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ual practice of obliging and not annoying one's colleagues. Perhaps the most pernicious result of this clubbiness, combined with the feeling of State independence, is the inefficiency of the Senate rules. It is hardly an exaggeration to say there are no rules; practically any senator may talk about anything he likes and as long as he likes. The Vice-President has no power of control; yet the Constitution makes him President of the Senate, with no hint of any limitation on the ordinary duties attached to such an office. I believe this strange state of things is due to Vice-President Calhoun, who, among his many hair-splitting interpretations of the Constitution, seemed to think he was in the chair to preserve decorum, but not parliamentary order. I have often speculated on what would have happened if the awful blow that put President Roosevelt in his present position had not fallen, and he had remained somewhat longer in the chair of the Senate. I think his indomitable longing for efficiency and dislike of humbug w uld have led him to assert his rights as presiding officer in some extremely emphatic way, - to the great benefit of business. There is now no way to hurry the Senate from within or without, except through the constitutional or rather accidental rule whereby the alternate sessions of Congress cease and determine; and that is a far more serious thing for the Representatives than for the Senators.

If the long tenure, the small numbers, the continuity and the sociality of the Senate increase its complacency and tempt it to defy the other departments of government, still more do they lead to its being extolled and courted in outside opinion. When an entire body consists of ninety and can always be controlled by less than fifty men, yet has its hand on the throttle valve of the machine of government, what wonder that its members are approached by every species of persuasion, personal, political, and social, and absolutely made to feel, if they did not feel so of themselves, that they

are the nation's rulers. There was once an English governor of the Punjab whom the natives worshipped as a god. Disgusted by the blasphemy, and perhaps even more by the absurdity, Nicholson drove away his worshippers with whips; but they continued to adore him all the same. Such is the adulation offered to the Senate in Washington; though I never heard of any senator's rejecting it as either impious or absurd. The difference between the position of Senators and Representatives in the city of Washington is inversely proportional to their numbers, five to one.

A great deal is said about the Senate's being composed of rich men; it is largely so; but at the same time there are always many members, and those not the least influential, who are anything but rich. And when I hear abuse of rich men, and invectives against the money power, I always think, "Whose fault is it?" It is the fault of the country which has for years set before the eyes of its young men money-making as a paramount duty,which considers that success in making money is an excellent recommendation for political service, if only the moneymaker can be induced to enter it. Senators will not be for sale, unless because the national temper believes in using any means to make money.

The senators being chosen by the state legislatures, and held in some states, notably Virginia, to represent the states as such, a system of instructions was proposed, whereby a senator might be ordered by his state legislature to vote according to its wishes, while a representative, as chosen by the people, could only be requested. In accordance with this theory, many strange things have occurred. The tariff act of 1846 was carried by the vote of Spencer Jarnagin, a senator from Kentucky, and a declared protectionist, who had spoken against the bill. The legislature of his commonwealth had instructed him to vote against his convictions,—and he did so. He was disinterested; for it was already settled that he would not be

reëlected. One hears little now of instructions; but one hears a great deal of amending the Constitution so as to have senators chosen directly by the people.

I have no belief in any such scheme. It is in the power of the people of any state to let their legislatures know in half a dozen ways whom they want for senators, and to enforce their will, if they choose. A stream can rise no higher than its fountain. It is said the senators are chosen by corrupt legislatures; but by whom were the corrupt legislatures chosen? The fault is in the people of the states, and in them only.

Moreover, I believe the practice of amending the Constitution is pernicious in the extreme. Let us have something in the United States of America that does not change. What good has tinkering the Constitution done? The first ten amendments may be considered conditions subsequent to its adoption. The eleventh is an absurd sacrifice to state conceit, which may stand in the way of proper litigation. The twelfth was practically necessary; but when a really serious crisis in choosing a president occurred it gave no help. The thirteenth may bear a higher and

more creditable renown; but it and the utterly nugatory fourteenth and fifteenth amendments are disfigured by an undignified proviso that Congress may enforce them by legislation.

No keep the Constitution as it is, and administer it as its founders intended it should be administered. And if this seems vague advice, let me give it a more specific meaning by saying that I believe both the President and the House of Representatives have been wrong in not standing to their rights, as the Senate has to its. Let the President break away once for all from the stupidity, and as I believe the illegality of the congressional spoils system, and absolutely refuse to listen to senators' recommendations for office; let the House of Representatives risk the loss of revenue rather than let the Senate dictate its bills; I believe the people would come to the support of the President and Representatives as against a body which they have already learned to dislike, and are not far from utterly distrusting; but which in the end must rest for its authority on the advice and consent of them, the people of the United States.

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ISRAELS: A BIT OF BIOGRAPHY

"IF I were rich

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BY MAARTEN MAARTENS

a thing I never shall I should chuck up the whole thing to-morrow." The speaker was a man in middle life, Dante's five and thirty,— pale-faced and nervous, the sort of man who lives by ploughing and harrowing his own brains. He was a fairly successful journalist and writer. At this moment he lay back, tired, in an easy chair at his club.

The other man, also in an easy chair, also tired, also a journalist, looked up lazily, watching the blue smoke of his cigar.

"Have you ever reflected," he asked, "what you would do instead?"

"A score of times."

"Do you know, I never have. It has never occurred to me that I could, by any possibility, become rich. In fact, I know I can't."

"Nor can I. It is quite as impossible for me. That constitutes the chief charm of thinking it out."

"I don't quite understand, but I suppose you have more imagination than I have."

"I have plenty of imagination of a kind. But I have to be the hero of my own imaginings. I don't run to a novel or a play."

"You could live a drama, but you could n't get one acted by other people." The voice indicated banter. "In other words, you are a strictly subjective genius."

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The middle-aged man - he was good deal the younger of the two not like banter. "I am not a genius at all," he answered shortly. "Would you pass me a light!"

"H'm; I'm not so sure," said the elder man, complying. "Well, tell me, Korif you came into a fortune to-mor

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"Invite me, please."

"You willfully misunderstand. My chief delight would be to escape at once, and forever, from this gray town, from this chill country, from the whole bleak, ugly North. I should never again, during this brief life, leave sunshine and orange groves, blue seas and oriental color. That, I admit, is merely sensuous up to a point. For there is more artistic enjoyment in a month of Spain or Italy than in a cycle of Cathay."

"You know the South?"

"Know it? no. I have glimpsed at it, - twice, in a tourist's trip, seen its possibilities, as a hungry boy at a pastry-cook's window. Seen just enough to keep a craving at my heart, forever. Oh. what's the use of talking! I say, is n't this a beastly glum hole, this murky native city of ours? Would n't you be precious glad to escape from it?"

"Well, I don't know," replied the elder man, musingly watching his rings of smoke. "It is a beastly place, but I suppose I've got past wanting to leave it.'

"Not I; every year makes it worse,

and the horrible grind. However, this sort of talk is n't much good. I'm out of sorts to-night. Something's happened to upset me. A fellow had much better simply play the game."

The gray-haired man looked kindly at the black-haired one. "At your age," he said, "there's always a chance of something turning up."

"Oh, no. And it's a poor sort of chap who hopes for that! Besides, we once had an only chance and lost it. That's as much as would fall to the lot of any man." He shook himself together. "Please don't think, Hackner, that I'm the sort of fool who goes through life grumbling, and playing in a lottery, or helping old bodies over crossings in hopes of a legacy. You know me better than that."

"I know you better than that, dear boy. It was I that set you building your castles in the air. I assure you I built plenty in my day, if not on the impossible chance of a fortune; but my castles, like many an older one, are ruins. I am sorry something has occurred to put you out."

"Oh, it's nothing only, I suppose it was that set me talking about money. You know the rich paper-manufacturer, Ostlar?"

"By sight. I hear he is very ill."

"He is dying. I met his doctor this morning. He can't live through the night, the doctor said."

"Well, I suppose he is one of the richest men in the city. His mills and his money will go to some distant relatives, Heaven knows where."

"Or perhaps to charity?" said Kor

tum.

"Possibly. One never heard of his having any relations. And it is quite in accordance with the present craze for vast philanthropic bequests."

"I hate," said Kortum, "this parade of charity now-a-days. What a sickening thing is all our philanthropic notoriety, in the papers after death, and on the platforms before. I am burning to write a series of articles on it, showing the people up. Any villain nowadays can earn uni

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Kortum remembered that his companion was a married man with a family. He edged away from what might become delicate ground.

"The public like articles abusing the rich," he said. "That's the strange thing about our time; they like them, because they think they're deserved. Never, I suppose, not even in Juvenal's day, has money been so entirely the one thing desired, and desirable. In the Rome of the Decline, in the Byzantine corruption, there were always a great many superstitions, and a good many class distinctions, left; we have absolutely nothing but the greed, and the recognition, of gold. Yet, at the same time, even in my day, since I was a boy, there has come up an uncomfortable feeling that the new religion is a base religion,—that great wealth is a thing to be ashamed of; the very wealthy themselves are ashamed of it and try to apologize, as it were, by making some sort of philanthropic stir. I mean the intellects among them; of course there are plenty of hereditary fools that just fool along."

"Yes, I suppose that is true," said the other thoughtfully, a little comforted about his own property, as Kortum perhaps had intended he should be.

"Now, if I were rich," continued Kortum, "I should resist all that modern affectation. It would n't touch me. I should use my money, as intended, rationally, for myself."

"That's why you don't get it."

"That, if correct, which it is n't (look around you!), - would only prove what a blind idiot is Fortune. Spending money is a far better way of diffusing it than giving it, far more beneficial to the community. All this talk about charity,

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luxury, the simpler life, is rubbish, economically and socially unsound.”

"Old Ostlar made all his money for himself, and kept it to himself, and now he is leaving it behind him," moralized the older man, the poorer man, the man with children.

"What we need," said Kortum, not heeding him, "is to get away from all this maudlin controlling of each others' actions. The whole world just now is conscience to its neighbor. We want to get back to 'Every man for himself, and the State to see fair play."

"Well, that's a generous attitude, at any rate, in a man as un-wealthy as yourself. The social conscience of most of us have-nots is just wanting to get at the haves."

Kortum laughed. "I treat of these things theoretically," he said. "As a matter of fact, I am really quite happy as I am. The work's interesting enough, though one abuses it, and I've always a spare coin for a cigar or a drink, to a friend. Yes, I'm happy enough. I should be awfully bored, say, with a large business, or as a thieving lawyer, or in a dozen other positions that one sees men happy in. A thousand a year and Italy; that's my ideal. Old Ostlar set me thinking about rich and poor."

to lie under, alternate nights. As a grown man, Ostlar fell violently in love with a young woman; he worked long for her, got engaged to her; then my father stole her away from him. I'm afraid my father

did n't behave very well. But my mother was worth it. She told Ostlar she could n't love any one but my father. He never spoke to either of them again, or took any farther notice of them. They tried several times to make up, but he never answered."

"Probably he could n't trust himself. It was better so," said Hackner, with a sympathetic whiff of his pipe.

"I dare say. But you know, he grew into a dreadful old curmudgeon; his temper was awful. All his work-people hated him, I believe. When I was born, my parents asked him to let bygones be bygones and come and stand godfather. That was the only time he ever took any notice, or made any reply."

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"What did he do?" asked the other with interest.

"Sent then the will, torn across, which he had made, before his engagement, in his early days, by which he left the little he then possessed to my mother, or to my father, if she died without heirs."

Hackner, the worn man with the kind

"But why should the thought of him ly eyes, looked straight in front of him, put you out?"

Kortum reflected a moment. "Why should n't I tell you? It's really of little importance. You were saying he had no known relatives. But you've heard, I suppose, of his friend?"

"No. Who was he?"

"Dear me, I thought everybody knew about that business. How we exaggerate our own importance. Well, it's long ago. For the first quarter of a century of their lives, Ostlar and my father, living side by side in the same village, and then working together in the same foreign surroundings, were inseparable comrades. At the age of fifteen they ran away from home to the same ship. They slept together in the same berth, atop of each other; they used

and, as the silence deepened, he remarked: "It was hardly judicious, perhaps, however well-meant - that asking him to be your godfather."

"I suppose not. But, you see, I seem to have missed, somehow, being, either by my mother or my father, old Ostlar's ultimate heir."

"In rather a topsy-turvy manner don't you think?"

Kortum broke into a peal of merriment. "Well, yes. I did n't mean to be literal. Talking of money, do you know, the Chief told me the other day he was going to raise my salary?"

"He ought to have done it long ago. They have been underpaying you for years."

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