(untitled)

The declared purpose of England to maintain a fleet equal to the combined fleets of Russia and France don't look as though there is to be any immediate relief for the people from taxation for war purposes.

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The Detroit street railways are not to have entirely clear sailing in their return to five cent fares after having given the people three cent fares. Practically every interest is arrayed against them in this move. Apparently they have a big fight on hand. They will be called down to strict charter privileges in all respects.

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Governor Pingree is "agin" President McKinley, and don't you forget it. He says McKinley is a coward and that settles that point. He says McKinley reduced Secretary Alger to a mere clerk to register the president's will and that the doings of the war department were McKinley 's more than the secretary's. There are others who believe this charge to be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

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Peace with the Boers appears now to be certain. Great Britain has not gained all of her demands but enough to form a basis for renewed negotiations. The concessions make citizens of Uitlanders of seven years residence and under this qualification a considerable number will be entitled voting privleges. The redistribution bill gives the gold fields eight seats in the legislature. These were two chief points contended for.

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Admiral Dewey, thus far, has given 110 indications of being feeble minded. There is no reason, therefore, to believe that the alleged mission of William C. Whitney to Europe to meet him on the way home and induce him to be the democratic candidate for the presidency will succeed. He is not trained to politics and his reputation would not be enhanced by the presidency. He no doubt will be as wise as Wm. T. Sherman and not be tempted.

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General Alger will not be greatly flattered with the "sizing up" of his administration which the newspapers gave him yesterday. The comments with great unanimity characterize his administration of the war office as weak and lacking in force. His is not the type of mind which enables one to completely grasp the difficulties of such a position. The secretary was undoubtedly in a position too big for him. While he was probably the only jingo in McKinley's cabinet, he did nothing but talk. He made no preparations for the coming storm. Had he possessed the vigor of Roosevelt, the war would not have caught the nation in the condition of unpreparedness that it did. Roosevelt was a jingo too, but he did something more than talk. The preparedness of the navy was due to his energy and foresight vastly more than to anyone else. When the $50,000,000 defense fund was voted he cornered it and put the navy in splendid fighting trim while the supine secretary of war was doing nothing. His arm of the service was left totally without preparation for the emergency. He should have had his share of the defense fund and used it in making preparations for the conflict which he claimed was inevitable. But he did nothing. The declaration of war found the nation in a state of unpreparedness which was shameful. When Alger did finally move he manifested some vigor but everything was done in such a hurry that there was a total lack of system and everything which goes to make up an army and its equipment was piled up in a dump, as it were.

Another source of weakness in his administration was his jealousy of the most competent generals. He apparently expended as much energy in preventing Gen. Miles from winning any laurels as he did in equipping the army. He manifested a like disposition toward General Merritt. Of course Gen. Alger was not responsible for all the evils of his department The red tape system was a source of much weakness and then it is generally believed that the president himself was a pretty active factor in the handling of the affairs of the department. Bat still there are enough things Gen. Alger was responsible for to stamp him a man unequal to the position he held.

If the criticisms of Gen. Otis should fall into the hands of Gen. Otis the censor, wouldn't there be a fine job of censoring though? He certainly would blue pencil the charge that the failure of the volunteers to re-enlist is due to their being sick of his mismanagement.

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Canada offered 5,000 men to the mother country in case of war with the Transvaal. Of course the purpose of this move, the strengthening of the British spine in the Alaskan boundary dispute, is apparent, but if Canada continues her insolent attitude on that question, she may find need for these men near home.

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In the appointment of Elihu Root, of New York, as secretary of war, President McKinley shows plainly that he desires to keep in touch with Gov. Roosevelt, just as Platt last fall was obliged to draw near the man of his hate. Root is an able lawyer and bas been prominent in the councils of his party for many years. He is a close friend and adviser of Gov. Roosevelt and had his endorsement for the place.

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When the correspondents round robin was considered by the president and cabinet it was given out with much appearance of bad blood that no attention would be paid to it and that Gen. Otis would not be informed of it even. Late dispatches indicate that he was informed all right for he has responded with a sweeping denial. He says he did not do a thing to the correspondents. His explanations, however, are no stranger than his generalship has been. In the meantime the belief is undoubtedly growing that Gen. Otis is not the right man for the place he is in. Unless the unexpected happens there he will probably be succeeded before the campaign is resumed by a general who knows more of the situation than is included in the city of Manila.

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The reciprocity treaty with France seems likely to fail. Opposition to the treaty has arisen in France through the fear that it will bring American goods in competition with French goods and throw French workmen out of employment. American goods are entering European markets and competing with European goods in every line. They are made by high priced American labor, shipped several thousand miles and sold in competition with European goods and at lower prices than Americans pay for them right at home, thanks to high protection. Yet these infant industries must needs have that protection or be driven to the wall. Then with this ill gotten gain those who have received it control conventions, make and control presidents and congress whereby they get another boost in protective duties. Such are conditions in this country of the equality of all men before the law.

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It is too early yet to predict what the firing of Secretary Alger from McKinley 's cabinet may be upon Michigan republicans. As a rule they are pretty apt to stand by the man or men who have the loaves and fishes to distribute no matter how good a friend has been run over by the band wagon. The talk about giving Tom Reed the Michigan vote in the next convention is a very remote possibility, so remote that it is at the extreme vanishing point. Mr. Reed is too able a man to break in to the presidency. Men of his mentality seldom get there. Intellectually President McKinley is not more than a foot high compared with Reed, but as politicians these conditions are reversed. The politician wins. Michigan will scarcely be for Reed against McKinley to vindicate Alger. That Alger bas been outrageously treated iii being made to bear all the sins of a weak national administration is true, but such things are soon forgotten in politics. Nevertheless if Alger should throw himself into the senatorial fight, barrel and all, and use freely the ammunition at his command, he could make an interesting fight and events might shape themselves so that it would have considerable influence on the next national convention.

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In the death of Robert G. Ingersoll there has passed from living a man who though in private life has been much in the public mind. His faculties, it directed in any other channel than that of agnosticism, would have placed him in any position he might have aspired to. Intellectually he was a great man. He was a great orator and a master of the English language. His life was clean and honorable. He saw the bright side of life, was a good deal of an idealist and was sympathetic and kindly in his instincts. He was unusual only in his views upon all received religion. Undoubtedly much of this was due to the narrowness of his early training and the prejudices resulting therefrom. Discovering certain weaknesses in christianity as practiced, and in the creeds of the various sects, he proceeded to reject it as a whole and in this displayed as much and as bitter prejudice as that with which he was assailed.. While denying the claims of christianity upon the human heart, he offered nothing in place of this cherished belief. The controversies in which he engaged, no doubt, carried him far beyond his real opinions and what he actually believed for his beautiful and touching creation at his brother's grave plainly indicated his belief in a future life. He was a great man in his abilities bot his life work in what he attempted to do was a failure.

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The firing of Gen. Alger from the cabinet constitutes the second cabinet scandal chargeable to the present national administration. The first was John Sherman who was taken out of the senate and made secretary of state solely to make room for the man who made McKinley president. It was well understood, at least it had been repeatedly charged in the press, that Senator Sherman had lost his vigor on account of his great age. Nevertheless President McKinley invited him to the premiership of his cabinet, a position upon which the searchlights of the world are concentrated. The weakness of the secretary of state became apparent at once to the shame of the nation. Yet President McKinley kept him there for months until the foreign press took the matter up and pointed its gibes at the weaknesses of the secretary of state. Finally the situation become intolerable to the country and a go between was found, as in the case of Gen. Alger, who informed Secretary Sherman that he would better resign which he did. Such an act, the appointment of a man of enfeebled faculties as secretary of state, to the scandal of the nation, solely for the purpose of having in official position near his person such a man as Mark Hanna certainly should not endear an administration to the people.

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The press of Vienna is laboring under a considerable rise of temperature over the refusal of Uncle Sam to arbitrate the claim of Austria-Hungary for indemnity for the lives of the Huns who were killed at Lattimer, Pennsylvania in 1897, while they were resisting lawful authority. While parading the country in connection with other disorderly elements, terrorizing the peaceable, they were commanded to halt by a sheriff's posse. They did not obey and were fired upon, several being killed. The sheriff and his deputies were tried for murder and acquitted, the courts holding their act justifiable. These Huns had all the redress claimed by American citizens. They were killed while engaged in acts of violence by officers of the law in the performance of their sworn duty. On the face of the record these Huns were law breakers and there was therefore no governmental responsibility for their deaths, either on the part of the state or nation. To admit such responsibility would be to make the government liable for any and all punishment inflicted upon aliens whatever their offense might be. The idea that such a case could be admitted to arbitration is preposterous. It could not be thought of for a minute. The Austrian government would have been better advised not to present the claim at all. The American government favors arbitration of matters which are proper subjects for arbitration, but cases of this nature are entirely out side the bounds. There should be a valuable lesson in this case for those foreigners who are prone to acts of lawlessness with the expectation that their governments across the sea will help them out.