securities than there is precedent on which to base judgment of the safety of public utility bonds. We mean by this that railroad equipment obligations, as a class, have been subjected to more severe tests, which they have withstood in a remarkably satisfactory manner. But, as between the equipment bonds and either one of the other two issues, it would be difficult to express any but a more or less arbitrary choice on general grounds. Although the Chicago Telephone and People's Gas fives are both widely known issues with reasonably broad markets, it is just possible that the equipments might prove somewhat the more stable in market value. This is a consideration that would be of no little importance, provided you foresaw any possibility of being under the necessity of converting your investment into cash on short notice. Then, too, the equipments being issued in various maturities, would lend themselves to a special arrangement of your investment more readily than the other bonds. It is not particularly easy at all times to find odd lots of equipment bonds or notes in the market. The relatively small offerings, like the recent one of Seaboard Air Line 42's, are quickly absorbed as a rule by institutional buying, so that they rarely become available for the individual investor. It appears, however, that there is still a floating supply of older and larger issues, like Baltimore & Ohio 42's, due February, 1916 to 1922, and New York Central Lines 42's, due January, 1920 to 1926, obtainable about as follows: the former on a 4.30 per cent. basis, the latter on a 4.40 per cent. basis. Your banker would doubtless be able to suggest others. In the public utility class we might suggest other bonds like the following as being of about equal investment merit with those you already have under consideration: Washington Water Power first 5's Laclede Gas of St. Louis first 5's, or refunding 5's Milwaukee Electric Railway & Light first 5's Pacific Telephone & Telegraph 5's These issues we have picked more or less at random from among some of the better known bonds listed on the New York Stock Exchange. We do not necessarily mean to imply by this that we favor listed bonds of this type over the scores of high-class issues that are handled privately by the big investment banking houses and never heard of on any of the exchanges. In fact, we believe it would undoubtedly be to your advantage to investigate the opportunities in the field of quiet, unlisted securities. You would find that by making some sacrifice of marketability you could get more income and be scarcely less assured about the ultimate safety of your funds. No. 379. RAILROAD AND TRUST COMPANY SHARES I received recently a very kind answer from you to a letter of mine inquiring about investments. One of your suggestions has been heeded. I put a few thousands into first mortgages on land and houses at six per cent. The property is worth about three times the value of the mortgages and loss from by a skilled attorney on local property, and the attorney fire is covered by insurance. These mortgages were placed guards my interest and collects the interest. I now write regarding the advisability of selling railroad and trust comproceeds. These shares came to me by inheritance pany shares to a considerable amount and re-investing the They consist of Pennsylvania Railroad and Delaware & Hudson Company stock,-about one-half the total amount-and stock of four trust companies to the amount of the other half. At present market prices these shares would bring a large sum of money. My attorney advises holding them. He says the railroad shares are conservative investments. companies he does not know much about. me in regard to this? The trust Can you advise we Your mortgage investment seems to have been made under what any authority would consider practically ideal conditions. Your attorney is right in his judgment of the railroad shares you own. It would, indeed, be difficult to find more conservative investments of that particular type. One-half of a large fund in stocks, even stocks of as high grade as Pennsylvania and Delaware & Hudson, does not afford quite the kind of distribution that is advocated by the most competent investment authorities. But in your case think it would be wise to leave that part of the investment undisturbed, at least for the present. With the trust companies' shares we see the situation in a different light. There seems to be no logical reason why a man in your position should have so large a proportion of his surplus funds tied up in high-priced "specialities" of this kind. You could make your investment position a considerably more comfortable one, we think, if you were to liquidate these shares and distribute the proceeds, say, among municipal, public service corporation and railroad bonds, yielding from about 44 to 5 or 54 per cent. We should be glad to have you again avail yourself of the services of this department, in case you find yourself in doubt about other factors in your investment problem. No. 380. UNITED STATES WORSTED Can you give me some information in regard to the preferred stock of the United States Worsted Company? Has the company any bonded debt or obligations of any kind coming ahead of the preferred stock? How long has it been paying dividends? What is the margin of safety for the Do you consider it a safe buy at preferred dividends? present prices? This company's official statements do not show any obligations that have claims prior to the claim of the preferred stock. It has paid regular dividends on this stock at the rate of 7 per cent.per annum since July 15, 1909. The last financial statement, namely, that as of July, 1911, showed total assets of $4,666,690, total liabilities of $914,674, total net assets of $3,752,016, and a surplus over the $3,000,000 preferred shares outstanding of $752,016. This surplus compared with $467,504 as of July, 1910 and $88,000 as of July, 1909. The stock is a semi-investment issue of a type which seems to have been in rather satisfactory demand among business investors in states like New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Rhode Island and Connecticut where conditions in the mill industry are more familiarly known and where the stock is exempt from taxation. EDITED BY ALBERT SHAW CONTENTS FOR SEPTEMBER, 1912 By BRADLEY GILMAN Progressive National Convention.Frontispiece The Keynote of Roosevelt's Character.. 303 259 Hiram Johnson, Political Revivalist.. 259 306 310 Logic of the Coming Party Alignment 318 By WILLIAM MENKEL With portraits and sketches By PROFESSOR JESSE MACY With portrait of Jesse Macy By ADACHI KINNOSUKE 261 A Great Teacher of Politics.. 262 321 263 Japan's Late Emperor and His Successor 322 264 With portraits of the new Emperor and Empress Plenty of Virile Leaders.. Hiram Johnson's Emergence. The Canal and Our Ships. A Timely Notice.. Wilson's Speech, on the Wrong Day. A Fine and Worthy Utterance.. Wilson on the Tariff... Will the Machines Help Wilson? Internal Reform of the Democratic Party. Founding the New Party. Party Names and Their Value. 264 Progressive Party Characteristics. City Government of To-day. 342 270 With portraits The Split in Ohio. 276 The Real Status of French Protestantism. 357 358 Our Newest Zoological Treasures, the Pygmy Our "Protected" Wage-Earners That Receive The Lloyd-George Insurance Law. 281 Knitting Closer the Franco-Russian Alliance 282 Remedy" for Strikes.... 367 Will the Dardanelles be Opened?. 282 A Russo-Japanese Entente. Fall of the Turkish Cabinet. TERMS:-Issued monthly, 25 cents a number, $3.00 a year in advance in the United States, Porto Rico, Hawaii, Cuba, Canada, Mexico and Philippines. Elsewhere, $4.00. Entered as Second Class matter at the Post Office Department, Ottawa, Canada. Subscribers may remit to us by post-office or express money orders, or by bank checks, drafts, or registered letters. Money in letters is at sender's risk. Renew as early as possible in order to avoid a break in the receipt of the numbers. Bookdealers, Postmasters, and Newsdealers receive subscriptions. (Subscriptions to the English REVIEW OF REVIEWS, which is edited and published In London, may be sent to this office, and orders for single copies can also be filled, at the price of $2.50 for the yearly subscription, including postage, or 25 cents for single copies.) THE REVIEW OF REVIEWS CO., 30 Irving Place, New York City THE PROGRESSIVE PARTY IN NATIONAL CONVENTION ASSEMBLED (Chicago, August 5, 1912; see page 310) Copyright by the Moffett Studio, and Kaufman, Weimer & Fobry Co., Chicago REVIEW OF REVIEWS VOL. XLVI NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER, 1912 No. 3 THE PROGRESS OF THE WORLD Lawmakers and their Troubles Second Terms It is not often that lawmakers public character that made it different from have to deal with as many ques- other candidacies, until after the convention tions of great and enduring im- at Chicago in June. His time and strength portance as have occupied the Sixty-second were greatly needed by the important duties Congress during the long session which began of his public office. It is to be believed that on December 4 and which kept Senators and no President hereafter will devote long periRepresentatives continuously at Washington ods of his time to the promotion of his own until far into August. It has been an ex- personal ambitions. ceedingly trying session for very many of these public men. Every one of the 394 The Democratic platform this seats in the House of Representatives will be year declares for a single Presicontested for, in the elections this autumn. dential term. This principle does Political conditions in their home States have not need to await constitutional amendments. been so affected by the movements of this The country does not have to continue a remarkable year that the men who were President in power if it does not so desire. detained at Washington felt, in many cases, Certainly a second term should come only a very urgent need of getting back to their by way of a unanimous and unsolicited redistricts. One-third of the membership of nomination, followed by public indorsement the Senate also changes every two years, and in the form of a great majority at the polls. in most States there has come about some more or less definite way of selecting Senators by popular action. Naturally, therefore, the lawmakers at Washington have, during the past three months, found it hard to be wholly absorbed in pending legislation, and to consider public questions purely upon their merits, without regard to politics. Public Duty A President who uses the patronage and power of his office to further his personal ambition for a second term is guilty of abhorrent official impropriety. It is to be believed that the appalling object-lesson of the present year will never be repeated in our history. Governor Wilson's supporters say that the Democratic nominee will be elected in November. The intention of the Democratic Under our system, these conflicts platform seems to be to limit him to one Politics and of motive and these divisions of term. But in any case, if he is to be renomiattention cannot, of course, be nated in 1916, he should be able to declare wholly avoided. We must make the best we can of a system that has its merits as well as its faults. Whatever can in reason be done to keep public men working devotedly at their public duties, rather than at their own personal games of political advantage, will conduce to the welfare of the country. The session was somewhat prolonged by a series of conflicts between Congress and President Taft. During a great part of the session the President had been entirely occupied with his own personal affairs. His candidacy had no that he has spoken no word and committed no deed in his official capacity as President of the United States that was intended, as its motive, to assist in securing his nomination. by the Democratic party. If this seem a hard doctrine, it is only because our political life has fallen so low that it has forgotten the meaning of honor, self-respect, and common decency. Nowhere else in the civilized world does the executive head of a country traffic in appointments to office and grant public favors with a view to keeping himself in power. If some Presidents of Latin-American republics have done this sort of thing, it is merely an illustration of the fact that in those countries there has been very slight development of public opinion and of real democratic institutions. This is a matter familiar to all observers of the political life of those nations. The One The Wool But the relation between the 'executive and lawmaking branches of the government has now become so little a matter of right reasoning or clear thinking that there is nothing to do except to hope for the speedy coming of an era of statesmanship. Mr. Taft has repeatedly condemned the present wool schedule, although he himself signed the bill Whatever one may read in the which made it a law. When both houses of Paramount party platforms this year, or in Congress, under direct mandate of the people Issue the formal speeches of the candi- given in the election of 1910, have now prodates, there is only one great issue, namely, ceeded in two successive years to pass bills the direct control of political life and of gov- revising the wool schedule, Mr. Taft obernment affairs by the people themselves, and structs needed reform by undertaking to say the emancipation of politics and government that in his opinion the exact percentage of from improper and indecent control. This reduction should be slightly different. These fight for decency may not win a complete are matters that Congress has had incomvictory at once. It is so involved with a parably better opportunity to study than the great many other things that millions of chief executive could possibly have had. If voters may fail this year to see the situation clearly. But if the fight should not win in every respect, it will have made vast progress. And it will have been well worth all the effort it has cost. Good Work by the House The work of the Democratic House has been far from perfect, yet it has been fully as good as could have been expected. Its tariff work in the extra session, early in 1911, has stood the test of public discussion to a remarkable extent. It does not seem to us an exaggeration to say that, without regard to party, there was general approval of the Underwood bills. When those measures, with some compromises and changes, were accepted by the Senate, through the coöperation of the Progressive Republicans, there was a more general acquiescence and approval throughout the country than has been accorded to any tariff legislation since the Civil War. President Taft's vetoes of those measures last year were not sustained by public opinion. His action again last month in vetoing tariff bills was not unexpected, inasmuch as it had been practically announced in advance that he would obstruct the path of any tariff bills that could be criticized from his argumentative standpoint. His position is one of dialectics rather than one based upon public policy or upon facts. It should be remembered that bills relating to taxation and the public revenue that have been carefully considered, and adopted by substantial majorities in both houses of Congress, are not in the nature of measures that an executive officer, even under our system, is expected he had meant to go into the details of tariff revision, he should have done his work when he had the opportunity, namely, when he called the session, in 1909, that gave us the Payne-Aldrich law. The excuses that Mr. Taft gives for vetoing tariff-revision bills are of no particular consequence. The important thing is that he personally has been keeping in force all the schedules of the PayneAldrich enactment, while Congress and the country have been honestly striving to revise those schedules. PRESIDENT TAFT (as the Wool Bill Lamb enters): Where |