tinue until the end of time to produce its crop of Penroses and Gallingers. Nor can the bi-partisan system be broken down by occasional outbreaks of non-partisanship. That was the delusion of the former Mugwumps. The average American voter will cease to be partisan only in so far as political and social agitation uncover for him positive objects of political action which retain his interest and command his allegiance. For the time being, his interest is relaxed and he is drifting back to his former habits, but he is as certain to recover his interest as the grass is to grow after rain. It is only the old and the sick and the feeble who do not recover from fatigue and yield once again to the temptation and stimulus of positive political and social effort.
A RECORD of more than fifty volumes having already been produced under the bored attention of a Referee, the government dissolution suit against the U. S. Steel Corporation has at last straggled into the United States Circuit Court. Argument was begun a fortnight ago. Judges and counsel; clerks and secretaries; and stenographers who have grown up, married and settled down on the job; plaintiff, defendant and newspaper readers, all know that the decision, whatever it is, will no sooner be announced than preparations will begin for carrying the case to the Supreme Court. There the same record, built upon still more vertiginously, will appear again; the same counsel will present the same arguments; the same clerks, the same secretaries, the same stenographers, their progeny increased, will transcribe the same testimony; and Bill the Lizard, writing with his finger on the slate, may be expected to go on writing the evidence quite in the manner of the famous case of the Queen's tarts.
IT is rumored that a certain number of American statesmen are acquainted with the fact that the war was certain to produce severe unemployment this winter. You might think this knowledge would have cast a slight shadow over the congratulation which the Democratic Congress bestowed upon itself, that it might have received at least a little comment from the candidates, and some concerted thought from the states. Yet instead of adequate provision, what we seem to be witnessing is the usual drift into the suffering of the winter, amidst the appointment of hasty commissions to investigate, and the threats and shouts of the I. W. W. Public officials will feel themselves abused for not being able to do what they don't know how to do; there will be a scurry to provide beds and food; a few anemic employment bureaus will lift their timid heads.
And all the while the damning fact will remain that the problem could have been foreseen, that the first steps in its treatment are known. How then shall we explain to the men who are out of work why no adequate labor exchanges exist, why no form of insurance has ever been publicly discussed? What answer shall we make to their own simple diagnosis, which says that mayors and governors and legislatures are afraid to attack the private employment agencies or that the great mass of people are too preoccupied to care? They will point out that the cotton planters of the South were interesting to the whole nation; they will wonder why they, sitting dejectedly on park benches, are so little thought about. When their fighting blood stirs, and they say that they will be heard and felt, that they propose to sting us into recognition, shall we simply ask them to be quiet, to slink into corners, and to pardon us if we have failed to provide for what we could so easily have foreseen.
IT is fervently to be hoped that Switzerland will give credence to Minister Ritter's denial of attacks upon that country by the American press because it did not officially protest against the violation of Belgian territory. Whatever indiscretions may have been committed by irresponsible journals, we can assure Switzerland that there has been no organized attempt to inflame the minds of our people against that tall but thin republic. While as a nation we do not admit that Switzerland is in advance of the United States in any respect except alphabetically, we have only friendly feelings toward her, if any. We do not desire a war with Switzerland, especially at this time, when communications are so shattered that war could not be carried on with any degree of comfort. Lest this be thought national cowardice, let us hasten to add that if Switzerland invades our shores she will find us ready to a man to defend our hearthstones.
NEXT Thursday in the Southern city of Nashville the women suffragists of America meet in national convention. In view of recent political events, this may well prove to be the most momentous deliberation in the history of their cause. Up to the present the mission of the national body has been primarily educational. It is now inevitably political as well, and in this forthcoming convention it is called on to affirm its nation-wide political policy. The National Association must face the issue precipitated by the adventurous group which, adapting English tactics, attacks the Democratic party as a whole. This group frankly regards the Democratic party as "the government of the day," and seeks to drive it out of power in punishment for its failure to amend the constitution. Whether this policy is
