But the

death, and never had been. Judge Davis freely condemned the Republican party whenever he conceived that the policy of its leaders called for censure. lifelong friendship with Lincoln and the support lent to that illustrious statesman and President afford the best proof that Judge Davis was at heart a Republican. New York Times (Ind.), June 27.

As temporary presiding officer of the Senate he occupied a position unusually conspicuous after the death of Garfield. But although both parties felt that the country was safe with such a man as a stop-gap, neither party could have had any notion of filling permanently with him the place that happened to fall to him temporarily. So that it may be said he was never so far away from the object of his ambition as when he was nearest to it.

Baltimore Sun (Ind.), June 28.

HE was more fitly placed on the judicial bench than in the Senate, where his great qualities had but little stimulus. It was his fortune, very soon after he became prominent among the available (and, more than that, among the desirvery able) Presidential possibilities, to be whirled by the swift and turbulent stream of events into an eddy from which no counter-current came to carry him out again. New Orleans States (Dem.), June 26.

He was an honest, able, and well-meaning man, but a constitutional Mugwump before Mugwumps were ever heard of. An aspirant for years past for a nominanation for the Presidency, he was ready and anxious to accept it from either party, and failed to receive it from either. If the neuter in politics is the highest type of the statesman, Judge Davis was many centuries ahead of his generation.

It is no use mincing matters in discussing this question. It has been a matter of common report-that there is any truth in the report we should be reluctant to believe that Senator Edmunds himself has used his official position as a lever to obtain profitable professional employment, and that those corporations which employ him, and those alone, are safe from his official scrutiny and criticism. There should be no opportunity for such a report to gain currency, and the only effective way to prevent it is by the enactment of such a measure as Senator Beck proposes. It may be well understood by Senator Edmunds and the other Senators who have worked so hard to squelch the Beck bill, that this measure is like the Irish homerule question-once it has been raised it can not be suppressed or defeated. It may be temporarily checked, but it is bound to be raised and agitated until the force of public opinion compels the Senate to deliver itself from temptation. And we look to see a similar measure to that of Mr. Beck introduced in the House of Representatives and sent to the Senate supported by a vote that even the most pachydermatous of railroad lawyers will recognize as a popular mandate.

Omaha Bee (Rep.), June 25.

SENATOR VAN WYCK was the only Republican who voted against Hawley's motion, while five Democrats, with Standard Oil Payne at their head, recorded their votes with Hawley, Dolph, Hipple Mitchell, Leland Stanford, and the other monopoly Senators. This is another sample of Van Wyck's periodic bolts from his party associates. In the eyes of the class of Republicans who delight in wearing the brass collar this is rank treason, which can not be too severely condemned. Only a few weeks ago Hawley's attempt to rebuke Van Wyck for daring to assert his own views with regard to Jay Gould and the rights of labor to fair treatment was spread broadcast in this State to show that Van Wyck can not be depended upon by his party associates. Now he has again rebelled and jumped the track on an issue in which all other Republicans had ranged themselves by the side of Hawley. To be sure, this was not a party question in the last campaign, but it affects some Republicans very seriously, and Van Wyck has played the traitor with his eyes wide open.

The New Yorker Staats-Zeitung, June 24.

[Translated for PUBLIC OPINION.]

Boston Globe (Dem.), June 25.

New York Times (Ind.), June 26.

THE members of the United States Senate certainly do not fully appreciate the growing distrust with which that body is regarded by the people of this country. It is by no means confined to those persons of radical tendencies who object to it as an aristocratic body, nor does it spring from the fact that Senators are not chosen directly by the people and are not under the sway and control of public opinion. It arises almost wholly from the increasing tendency of the Senate as a body and of its individual members to act as though they had no responsibility to the people, as if they constituted a privileged order whose self-interest they had a right to look after in preference to the public welfare.

Richmond State (Dem.), June 25.

SURELY the influence of railroad corporations upon the United States Senate has become alarming when so prominent a Senator as Mr. Beck rises in that body to offer a bill forbidding Senators to act as the attorneys of the land-grant railroads. The bill was passed, but a motion to reconsider was carried and the bill has been referred to the Judiciary Committee, most of whose members are hostile to it. It is not likely that the bill will pass again, and the great transcontinental railway companies who are engaged in continual warfare with the Government will not be deprived, for a time at least, of their useful attorneys who sit on the floor of the Senate and watch their interests.

New York Tribune (Rep.), June 27.

Ir would have been better had the Senate stood by the resolution forbidding members of Congress to serve as counsel for land-grant railroads, and yet we can hardly avoid a little smypathy with their resentment at Senator Beck's position. He charged in effect that Senators who were attorneys for corporations could not be trusted to draw the line at the point where their private interests might conflict with their public duties. He said to them: "Your consciences are not safe guides in this matter and it devolves upon me to draw the line for you." Had his manner not been full of this self-assumption sentiment, his resolution would probably not have been disturbed.

Oshkosh, Wis., Times (Dem.), June 25.

It is well-known that there is constant clashing between the Government and these land-grant roads and that there is a great deal of legislation necessary to protect the Government and the people from the constantly increasing demands of these greedy corporations. And it is very well known that when the railroad corporations retain Senators Edmunds, Evarts, Spooner and other lawyers in the Senate to argue their causes in the courts, they have also retained their votes on all measures of importance affecting their interests. The bill is a good one, will operate as a wholesome check on the Senatorial corporation lawyers, and ought to pass. Newark News (Dem.), June 25.

THE contest to beat Mr. Beck's bill will, without doubt, be an interesting one. A stubborn effort to load it down with amendments and to protract the debate upon it is expected. It will be perhaps interesting to compare the list of its most earnest opponents with that of the men who are known far and wide as the counsel of the railroad corporations which hold great land grants received from the Government. It will be interesting, too, to study the arguments which they will advance to prove

that it is highly desirable that lawyers should make the laws as well as expound them for their clients.

Puck (Ind.), June 30.

MR. EVARTS said one thing that was true. He averred that Senator Beck's bill forbidding members of the Senate to act as railway lawyers "cast a stigma" upon that body. It did, Mr. Evarts; but the stigma was not cast by Mr. Beck. The disgrace of it lay in the fact that there was even the barest necessity for the introduction of such a bill; in the fact that eleven members of the Senate voted against the bill; in the fact that, the bill having been passed, the vote was reconsidered, and the resolution referred to a committee of railway lawyers who will unquestionably kill it.

Chicago Times (Ind.), June 24.

CONGRESSMEN who have no more regard for propriety than to accept retainers from corporations which are interested in matters of legislation are not going to be in a hurry to deprive themselves by law of such opportunities. The Senate is full of corporation lawyers, and they may all be expected to stand together in this fight. There are enough of them to defeat the bill, but Mr. Beck has rendered a public service in introducing it and compelling the corporation Senators to put themselves on record. The ayes and noes on the bill will be valuable for future reference.

Buffalo Courier (Dem.), June 26.

THE Republican Senators who referred to Mr. Edmunds' committee the bill forbidding Members of Congress to act as attorneys for the land grant railways get cold comfort from the party press. Republican newspapers openly express their dissatisfaction with the position taken by Edmunds, Evarts and other corporation lawyers in opposition to the bill, and the other party journals maintain a chilling silence. As far as noticed, not a voice is raised in defense of the Senatorial lawyers. The present United States Senate is fast making the name of that once-distinguished body odious.

Brooklyn Union (Ind.), June 25.

To a certain extent every person or company whose affairs may be subjects of legislation that employs a member of Congress as a lawyer insults him by the inference that he is employed because he is a member of Congress. It was this motive that the Rogerses had when they made Senators and Congressmen their partners in the Pan-Electric Telephone Company; and the denseness that this scandal has revealed in the composition of such men as Senator Harris and General Johnston seems to be characteristic of a majority of the Senators.

Minneapolis Tribune (Rep.), June 25.

LAWS cannot keep legislators from sacrificing public to private interests, and Mr. Beck knows it as well as anybody. Honorable and upright men will not use their places as Members of Congress to further individual schemes, and laws cannot reach men who are otherwise disposed. Public opinion and personal self-respect must regulate the conduct of legislators in the future as in the past. Mr. Beck's bill reflects against the dignity and honor of the body to which he belongs. There is a proverb condemning the bird that fouls its own nest.

gress from acting as attorneys for land-grant railroads, because "it is based upon the presumption that all members of Congress who are lawyers are dishonest." We object to the presumption which might be deduced from Mr. Mitchell's objection, that all lawyers who are not members of Congress are honest, or that all members of Congress who are not lawyers are honest.

Chicago News (Ind.), June 25.

IF Senator Beck's proposition to prohibit Members of Congress from accepting retainers from subsidized railroads is adopted the old form of putting greenbacks between the leaves of books and presenting the books to the members will have to be resorted to. Given a briber and a bribee, and bribery is sure to follow. Pittsburgh Dispatch (Ind.), June 25.

THE weakest point of the Beck bill is the certainty that if it became law, some means would be found of evading it. From the course of the majority of the Senators, however, it is evident that they do not intend to give themselves the trouble of evading any law calculated to restrict the side profits of their public position.

Philadelphia Record (Ind.), June 26.

SIXTY-FIVE of the seventy-eight United States Senators are lawyers. Under these circumstances it is hardly strange that they should disapprove of Mr. Beck's bill to prevent them from acting as the servants of the corporations and of the people at the same time. It would be money out of their pockets.

THERE was not a word uttered in the course of the debate on this bill which went in the least to prove that it was anything else than a real and urgent necessity, and that it was a blow at vicious practices which have for years brought the United States Senate into discredit.-Philadelphia Telegraph (Rep.), June 25.

THERE are so many corporation attorneys in the Senate whose revenue would be reduced if this bill should be passed that it was sent to the Judiciary Committee committal means the death of the bill.-Troy Press (Dem.); June 26. whose membership is largely made up of Senators who serve two masters. This

GROVER CLEVELAND is a lawyer. Suppose that when he comes back from fishing he steps out of the White House and argues a case for a subsidized railroad company before the Supreme Court. What would Edmunds remark as to the propriety of it?—Washington Post (Dem.), June 27.

MEMBERS of Congress are salaried officers of the Government, and they have no right to employ their time before the courts in defending the claims of corporations, and the more especially when these claims are in conflict with the interests of the Government. Boston Herald (Ind.), June 28.

WHATEVER the Senate may do with the bill, the Democratic majority in the House will accurately accord with the aroused public conscience if it shall pass and send such bill to the Senate. Then, if it dare, let the Senate reject it.—Memphis Avalanche (Dem.), June 26.

THE fact that thirty-one out of fifty-two Senators are willing to go on record against a proposition so obviously sound as that embodied in Mr. Beck's bill is calculated to set people thinking.- New York Evening Post (Ind.), June 24.

No man is so good that suspicion may not rest upon him, and it is the duty of the public man, if he would serve his country to the full extent of his ability, to keep himself above all suspicion.—New Haven News (Ind.), June 26.

It does seem positively humiliating that the attitude of any member of the Senate should justify the introduction of such a bill.-Petersburg Index-Appeal (Dem.), June 25.

MR. RANDALL'S TARIFF BILL.

On the 28th ult. Representative Randall, of Pennsylvania, introduced a tariff bill which has elicited some comment, the drift of which is indicated by the extracts printed below.

Philadelphia Times (Ind.), June 28.

IF IT were not so late in the session Mr. Randall could very probably carry his measure, a great part of the support given to the Morrison bill being the result of party discipline rather than of a belief in Morrison's plans. Even the opposition of the whisky ring to a change in the internal taxes is not all-powerful. But there. is a great deal of business to be disposed of yet and a tariff talk would be interminable. In any event, Mr. Randall has given his party the opportunity to put itself right and possibly to put the Republicans in a hole.

Philadelphia Inquirer (Rep.), June 29.

THOSE who are most concerned about the tariff want neither Mr. Morrison's nor Mr. Randall's bill. The former their representatives in Congress have disposed of finally and as they wished it to be disposed of. The latter should be disposed of in precisely the same fashion; not, however, because it is not a very much wiser and better bill than Mr. Morrison's, but because just now capital and labor desire to be relieved from a renewed discussion of a question any discussion of which by heated partisans is a disturbing cause to business.

Philadelphia Record (Ind.), June 29.

Ir was in exceeding bitterness of spirit that Job expressed a desire that his enemy should write a book. No political antagonist of Mr. Randall could have desired anything worse to befall him than that he should be compelled to introduce a tariff bill of his own. After years and years of triumphant demagogy this exigent test will reveal him to the country for what he is an incapable political malapert,

PRESIDENTIAL POSSIBILITIES.

FROM a large and steadily-increasing amount of comment on the next Presidential election, the following extracts have been selected as fairly representative of the whole :

Brooklyn Union (Ind.).

The talk about Presidential chances in 1888 continues to increase in volume as the end of the Congressional session draws near. Although a man can get no political information from it that is worth knowing, and certainly no data for prophecies that are worth making, this talk of the politicians has a certain negative value. It shows what state of uncertainty the politicians are in. Congressman Miller, of Texas, though he has not won any clear title to credence as a prophet, remarked yesterday that "Mr. Cleveland will beat everybody in 1888," and that "machine politicians can't succeed in a fight against well-defined public sentiment." The interest in this subject, premature as it is, is measured by the fact that the remark is repeated to-day in the Washington dispatches of most of the newspapers. Harper's Weekly thought it worth while to say this week that "the President is the only vitally important personage in our politics"; and a well-informed Washington correspondent of the Springfield Republican wrote the other day that there was no serious thought at the capital about any Democratic possibilities in 1888 but Cleveland and Carlisle. In all these predictions what is most noteworthy is the absence of an allusion to-D. B. Hill. Now, if any one indulges in Democratic prophecy as pastime, as Harper's Weekly does for instance, a failure to allude to D. B. Hill so recently after his Boston speech, may be forgiven as a case of forgetfulness. But when anybody goes about making such prophecies as a business and forgets him, it looks like cruelty aforethought. The Sun has felt this keenly, and this morning it meets Mr. Miller's Texas prediction with the suggestion that a ticket with Hill's name on it would be "rather an attractive ticket." Yet the Sun, loyal Democratic paper as it is, has forgo ten, in all its discussion of this subject, to say that it will support Cleveland in 1888 if the Democratic convention nominates him-provided, of course, the people with a clamor that refuses to be stilled do not again insist on General Butler's entering the race. There can be little doubt but all this prophesying is of immense value when it is remembered that all the prophets who have been kind enough to forecast the Republican future have read by their palmistry that no other candidate than Mr. Blaine can be nominated. "Vindication," "redress," "the old issue"-whatever you choose to call that sagacity which seeks to correct a mistake by repeating it-is accredited by them all to the Republican party. Whatsoever criticism then is incidentally included in the forecastings of the work of the National conventions two years hence is directed against the Republicans; which suggests the suspicion that Mr. Holman, who has renominated Cleveland to make amends for his recent impertinence in trying to starve the Civil-Service Commission, and Mr. Randall, who in his colloquy with Mr. Bragg two days ago, nominated Hill, have "seen the prophets and explained the necessity of such party harmony in 1886 as hope for 1888 may give. Mr. Holman and Mr. Randall have the best reasons in the world for wishing the people's attention this fall to be directed rather to the election in 1888 or to something-anything, indeed-than to the record of the Democratic House. Except for such an indirect use as this, all forecasts of what may take place in 1888 are of even less value than the usual political prophecy; for a great many things can happen in two years to change the situation as it seems to-day, and there is such a barrenness of sharp issues between the parties that any turn of affairs which should give greater vitality to any question now more or less dormant-such as the fear of a commercial disturbance, for instance, might give to the question of silver coinage-would change the whole political outlook. And the nominations of Hayes, of Garfield, and of Cleveland himself, contrary to the expectation of the greater part of their parties, are familiar illustrations of the surprises that conventions are likely to have in store for the prophets. The Democratic party has yet done nothing since the last Presidential election to give the people any more confidence in its ability or courage than they had before.

Buffalo Courier (Dem.).

THE leading article in the current number of Harper's Weekly discusses the relations between "the President and the Democratic party" as viewed from the standpoint of a Republican paper that in the last Presidential campaign opposed the Republican candidate and is still giving a qualified support to the administration of Mr. Cleveland. The following few sentences illustrate the spirit and tone of the article:

The Democratic situation is interesting and amusing. The President whom the party did not wish to nominate is yet in the early part of the second year of his term. The general feeling of his party is unquestionably opposed to his course, and yet it is plain that nothing but his renomination can save his party at the next election. *** It is as obvious now as it was when he was nominated that he is very much stronger than his party. Not a Democrat in the country can be mentioned whose nomination over Mr. Cleveland in the Democratic convention would not seal the overwhelming defeat of the party at the polls. The situation, then, is this: just in the degree that the course of the President allenates the spoils politicians of his party, it draws to him with enthu slasm the support of the people, and makes him the necessary and unavoidable candidate of his party.

In view of the well-known facts the statement that the Democratic party "did not wish to nominate the President" is most extraordinary and surprising. Independent Republicans took an important part in the election of 1884, but the Democratic nomination was an exclusively Democratic affair. At the first ballot in the Chicago Democratic convention Mr. Cleveland had 222 votes more than the next strongest candidate. And at the second ballot he received considerably more than two-thirds of the votes which the rules of the Democratic party require for a Presidential nomination. And none of these votes were cast by rotten borough constituencies like those represented by a number of Southern delegations to the Republican convention. Does Harper's Weekly not perceive that in alleging that the general feeling of the Democratic party is opposed to the President's course and then stating that the people support the President with enthusiasm it contradicts itself?

While we are willing to accord full credit to the independent friends of the Administration and to those Republicans whose political prejudices do not get the better of their patriotism, it is yet true that more than nine-tenths of the people who support the President are Democrats and can be trusted to support any fairly selected and reputable candidate of the Democratic party. They are men whose enthusiasm for the Chief Magistrate is largely interwoven with party spirit and party pride in the high character, strength and achievements of a Democratic administration. If the Weekly's anticipation of the President's renomination is realized the causes will not be what our contemporary presumes. President Cleveland's Democratic friends do not believe that their party, with any other candidate, would suffer "overwhelming defeat," for they have some faith in its strength, and just at present the Republican "situation" seems to them much more "interesting and amusing" than impressive. If the President is renominated it will be due to the demands of the Democratic voters who approve his administration and want more of it. It is quite probable that these demands will be so strong as to render entirely harmless the counteracting force of those outsiders who think they must make amends for their support of the President by abusing and slandering his party.

New York Sun (Dem.).

THE declaration of the last Democratic National Convention in regard to civilservice reform was short and sweet, and there is no reason why anybody should pretend to misunderstand it. The honest civil-service reform to which the representatives of the national Democracy proclaimed their adherence is quite another thing from that Chinese monstrosity before which the Mugwumps bow in fervent adoration. The traditions and the principles of the Democratic party, the opinions of most of its members, and the practice of its living leaders are sufficient evidence as to the kind of civil-service reform the Chicago convention had in view. In the next national convention the question may be of more interest, and particularly so if Mr. Cleveland should be a candidate for renomination. His view of civil-service reform is different from that of the great majority of his party. It may be found necessary to be more specific in defining the position of the party, since the language of the resolution of 1884 has, however unnecessarily and pervertedly, been used to cover a kind of civil-service reform which is not honest, although Mr. Cleveland honestly believes in it. In his speech before the Bay State Club at Boston, the other night, Governor Hill, with the hearty applause of the representa. tive New England Democrats present, used this language:

"I am utterly opposed to any policy or scheme which prevents any Administration from recognizing faithful party service in the distribution of the important offices of the Government."

This declaration of Mr. Hill's would be a good addendum to the civil-service resolution of the Democratic convention of 1884. One slight change suggests itself the excision of the word "important." Probably Mr. Hill would agree to the change. We should then have this civil-service resolution, and a very good one it would be:

We favor honest civil-service reform, but we are utterly opposed to any policy or scheme which prevents any administration from recognizing faithful party service in distributing the offices of the Government."

No Mugwumpery could hide itself under such a resolution as this.

New York Tribune (Rep.).

RHODE ISLAND never was other than a serious-minded State, so that when the public finds The Providence Journal broadly insinuating that Mrs. Frances Folsom Cleveland can be depended upon to run for the Presidency in 1888, they realize that the words of our contemporary are to be regarded as the outcome, not of levity, but of earnest conviction. As this is the first gun of the next National campaign, and as it is a novel gun, we give The Journal's article in full:

There are persons who think they discern that the President's intention to marry has had an effect on his political ambition for many months past. Under the influence of a charming young bride this ambition may become intensified. A young woman who is the first lady of the land, at the age of twenty-two, is different from other bright and ambitious young American women if she desires to relinquish her high station in two brief years and give place to another. What is more natural than that her creditable ambition to remain in the White House four years more should change whatever determination her husband might have made to the contrary? Handsome and aspiring women have changed the world's politics before now.

Now, as likely as not thoughtful and hasty generalizing politicians upon reading the above will decide that it means that Grover Cleveland has decided to stand for a renomination. But two things are in the way of such an interpretation. First, Mr. Cleveland is aware that he couldn't get the Democratic nomination in '88 if he wanted it; second, he is precluded by his own formal declaration against a second Presidential term, from accepting it if he could get it. In 1888 the Democracy will naturally be looking for a man on whom they can unite. Cleveland has shown himself not to be that man. If the party were to be looking for a

man on whom they could most successfully divide, why then Cleveland would be renominated unanimously by acclamation on the first ballot-if not earlier.

Philadelphia Press (Rep.).

THE Sun announces that "Mr. Hill is resolved to do nothing to stand in the way of Mr. Cleveland's re-election." Besides," says the Sun, "he is convinced that if Mr. Cleveland can't win in '88, there is no other New Yorker who can." This is an important piece of news. The Sun ought to know. It is on good terms with Governor Hill, and would hardly venture upon so explicit a statement without feeling fully warranted in doing so. This simplifies the situation for Mr. Cleveland. With Hill out of the way, he has no competitor for the nomination in sight except Speaker Carlisle, and since Mr. Cleveland, in his correspondence on the resignation of Secretary Manning, declared more boldly and broadly for free trade than Carlisle ever did, the only Democratic ground on which Carlisle could Republicans could ask nothing better. For six months after his inauguration the be urged in preference has been taken away. So let Cleveland be the candidate. public opinion of the country was favorable to Mr. Cleveland. There was an impression that he was a firm, rugged, honest, well-meaning man who wanted to do