HON. WILLIAM H. HOTCHKISS, SUPERINTENDENT OF THE NEW YORK STATE INSURANCE DEPARTMENT, AND ONE OF THE NEW PROGRESSIVE LEADERS OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY Hughes last month demanded a sweeping investigation in the face of an approaching campaign. Old-fashioned politicians would have said that this was like proceeding to dig one's own grave. The truth is exactly contrary to the old view. The Republican party after the Albany exposures and the defeat of Aldridge at Rochester could not possibly hope to carry New York except with candidates and a platform of the most progressive sort. The only thing that can save the Republican party in New York is the exhibition of courage and honesty in exposing and punishing corruption wherever it can be found. A full inquiry just now will help the party. No Dearth of Superintendent Hotchkiss, head New Leaders of the Insurance Department, has been unearthing relationships between insurance companies and lawmakers at Albany that have had much to do with the demand for a broader investigation into the buying and selling of legislative favors. Mr. Hotchkiss is one of those men of thorough training and wide accomplishments who can be counted upon to perform well whatever public work they are assigned. As the old machine crumbles away and the old leaders are shorn of power, men of better training and of finer spirit inevitably come to the front. Thus Havens, of Rochester, Hotch cratic Presidential candidates. At present the man most generally talked about is Governor Harmon, of Ohio, and the second on Democratic lips is Mayor Gaynor, of New York City, whose record thus far in his great municipal office has been one of remarkable achievements. It is conceivable that the Democrats might elect him Governor next November, in which case his outlook for the Presidential nomination would be very favorable. Thus far Judge Gaynor has steadily refused to be drawn into any form of political discussion or to make any declaration whatever regarding party politics, in this as in other matters of official conduct setting an excellent example. The The business world was anxiously Work of the awaiting decisions of the Supreme Supreme Court Court of the United States in the great Tobacco and Standard Oil cases when on Monday, April 11, Chief Justice Fuller announced that these cases would have to be argued again before the court. This means virtually a postponing of the decision for another year. On March 28 Justice David J. Brewer had suddenly died and Justice Moody has been absent in Massachusetts for a long time, owing to illness. It was felt likely that the court would be divided and HON. WILLIAM J. BRYAN AS HE APPEARED LAST MONTH ON ARRIVING AT NEW YORK kiss, of Buffalo, and several of the newer political leaders in the City of New York are men of the Hughes type in public spirit, legal and political knowledge, and aptitude for governmental work. The Republican party has a wonderful power of self-discipline and rejuvenation. It is usually a more efficient party than the Democratic. It does. not follow inevitably, therefore, that the revolt within the Republican party is going to lead to sweeping Democratic victory. The one thing that everybody who has a clear vision now understands is that the progressive spirit cannot be stamped out of the Republican party without involving that organization in hopeless defeat. A NEW GLIMPSE OF CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER THE LATE JUSTICE DAVID J. BREWER OF THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT that there ought to be a full bench before matters of such vast consequence were finally passed upon. Judge Brewer was almost seventy-three years old, and for forty continuous years had been either a State or a Federal judge, half of the time on the Supreme bench. He was a man of great vigor of mind and freedom of expression. The vacancy caused by his death had not been filled as these pages closed for the press, although it was understood that President Taft was making overtures to Governor Hughes, of New York. Justice Moody's early return to the bench is not probable. Chief Justice Fuller and Jus tice Harlan are seventy-seven years of age, and their retirement cannot be long deferred. Matters of immense moment relating to the regulation and control by government of the business interests and methods of this commercial age are likely to be affected profoundly by interpretations that our highest tribunal will place upon existing statutes. It was at one time thought that President Taft himself would almost certainly succeed Chief Justice Fuller. Quite as difficult as the task of interpreting the laws is that of selecting the men who for years to come will fix the complexion of the court. Inefficiency Business The scrutiny to which some of in Public the big appropriation bills in Congress were subjected last month revealed many illustrations of the unbusinesslike methods that ex-Governor Herrick complains of in his able discussion of the subject of waste in public expenditure which we publish on page 600 of this number. In the course of that discussion Mr. Herrick alludes to the valuable work of the Bureau of Municipal Research in New York and of the Merriam Commission in Chicago in exposing not merely ordinary and incidental graft but fundamental inefficiency in accounting methods resulting in a steady drain on the municipal finances. The fact that one of the Chicago officials resigned under fire, while indictments have been found against others, is not the only result of the Merriam Commission's disclosures. The thing that should cause rejoicing is the prospect that the entire city administration will now be put on a business basis so far as accounting is concerned. The rapid spread of the "commission plan of city government throughout the country means that business men are everywhere waking up to the necessity of applying in all departments of public business the same up-todate methods that are considered essential in private business. The Pittsburg Revelations mem There is little to relieve the monotonously sordid nature of the Pittsburg bribery disclosures. During the past two months a score of me bers of the City Councils have confessed to receiving bribes for their official action, about forty indictments have been presented by the Grand Jury, and altogether more than one hundred men have been implicated in the bribery cases, including several important personages in the business world who stand charged with purchasing legislation. Six banks which wished to secure deposits of city money are charged with the same offense. Such a revelation of venality was never before made in any American city, save possibly in San Francisco, but there is good reason to believe that other American municipalities might profit by a similar season of confession and repentance. Deplorable as Pittsburg's situation is, it is far from hopeless so long as a group of public-spirited citizens stands behind the prosecuting officials and demands the exposure and punishment of the briber as well as the bribed. The Socialists Milwaukee Last month the city of MilwauCarry kee, with a population of about 350,000, elected a Socialist Mayor and City Council. Emil Seidel, the Socialist Mayoralty candidate, received a plurality of over 7000 votes, while his party carried fourteen out of twenty-three wards and elected six Aldermen-at-Large. Thus the city government for the coming two years will be completely in Socialist control. The result, revolutionary as it seems, was not a sudden development. The growth of the Socialist vote in Milwaukee for the past decade has been steady. Two years ago it had become almost exactly one-third of the total city vote. This year it added over 30 per cent. to its own record figures of 1908, leaving both the Democrats and the Republicans hopelessly in the rear. This remarkable shift of votes is partly explained by general dissatisfaction with the city's administration, partly by a tremendously active Socialist propaganda, including a weekly house-tohouse distribution of literature by trained squads of workers, and partly by the work that had already been done by Socialists who had been elected to the City Council and by Socialist members of the Wisconsin Legislature. Milwaukee had suffered from jobbery, graft, and corporation rule, and was clamoring for any change that promised reform. The Socialists have campaigned persistently against food-adulteration, the contract system of public works, and graft in the city garbage plant, and in favor of municipal ownership and model tenements. Moreover, their representatives in the council have taken a leading part in effecting important economies in the city government. In his inaugural address Mayor Seidel named among the reforms for which his administration is pledged to work the improved sanitation of factories, the bettering of conditions under which labor on city works is performed, and the establishment of a Bureau of Municipal Research, leading to the installation of a complete cost-keeping system for every municipal department. The new administration is also pledged to prevent overcrowding of street-cars and to compel the company to clean the cars regularly, to furnish enough cars, to sprinkle the streets between tracks, and to give the shortest route for transfers. The Socialists as a party expect to secure for Milwaukee the municipal ownership of gas and ice plants, a three-cent street-car fare, an eight-hour day, and work for the unemployed at union wages. Whatever may be thought of this program, it can hardly be regarded as subversive of the rights of property. DISTRICT-ATTORNEY BLAKELEY, OF PITTSBURG (In charge of the graft prosecutions) Photograph by Paul Thompson. HON. EMIL SEIDEL (The newly elected Mayor of Milwaukee) Negro Only the veto of Governor Disfranchise- Crothers last month prevented ment the adoption by the State of Maryland of a plan for negro disfranchisement which involved virtual nullification of the Fifteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution, so far as State and local elections are concerned. The Legislature passed a bill refusing the privilege of registration for such elections to members of the negro race. None of the Southern States has ever gone so far as this in depriving the negro of the suffrage, and the fact that in those States franchise laws had been framed on the assumption of the validity of the Fifteenth Amendment influenced the Governor in withholding his approval from the radical Maryland enactment. The new State of Oklahoma, which was not supposed to have a "negro problem," may go on record as refusing to the great body of her negro citizens a vote on constitutional amendments. This proposition will be submitted to the people as an initiative" petition for an amendment to the State constitution. Raise the "Maine"! Congress has at last taken a decided step for the removal of a national disgrace. A resolution passed by the House last month provides for |