The Italian's black eyes glistened, but he did not swoop down upon the treasure, gather it in, and march off. Perhaps he was a good hand-organ man; perhaps he thought the risk too great. He did not even glance up and down the street to see if any one was coming, but, with eyes fixed lovingly upon this potentiality of wealth, and with a grin about his bearded lips, he entered heartily into the spirit of the thing, and ground away with steady rapidity. The Marseillaise had been followed by Pop Goes the Weasel, Rosalie the Prairie Flower, and a number of national airs, and the row of threepenny bits was sensibly diminishing. "Grinder, who serenely grindest At my door the Hundredth Psalm, Pence in thine unwashen palm," exhibited no greater patience and forbearance than did this favorite of fortune, as he saw the beginning of the halfdime row approaching. Ohne Hast, ohne Rast, he wielded his crank. He had played clear through his repertory of tunes, and now commenced on them again. But repetition did not pall upon his audience. So have I seen school children, reinforced with a luncheon of cookies and chocolate caramels, — after a long forenoon at a “continuous performance," when the programme began its round again, greet each familiar feature of the show with unimpaired eagerness. It was in the midst of a spirited execution of Dandy Jim of Caroline that the shuffle of feet and the rap of a cane made themselves heard along the sidewalk. A gentleman and lady stopped at the gate. At the same moment footsteps sounded along the entry, and the servant girl arrived upon the scene, R. U. E. and pat as the conclusion of an old comedy. There was a momentary tableau, and then the lady pounced upon the boy, and smothered him with kisses and laughter; the maid, with a shriek, threw herself upon the silver, and swept it into the bag; the gentleman lifted his hat ironically to the musician, who touched his own grimy headpiece in answer, with a sympathetic grin, and then, shouldering his organ, strolled pensively down the street; while the boy was borne into the penetralia of the house, struggling and protesting that the concert was only just begun. Henry A. Beers. THE ILLS OF PENNSYLVANIA. "IN the long run," wrote Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, in a passage which is said to have cost him fifty thousand Quaker votes, "a class of professional non-combatants is as hurtful to the best interests of a community as a class of professional wrong-doers." These words, we shall see, set forth one of the causes of Pennsylvania's political corruption. But before we lay Pennsylvania's shame at the doors of a sect whose personal morality is leagues above the average of other denominations, let us inquire a moment. "What's the matter with Pennsylvania?" shouted the Quay captains, flushed with victory, after the famous fight of 1895; and from every corner of Harrisburg, from the marching columns of heelers with which Quay delights to add a touch of medieval pageantry to his battles, from lips that smacked with the thought of the loaves and fishes of official plunder, came the slow, hoarse, exultant slogan, "She's all right!" But a few weeks ago, when Philadelphia tried to borrow $9,000,000 at 3 per cent, and got only $5000, then the bankers and business men would have taken time to think before answering the question, "What's the matter with Pennsylvania?" When political knavery reaches the point where the state's financial credit is impaired, then even calloused Pennsylvania realizes it is no longer a mere cry of "wolf," and begins a searching of hearts. What's the matter with Pennsylvania? Indeed, she hath more than one disease. But the principal one is, she is politically the most corrupt state in the Union. I know the editor of the Philadelphia Press denied this vehemently. "We only seem so," said he, "because the lid is off just now; instead of being blamed we ought to be praised. We took the lid off, ourselves; other states His loyalty I appreciate; his logic I deplore. I am more inclined to the testimony of another Philadelphia editor: "I lived in Nevada in the boom times; I have lived in New York through several administrations; I have lived in the easy virtue of official Washington. Pennsylvania beats them all. Pennsylvania has every kind of political deviltry I ever saw or heard of elsewhere, and a few more that she has evolved herself." Now why? Why cannot Philadelphia borrow money at 3 per cent, when other large cities can, and Baltimore can borrow for less? Why do you expect a fresh tale of political debauchery in Pennsylvania in your morning paper as regularly as floods in Texas or train robberies in Montana? Why does your casual acquaintance in the smoking car, when you tell him your native state, ask you, "What's the matter with that state of yours, anyhow?" And what answer ought you to make him, if you had made a thorough study of the deeper causes of the trouble? If it were New York, the question would insult your intelligence. You would merely point to the ships at the immigrant station, adding two hundred a day to the voting population, -many of them ignorant and venal; Native-born of native parents. 35 per cent. Foreigners 65 per cent. Philadelphia: Native-born of native parents. 47 per cent. Foreigners. 53 per cent. As Webster said, "Massachusetts, there she stands." And Pennsylvania, there she stands, too. Philadelphia is the most native-born and the most evil large city in America. You can't dismiss Pennsylvania's problem with a shrug of the shoulders and an easily uttered "Oh, hordes of ignorant foreigners! You may go over the whole list of the bosses and sub-bosses of the state, and find hardly ever a "Mac," or an "O," or a "berg," or a "stein," or a "ski." It is sons of the Revolution, descendants of the first inhabitants, that are responsible for Pennsylvania's condition. Now why? Why is Massachusetts, with her native-born in a numerical minority, the best governed commonwealth in the Union, while Pennsylvania, with her native-born in large majority, wallows in corruption? The first answer is, Because Pennsylvania has an overwhelming Republican majority. But this is too obvious to be good. It does n't carry us anywhere. Why does Pennsylvania have such Republican majorities? Again the obvious answer, Because it is a manufacturing state, and wants a protective tariff. But so is Massachusetts a manufacturing state, so does Massachusetts want a protective tariff. Massachusetts' delegations in Congress have been just as largely in favor of protection as Pennsylvania's; Massachusetts has just as uniformly gone Republican in general elections when protection was involved; yet the Massachusetts Republican voter does not obey the Pennsylvania behest, "Hold your nose and vote the straight ticket." No, you must look deeper than the tariff for the cause of Pennsylvania's corruption. In the long run, the politician is a correct representative of the people. You can't have corrupt politicians without some moral deficiency in the mass of the voters. And that is precisely what you have in Pennsylvania. If Mr. Quay ever reduces the lessons of his valuable experience into a Confucian book of maxims, the first will be, "Every man has his price." For carload lots, f. o. b. at Baltimore, to serve as repeaters at the Philadelphia elections, $1.00 per head; for a member of the legislature at a critical pinch, $37,000; for a respectable business man and church official to lend the dignity of his name to a Quay meeting, a reduced assessment on his property, or a franchise to a company of which he is a director; for a socially ambitious nouveau riche, the appointment of his son as under secretary of a foreign legation. A very popular clergyman in Philadelphia — popular in the sense of being widely known, and drawing congregations notable rather for numbers than for discriminating intelligence included among his philanthropic activities the presidency of a large hospital. The institution depends for maintenance chiefly on state aid, appropriations made by the legislature at each session. Two years ago the clergyman was in the ranks of the reformers, and his hospital was not on the list when the appropriation bill was passed. This year the clergyman needed $50,000 for his hospital, needed it badly. The machine just as badly needed moral support, clerical support, a badge of respectability for a notorious bill then pending before the legislature. The conditions were just right for a deal. The clergyman, not very gracefully, made a public speech in favor of the bill, and got his appropriation, - $50,000; not for himself, for he probably would n't sell his vote or his influence for his personal profit, but for his hospital. "Does a thing like this shock Pennsylvania?" I asked a business man. "Well," he said, "did n't the preacher do right? Ain't he doing better to get $50,000 for his hospital and help the sick than to set himself up as a holier-thanthou reformer and get nothing? You've got to be practical in this world." Now, I know that this sort of thing is mere "log-rolling." I know it happens, in one shape or another, in other legislatures, and even in better places than legislatures are commonly counted. I know it is not forbidden by the decalogue, nor yet by human statute. It is not even a thing for which we blackball men at the club. It is not looked on as an evil; but it is none the less the thing that keeps the machine in power. Every hospital, every institution, that depends on state appropriations is compelled to yield tribute in this way. I know a state senator in an interior town who is offensive, because of his allegiance to Quay, to the majority of his constituents, but has been returned again and again on this argument: "He stands in with the machine, and can get us an appropriation. If we send the Wanamaker candidate to Harrisburg, he'll be an outsider, and we'll have to close our hospital." The hospital, in this case, is an institution of much local pride, and its welfare commands enough unwilling votes to return a Quay member of the legislature from a naturally anti-Quay district. Not only do the hospitals pay tribute in the shape of votes, as in the case just mentioned; they are also compelled to pay by giving a mantle of decency to the machine cause, as in the case of the clergyman. The directorates of the hospitals and normal schools of the state include the most worthy men in their communities, the natural leaders of the reform movement. But they are constrained, for their institutions' good, to pay the tribute of silence, or often of actual moral support, to the machine. Another club much used by the machine is its power to harass the citizen's individual business interests. Here is an instance: A large cotton mill in the northern part of Philadelphia wanted a new street opened and larger water mains laid. The manager of the mill brought the matter to the attention of the city council in the ordinary way, but it was tabled. On inquiry, it was intimated that the matter could be "fixed" for $15,000. But the manager did n't believe in doing things that way, and held out for over a year. Meanwhile, the mill was prevented from making contemplated enlargements, and suffered financially. The directors became restive, investigated, and found that a manager with a Scotch sense of morality was standing between them and profits. They decided they wanted a more “practical" man for manager (this word "practical" has in Pennsylvania a peculiar shade of meaning indigenous to the state), and at the next annual meeting they made the change. Here is another example: An official of the Baldwin Locomotive Works, a man of great wealth and influence, was mentioned as a good man to preside at the reform meeting brought about by the recent franchise scandals. Apropos of the suggestion a minion of the machine remarked, “Oh, I guess he won't lift up his voice a great ways." The reason for his confidence was that there is a public alley between two buildings of the Baldwin works. It is closed at one end. Nobody uses it, nobody could possibly want to use it, from one year's end to the other, except the Baldwin company, who have it filled with machinery and material. But it would be an easy matter for a vindictive mayor to order the alley cleared, to the great inconvenience of the Baldwin company. The way in which Mr. Wanamaker's business interests have been blackmailed is well known even outside Pennsylvania. His store is an inadequate old two-story building, a transformed freight shed. He has long wanted to put up a new one. On one occasion he had gone so far as to buy the structural iron. He asked for a permit to put the heating apparatus, for purposes of cheaper insurance, in another building he owned, farther down the street, and conduct the pipes underground to the new building. The permit was refused by the mayor, and the merchant's plans were blocked. Last year, on the day before Christmas, when his store was filled with customers, an officer of the Department of Public Safety visited Mr. Wanamaker, and ordered him to move his tables, on which holiday goods were displayed, back from the aisles. The weight of the crowds may have been dangerous; but every one understood that Mr. Wanamaker's financial loss, rather than the safety of the public, was the object of the city government's interference. All these incidents are familiar in Philadelphia. They are discussed as generally as the new elevated road in Boston, but they shock no one. As for the buying of individual votes, that is so common I almost neglected to mention it. I was driving with a lawyer friend in one of the southwestern counties, a community Scotch-Irish in origin, and native American two centuries back. We met a shirt-sleeved farmer, an acquaintance of the lawyer. The farmer was a man of action. No empty formalities about the weather for him. He came to business at once. "Well, colonel," he said to the lawyer, "I suppose we'll be able to do a little business together next week?" "I'm afraid not, Henry," replied the lawyer; "there's no money at all floatin' around, this campaign." "All right," said the farmer truculently, as he slapped the reins on his horse's back. "No money, no votes, I guess. Get ep, Jinny." "Now, Old Godly Purity," said my friend, who knew my ideas about bribery, "there's a case for you. That man owns a two-hundred-acre farm clear, and he's got four thousand dollars' worth of bank stock; but he 's mad clean through because I won't give him five dollars for his vote and his hired man's. I told him the truth: there is no money this time, for there's no fight on. But I suppose I'll have to give him something, just to keep him in line for the time when I need him. I would n't mind if he was a poor man: you can't expect a man to leave his cornfield and go two miles to vote for nothing. But that fellow 's an old skinflint. He counts on five dollars for his family's vote twice a year just as certainly as he depends on the sale of his wheat crop and his fat hogs." A word should be said about the reformers. "Reformers?" said a distinguished Philadelphia woolen manufacturer, who had given me much light on other aspects of the situation. "One half fools, the other half frauds." Now, like all epigrams, that is an exaggeration. Undoubtedly, even my cynical business friend would except at least one or two of the better known leaders; and I should except a very large body of independent voters, most of them well-todo farmers and small tradesmen in the interior counties. These men, in the face of discouraging defeat, each year take up the fight with unfailing enthusiasm. One must admire their sincerity and endurance; but their blind faith in their leaders, their inability to realize or refusal to acknowledge that they have been betrayed again and again, diminishes one's sympathy. Every six months one or another of the Quay captains becomes dissatisfied over the division of spoils, and leaves, or is forced to leave, the machine. Immediately the reformers receive him as a prophet. Their newspapers hail him in hysteric headlines. He takes hold of the reform forces. He is a good leader, or else he would never have been a machine captain. He makes a good fight; and when he is strong enough to be dangerous, there are overtures from the machine, and he "sells out," as the Pennsylvania vocabulary has it. This has happened again and again. Were a quarrel to come today between Quay and Ashbridge, Ashbridge would be found to-morrow commanding the enthusiastic loyalty of the reformers. An analogous thing happened a few years ago. Three fourths of the reform leaders to-day were formerly high in the Quay councils, and their names are associated with the worst acts of the machine. The reformers have a curious inability to realize that this prejudices their cause. "We've found out how to do it now," said one of them naïvely, speaking of the present fight: "this time we're going to fight the devil with fire. We're hiring a lot of the machine's own ward men' and window men'" (heelers who attend to getting out the vote on election day). To show how easily the reformers are imposed on, I have a story from a Quay member of the legislature. Two years ago a machine leader holding a seventhousand - dollar office resigned, with much flourish of trumpets about his conscience and the error of his ways, and for six months stood high in the councils of the reformers. Then he turned a back somersault into the Quay camp again. The whole performance was planned in advance. It was a simple and successful instance of sending a spy into the enemy's stronghold. How is the Democratic party kept small, disorganized, and inefficient? Again the tariff? By no means. Quay rules the Democratic party perhaps more effectively than the Republican. Enough of the local leaders are in his pay to sway the party. Democrats who got into the state and federal offices when Cleveland and Pattison were in power are retained by Quay as the price of guiding the party for his interests. Some of them, to be |