it was able to take the offensive in the battle of Guise-St. Quentin without support either from the IV. Army on its right or from

the British on its left. The success of the V. Army at Guise could not, in the general situation of the moment, be followed up or extended, and the retreat was resumed. Henceforward the army headquarters had the troops well in hand, and such attempts as were made by the Germans to envelop the now exposed left wing came to nothing. Already, however, Joffre had determined to dismiss summarily a large number of the generals who had played a part in the battle of the Frontiers, as a measure tending to restore the moral of the army and the nation. One of these, and the most conspicuous, was Lanrezac. On the day of the battle of Guise, Joffre had visited his headquarters with the intention of relieving him of his command, but had thought better of it. Nevertheless, a few days later, on the eve of the battle of the Marne, Lanrezac was removed from his command, being succeeded by one of his corps commanders, General Franchet d'Espérey.

The justice of his dismissal was far too questionable for him to be relegated to unemployment. He served as an inspector-general of infantry-training till the end of the war, and retired on reaching the age limit.


text:
1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lansbury, George

LANSBURY, GEORGE (1859-), English Socialist, was born Feb. 21 1859, at Halesworth, Suffolk, where his father was engaged as a sub-contractor on the railway line between Ipswich and Yarmouth. When he was seven years old the family moved to London, and his childhood was chiefly spent in Whitechapel. In 1880 he was married to Elizabeth Brine, daughter of Isaac Brine, timber merchant. In 1884 they went with their three older children to Australia, returning in 1885, and soon afterwards settling in Bow, where their home has been ever since. Lansbury worked in the business of his father-in-law and was one of the first members of the Gas Workers' and General Labourers' Union—now the National Union of General Workers. In 1921 he had been a member of this union for 30 years, and for the greater part of this time one of its trustees. He began his political life at the age of 15 as a keen Radical, but subsequently became a convinced Socialist, a member of the I.L.P. and a member of the National Executive of the Labour party. He was a member of the Church Socialist League from its inception. He was first elected a guardian in Bow in 1892, was elected to the Borough Council in 1901 and was mayor of Poplar in 1919-20. As a member of the Royal Commission on the Poor Law he signed the Minority Report. He sat for three years on the L.C.C. In 1910 he was elected Labour M.P. for Bow and Bromley. He resigned his seat in 1912, in order to recontest it as a supporter of women's suffrage, and was defeated. He was defeated again in the general election in 1918. In 1913 he was sentenced to six months' imprisonment for a speech made at the Albert Hall, but was released after some days of hunger strike. He had helped to found the first Daily Herald in 1912 as a Labour organ, and he became its editor in 1913. The Herald became a weekly in September 1914, and reappeared as a daily in March 1919, its policy being extremist and even Bolshevist. In this connexion Mr. Lansbury visited Russia in 1920 and was accorded an interview with Lenin.


text:
1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lansdowne, Henry Charles Keith Petty Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of

LANSDOWNE, HENRY CHARLES KEITH PETTY FITZMAURICE, (1845-), British statesman (see ), had, during his tenure of office as Foreign Minister (1900-5), definitely set his mark on British foreign policy at a crucial period in history. The system which his predecessor, Lord Salisbury, had inherited from Lord Beaconsfield, of a general reliance on Germany and the Triple Alliance, had become no longer possible, in view of the unconcealed ill-will of Germany during the Boer War, and the German resolve to build a fleet sufficiently large to constitute a serious challenge to the British navy. During the South African War of 1899-1902 Great Britain felt all the disadvantages of isolation. If she could no longer rely on Germany, she had recently nearly come to blows

with France over Fashoda, and her historical friction with Russia continued. Her isolation was equally marked in the Far East. Germany, Russia and France had forced Japan, after her Chinese war, to relinquish her conquest of the Liaotung peninsula. England had refused to join the other European Powers in their action, but had simply stood on one side and allowed them to work their will. Subsequently Russia had overrun Manchuria and seized Port Arthur; France had effected a favourable revision of her frontier in the Mekong valley, and Germany had seized Kiaochow. It is Lord Lansdowne's great title to fame that his five years' tenure of the Foreign Office rescued Great Britain from this position of peril, procured her an ally in the rising maritime Power of the Pacific, Japan, and in Europe established her on terms of friendship and mutual understanding with France, by clearing away all the sources of bickering between Paris and London. He shares this credit, indeed, with Mr. Balfour, who was Prime Minister 1902-5, and of whom he himself testified, in Nov. 1905, that there had never been a Prime Minister who had given closer and more unremitting attention to foreign affairs.

When the Duke of Devonshire resigned from Mr. Balfour's Government in 1903 Lord Lansdowne became the Unionist leader in the House of Lords, and though the fall of Mr. Balfour's Ministry in Nov. 1905 transferred him to the Opposition bench he remained the leader of the majority of that House until his resignation in Dec. 1916 at the close of Mr. Asquith's Coalition Ministry. His polished and courteous manner, his thorough acquaintance both with his work and with the idiosyncrasies of the peers, his cool temper and the sweet reasonableness of his expositions of policy speedily rendered his leadership most acceptable to his followers, in spite of the drawback, from the point of view of the Tory majority among them, that he was himself an old Whig. He rendered consistently patriotic support to the development by Sir Edward Grey of the foreign policy for which he himself had been responsible. In domestic politics he endeavoured, as far as possible, to limit points of difference with the Commons; but the measures of the Liberal Ministry inevitably brought about a conflict, which came to a head over Mr. Lloyd George's budget of 1909. In advising the Lords to reject it—as they did—he claimed that it was not an ordinary budget, but emphatically one that ought to be referred to the electorate to decide. Next year, however, he accepted the result of the general election of Jan. 1910 as making it obligatory upon the peers to pass the Finance bill. On the constitutional question he formed one of the abortive conference which met after King George's accession to endeavour to come to an agreed solution. He supported Lord Rosebery's Resolutions for the reform of the House of Lords, and, after the second general election of 1910 on the point of the Lords' veto, he brought forward in 1911, as an alternative to the Parliament bill, a scheme for reconstructing the Upper House, which, however, was dropped after a second reading. When the Parliament bill itself came up to the House of Lords he moved and carried, by 253 to 40, an amendment providing for a submission to a popular vote of bills affecting the Constitution or otherwise of great gravity. From that amendment he and his friends would not, he said, recede so long as they were “free agents.” Ministers immediately announced that they would not accept the amendment, and that the King had consented to create, if necessary, sufficient peers to ensure the passage of the bill in its original form. Lord Lansdowne held that, after this threat of coercion, the peers had ceased to be free agents, and he therefore advised them to desist from further resistence. In this advice he was supported by Mr. Balfour; but a vehement opposition developed in the Unionist party, headed by the ex-Lord Chancellor, Lord Halsbury, and these “Diehards” were supported by such a large body of opinion that the bill was only carried eventually by 17 votes.

This episode gave a shock to Lord Lansdowne's authority both in his House and in the Unionist party, but he remained leader, though Mr. Balfour retired shortly afterwards and was succeeded in the leadership of the party in the Commons by

Mr. Bonar Law. He fought the Irish Home Rule bill and the Welsh Disestablishment bill strenuously on their successive appearances in the House of Lords, and procured their rejection by large majorities. But he was always ready for an agreement by consent over the Irish question, to avoid the “irremediable misfortune,” the “overwhelming catastrophe,” of civil war. He endeavoured to make the Government's Amending bill in 1914 more satisfactory by getting an amendment inserted to exclude the whole of Ulster from the operation of the Home Rule bill. When ministers would not accept this he became a member of the Buckingham Palace Conference as a last chance of a peaceful settlement.

The World War reduced all these issues to comparative insignificance, and Lord Lansdowne associated himself with Mr. Bonar Law in tendering at once their hearty support to the Government, as leaders of the Opposition, in rallying to the assistance of France and Russia. In 1915 he joined Mr. Asquith's Coalition Ministry without portfolio; and took the lead in pressing the military service bills on the House of Lords. He concurred in sanctioning Mr. Lloyd George's efforts, in the early summer of 1916, to find some satisfactory settlement of the Irish question, but he dissociated the Government from Mr. Lloyd George's actual proposals; and the failure to reach an agreement was largely attributed by Irish Nationalists to his insistence on the necessity of repressing treason and sedition. He retired from office at the close of Mr. Asquith's Ministry, the Unionist leadership in the Lords being then entrusted to Lord Curzon. In his retirement he got somewhat out of touch with public opinion, and published in the Daily Telegraph, in Nov. 1917, a letter in which, to the general surprise, he strongly advocated a negotiated peace instead of the policy of Thorough, on which the Ministry and the Empire were set. His ideas received hardly any support save from the small pacifist section. In subsequent years he took little or no active part in politics, his health having failed.

Lord Lansdowne's great and various services to his country were rewarded with the K.G., G.C.S.I., G.C.M.G., and G.C.I.E. He was a trustee of the National Gallery, and chairman of the Council of the British Royal Red Cross Society 1915-20. His own university of Oxford gave him an honorary degree; and so did Cambridge, McGill and Leeds. He had two sons and two daughters. His elder son, Lt.-Col. the Earl of Kerry (b. 1872), a soldier who won both the D.S.O. and the Legion of Honour, was in the Irish Guards, and served in the S. African War. He was a member of the L.C.C. in 1907, and was M.P. for W. Derbyshire 1908-18. He married in 1904 Elizabeth Caroline, only daughter of Sir E. S. Hope, and had a family. The younger son, Lord Charles G. F. Mercer Nairne (1874-1914), major 1st Dragoons, served both in the S. African War and in the World War, and was killed in action in France, Oct. 30 1914, leaving a widow and children. The elder daughter married the 9th Duke of Devonshire, and the younger married the 6th Marquess of Waterford, and, after his death, Lord Osborne de Vere Beauclerk. (G. E. B.)


text:
Page:Weird Tales volume 31 number 03.djvu/31

 Dmitri's usual massive chair; several other, smaller chairs were scattered haphazardly about. A faded strip of carpeting ran diagonally from the door toward the table. There were no pictures, no bookcases or books, no filing-cabinet or desk. A telephone rested at one end of the table, close beside an ambiguity that—save for its grotesquely large bulb, full of an uncommon multiplicity of filaments and several oddly shaped and curiously perforated metal vanes—looked like an unshaded desk-lamp.

Dmitri lowered himself into his tremendous chair. "Sit down," he directed abruptly. "Compose yourselves. You, Miss Roberts, may watch this experiment; it is in no way new, yet it is always fascinating. Notice this lamp; it is so designed that it emits whorls of multicolored light, which move according to a recurrent pattern, somewhat in the manner of a pin-wheel."

His hands, hidden beneath the table, touched a concealed switch, and the odd-looking lamp began to glow in all its many filaments, while simultaneously the complexity of tiny vanes began to revolve, slowly at first and then faster and faster, until they had attained a maximum velocity beyond which there was no further acceleration. And as the filaments within the lamp gradually warmed, Mary realized that they gave off light of many colors, as varied and as beautiful as the spectrum seen in rainbows, colors which moved and changed in a weirdly hypnotic sequence of patterns{{...|4}

"Observe the lamp, Miss Stacey-Forbes," Dmitri said, in a calm, conversational tone. "Do not trouble to think—merely observe the lamp—see how the colors melt and run together and repeat themselves again"

Abruptly the ceiling light was extinguished. And Mary Roberts gasped at the unearthly beauty of the whirling lights; even beneath the cold glow of the Mazda lamp they had been a strange symphony, but now, glowing and whirling like a mighty nebula of spinning suns! Her eyes were riveted upon them; the)' seemed to draw her toward them, to suck her into themselves

"Observe the lights, Miss Stacey-Forbes" Mary knew that it was Dmitri's voice, yet it sounded billions of miles away. And, curiously, she believed for a fleeting instant that there was a new note in that slumbrous whisper—a hint of exultation. But the thought vanished in its second of birth, lost amid the maze of spinning lights—the lights that were too, too beautiful

stood surveying herself with pardonable satisfaction in the almost-complete circle of full-length, chromium-framed mirrors that glittered their utilitarian splendor in a corner of her bedroom. It was well, she was reflecting, that the electric-blue gown fitted her with wrinkleless perfection, that her hair was a miracle even François had seldom achieved; today was her tenth wedding anniversary, and tonight Gregory was taking her to hear Tristan and Isolde.

With sophisticated grace she returned to her dressing-table and seated herself. In her walk, languid and self-appreciative though it had been, there was nevertheless a vague essence reminiscent of Mary Roberts; Priscilla Luce might almost have been a prophetic vision of Mary as she would some day be—their mothers were sisters. Only Priscilla was a little more the cautious type than was Mary: Priscilla had selected her husband with an eye to the future; she did not wholly approve of Charles Ethredge. Otherwise the two young women were very much alike