Conference at Algeciras [see EUROPE: A. D. 1904-1906], which
may or may not be brought to the attention of the
international diplomats. France from the start has refused to
submit her doings along the Algerian frontier to the
discussion of the conference. That concerns herself and
Morocco alone. What has been happening would in any case put
the conference in face of an accomplished fact. Some time ago
M. Jonnart, Governor-General of Algiers, was informed that
emissaries from Fez were notifying the frontier tribes, whose
submission to France dates only from the last few years, that
Germany would help the Sultan very shortly to force the French
to evacuate their tribal territories. … M. Jonnart at once set
out on a long and ceremonious visit to the tribes along the
extreme southern frontier. He was accompanied by General
Lyautey, the ‘pacificating’ general, who has been M. Jaurès’
bugbear in this Moroccan affair. The Governor-General returned
to Algiers Friday last, just in time to have his news ready
for the conference. He has reason to be satisfied. Except for
a vague idea that the Moroccan territory along the Algerian
frontier is a ‘hled-es-siba’—a country where the Sultan has
difficulty in collecting his taxes—the foreign press has not
kept pace with what has been going on for the last ten years.
In one word, during that time France has brought under her
domination a stretch of territory of some thousands of square
miles. It is true that this territory is sparsely settled by
wilfully independent tribes, who so far alternately aided in
the Algerian harvests and raided the French outposts. This
situation quite justifies the action of the French troops,
which has consisted in throwing forward the unbroken line of
outposts that enclose and keep in order the French dominion,
and not in any military conquest of volatile tribes. M. Jaurès
always fell foul of the latter policy, which he ascribed to
the military; but it would be as useless as it is absurd. What
General Lyautey has been doing all these years, without
Germany or any other friend of the Sultan giving sign of life,
is not only reasonable: it is better—it has proved effective.
And M. Jonnart’s tour has secured the formal submission of
these tribes whose territory geographers have all along made a
part of Tafilalt--the southeasternmost of the four ancient
kingdoms which, together, make up the empire of Morocco. The
boundary between Morocco and French territory in Algiers has
never been settled since the original treaty of 1845. That
drew a line from the coast southward about a hundred miles to
Teniet-es-Sassi, four degrees of longitude west from Paris,
and then stopped. Whatever was to the south—then a No Man’s
Land, so far as France was concerned—was to be divided
amicably along as natural a line as possible, leaving the east
to France as a sphere of influence (the word had not yet been
invented). During these sixty years the frontier line has
remained about the same on the maps. But France has steadily
prolonged her settled domination southward, gaining over a
Mohammedan population by serving their material interests
without offence to their religion. The railway now reaches
Beni Ounif, only a short distance from Fighig, whose Amel is
among those notified that Morocco with German help will soon
send the French over the desert and far away. At Beni Ounif,
besides the Grand Hotel for tourists, there are extensive
counting houses for the trade of all the Hinterland, with an
appropriate banking system, and everything to draw the
Moroccan tribes. There is no doubt that this territory has
always been nominally a part of Morocco. … And now M. Jonnart
has visited officially the great Zaouia, or religious centre
of Kenadsa, still farther to the west."
_Paris Special Correspondence
New York Evening Post,
February 3, 1906._
{425}
MOROCCO: A. D. 1903.
State of Affairs in the Moorish Sultanate.
Abd el Aziz, the young Sultan.
His expensive tastes.
His enjoyment of the Playthings of Civilization and Science.
"Regarded as a Moorish ruler and leader, the late Sultan,
Mulai Hassan, was a strong man, almost, perhaps, a great man.
The loss of Morocco is that apparently she cannot produce his
like in the present generation. She was richer a few years
ago; and that is part of her decadence. Mulai Hassan had a
companion of his right hand: Ba Hamed, the Grand Wazeer. In
them Morocco could boast the possession of two strong men;
crude, narrow of vision, even brutal and merciless, if judged
by European standards, yet genuinely strong men. The greater
of them died, and his subordinate successfully hid the fact
(though the Court was journeying at the time) from all
Morocco, masquerading as one in close attendance upon a Sultan
whose corpse, as a fact, was tied in its litter, until city
walls were reached, preparations made, and the succession of
the youth Abd el Aziz assured. Be it remembered that Ba Hamed,
the survivor, was a strong man in his own right. Young Abd el
Aziz [who succeeded his father in 1894] was docile perforce,
and Ba Hamed ruled, without pity, with greed, and quite
unhampered by what Europe calls honour or justice. …
"Rather more than two years ago [1901], when already the
country was perturbed by news of the French advance upon and
occupation of Igli, the Moorish town which was regarded as the
depot and junction via which the caravan traffic of the desert
filtered through Morocco to the coast; at this critical
juncture, in the thick of conflicting intrigues, poisonings,
and official treachery, Ba Hamed, the greatly feared, greatly
hated, and rigidly obeyed Wazeer, died at Marrakish, leaving
many scheming heirs-presumptive to his office, but no single
successor to the mantle of his authority, the inherent
masterfulness of his personality.
"Still youthful Abd el Aziz IV. stretched forth both hands and
personally took up the fallen reins of government with a great
flourish of trumpets and display of energy. … Optimistic
Europeans, naturally gratified by the active good sense with
which Abd el Aziz checked his Filali tribesmen’s turbulent
resentment of contact with the French in Igli and its oasis,
freely predicted a new lease of life for the Moorish Empire.
They credited the new broom with powers which, in view of its
origin and environment, had been little short of miraculous.
And they omitted reflection regarding the hand which moved the
new broom. This was a power behind the Parasol, a latent
intelligence, not wholly Moorish, capricious, feminine,
subtle, unstable, and somewhat vitiated from long repression
in an unwholesome atmosphere. The late Mulai Hassan’s
Circassian wife, young Abd el Aziz’s mother, Lalla R’kia, had
also found a dangerous emancipation in the death of Ba Hamed.
…
"Casually observant Nazarenes saw rich, cruel officials swept
from their high estate by wholesale, and predicted the birth
of probity at Court. Notorious gainers by oppression were
loaded with chains in Kasbah dungeons; the young Sultan’s
brother, the One-Eyed, whom cautious Ba Hamed had kept secure
in Tetuan prison, was established on parole at Mcquinez, and
‘Here’s positive purity of administration!’ cried the
surface-reading hopeful in Christian-ridden Tangier.
"Of a sudden, all movement ceased. The young Sultan was lost
sight of—behind the curtain. … It is not given to us to know
anything of pale Lalla R’kia’s attitude during this breathing
space. … (Lalla R’kia died last year.)
"Speaking metaphorically, his Shareefian Majesty Abd el Aziz
reappeared on the arm of a commercial agent, a French
Israelite, with a genius for the ‘placing’ of imported
commodities. Allah’s Chosen had been initiated into the select
manias of Europe, and become addicted to golfing, the use of
the camera, the bicycle, and other less pretty pastimes from
the West. …
"Commercial agents continued to press upon the young Sultan
the latest and most expensive of electrical and other toys,
and those far-seeing gentlemen, the newspaper correspondents,
bade Europe take note of the remarkable enlightenment and
progressive wisdom of the ruler of Morocco, as evidenced by
his interest in motor cars and Broadwood pianos. And the
friends of these optimistic gentry criticised the present
writer as a croaker and a bird of ill-omen when he published
in _The Fortnightly Review_ for July, 1901, the following
extract from a letter sent him by a Moorish friend:
"‘To sum all up, my friend, I grieve because I find the
affairs of my native land in parlous order, demanding as never
before in the history of Morocco the guidance of a strong,
clear mind, a veritable Sultan. That my country’s affairs most
urgently need. They have a governing power composed of half a
dozen corrupt creatures, of a corrupt, short-sighted, cruel,
and desperately greedy Wazeer, whose rightful Lord is occupied
exclusively in—Bah! We have spoken of those whose graves will
be defiled, and of the trumpery gauds from Paris bazaars. And
this, while the turbulent Sus is aflame, the far south-east a
mine charged by French aggression, waiting only the match of
knowledge of our Lord’s indifference; the country between
Tafilalt and Fas is openly given over to brigandage and
anarchy, and even Al Ksar, Arzila, and the Gharb, Tangiers
outskirts, are full of unrest and disorder, crimes and
indifference to crimes.’"
_A. J. Dawson,
Morocco, the Moors, and the Powers
(Fortnightly Review, February, 1903)._
{426}
"I have not seen the Sultan face to face, but I have conversed
with nearly all the leading Europeans who have been with him
either at Marrakesh or Fez, and from what they have told me I
have been forced to conclude that Mulai Abd-el-Aziz is a
charming, kindly, headstrong man, suffering badly from youth,
who delights in reforms for the sake of their novelty and
lacks the brain power that distinguished his father, Mulai el
Hassan, and his grandfather, Mulai Mohammed. While he stayed
in his southern capital he was comparatively free from the
attacks of commercial attaches and other rogues, whose designs
upon his treasury should have been obvious, though he was
guilty of many extravagances, including displays of fireworks
that made his envoy to England speak slightingly of the
special display arranged in his honour at the Crystal Palace.
In Fez the agents surrounded him like summer flies. He has
twelve motor cars and no roads to ride them over; he paid
between three and four thousand pounds for a yacht, sixty feet
long, that was to be used on the Sebu river, which is no more
than thirty feet wide; in spite of the Koran’s prohibition, he
has purchased a crown at a price I am afraid to name. He has
put some of his soldiers into European uniforms and boots,
only to find that they run away from Bu Hamara as readily as
they did when dressed in native garments. He has developed an
enthusiasm for photography—I have seen some of his work—and
in addition to cameras with cases of pure gold, he has one
apartment of his palace loaded from floor to ceiling with dark
plates, and he was persuaded to order ten thousand francs’
worth of printing paper. He has a menagerie in the grounds of
the palace at Fez, and on a day when it was reported that the
lion sent from England had quarrelled with and killed the lion
sent from Berlin, one of the European visitors to the court
suggested to him that a contest between the victorious lion
and the Bengal tiger would afford good sport. ‘No,’ said
Abd-el-Aziz, ‘the lion cost me three thousand pounds!’ All
Europe knows that the Sultan is poor."
_S. L. Bensusan,
Britain, France, and the Moorish Empire
(Contemporary Review, November, 1903)._
MOROCCO: A. D. 1903-1904.
Appearance of the Mahdi, Bu Hamara,
as a leader of Insurrection.
In 1903 there appeared in Morocco one of the prophetic
pretenders called Mahdis, of whom so many have arisen in the
Moslem world, to take advantage of occasions of religious
excitement, and to lead a rising of wild tribes. This Moorish
Mahdi, known as Bu Hamara, was helped to a leadership of
insurrection by an incident which greatly stirred the
religious temper of tribes wherever known. An English
missionary was killed at Fez, and the murderer, flying to a
sanctuary of special sanctity, was pursued thereto by the
Sultan’s guards, and slain within the sacred bounds. Against
this sacrilege, committed to satisfy hated Christians, Bu
Hamara roused the country, preaching extermination of all
Christians within it. The insecure throne of Abd el Aziz was
made more insecure, English influence in Morocco was shaken,
the French frontiers east and south were endangered, and Bu
Hamara’s revolt appears to have had much to do with the
producing of all that followed,—in the Anglo-French Agreement
of 1904, the Algeciras Conference, the dethronement of Abd el
Aziz, etc.
MOROCCO: A. D. 1904.
Declarations of England and France concerning Morocco
in the Agreements of the Entente of 1904.
Explanatory Despatch.
See (in this Volume)
EUROPE: A. D. 1904 (APRIL).
MOROCCO: A. D. 1904-1909.
Exploits of El Raisuli.
The Kidnapping and Ransoming of Messrs. Perdicaris and Varley.
The Capture and Ransom of Kaid Sir Harry MacLean.
Present Respectability of Raisuli as a Moroccan Governor.
One of the chiefs in that mountainous strip of northern
Morocco, nearly parallel to the Mediterranean, which is called
"The Riff," has played a startlingly troublesome part in
recent Moroccan history. His name is Mulai Ahmed ben Mohammed,
but he is commonly designated in all news-mentions of his
doings by the title he bears,—El Raisuli, chieftain of a clan.
The first exploit which made this title familiar to all the
world was in May, 1904, when he kidnapped, from their
residence near Tangier, a naturalized American and an
Englishman, Mr. Ion Perdicaris and his stepson, Mr. Varley,
carrying them into the mountains and holding them captive
until he had extorted a ransom of $70,000, despite the utmost
efforts of France, Great Britain, and the United States, with
the aid of the Sultan, to obtain their release on less
humiliating terms. This success failed, however, to satisfy
the audacious brigand, and in July, 1907, he laid hands on
another important hostage, this time a British officer, Sir
Harry MacLean, who had been long in the service of the Sultan
of Morocco, as military adviser, with the title of Kaid. Kaid
MacLean ventured to visit the brigand in his mountain retreat
for some negotiation, and was detained in pawn. Raisuli held
this notable captive until the following February, and
released him then on receipt of $25,000, cash down, with a
pledge of $75,000 more at the end of three years, if he gave
no fresh trouble within that time. Meanwhile, he and
twenty-eight of his family were to be under British
protection. Before this transaction was closed a new Sultan
had won the Moroccan throne (as will be explained below) and
he thought it wiser to employ the energies of Raisuli
officially than to try to maintain a contest of authority with
so unmanageable a subject. Accordingly, in February, 1909,
Raisuli was appointed governor of twelve tribes in Northern
Morocco, and is now one of the most respectable
representatives of government in the last of the Barbary
States.
MOROCCO: A. D. 1905-1906.
German hostility to the Anglo-French Agreement.
The Kaiser’s speech at Tangier.
The International Conference at Algeciras.
The resulting Act.
See (in this Volume)
EUROPE: A. D. 1905-1906.
MOROCCO: A. D. 1907-1909.
Mob-murder of Dr. Mauchamp at Morocco City.
Conflict with Tribesmen at Casablanca.
Bombardment by French and Spanish Ships.
Campaign against the Tribes.
Dethronement of Sultan Abd el Aziz by his brother Mulai Hafid.
Fresh friction between France and Germany.
Its Pacific Settlement by Arbitration at The Hague.
Organization of police forces for the service which France and
Spain were commissioned by the Powers at the Algeciras
Conference to perform in Morocco was retarded, necessarily, by
the prevailing anarchy in the Empire, and fresh causes of
disorder occurred before the means for prompt treatment of
them were prepared. In the spring of 1907 a French citizen,
Dr. Mauchamp, at Marrakesh (Morocco City), undertook to
install at his house the apparatus for wireless telegraphy.
His Moorish neighbors suspected some diabolical intention,
when he raised the necessary mast on his house, and proceeded
with fanatic enterprise to kill the man of too much science
and to demolish the house. The French Government demanded
punishment of the outrage, with indemnity to the family of the
victim, and put a force in motion, under General Liautey,
which occupied the city of Ujda, not far from the Algerian
frontier, to hold it until the demands of justice were
complied with. None of the Powers signatory to the Algeciras
Conference raised objections to this proceeding.
{427}
A more serious intervention was occasioned in July, 1907, when
the French took control of the collection of customs at the
ports, as directed by the Algeciras agreement. At Casablanca,
on the Atlantic coast, the tribesmen attacked a number of
European laborers, employed there in quarries, and killed
eight. All the foreign residents of the region were in danger,
and French and Spanish war-ships were hurried to the scene.
The local Moorish official confessed his inability to protect
the threatened foreigners, who had taken refuge in the French,
Spanish, and British consulates, with hostile tribes
swarming around the town, and he asked for help. Marines were
landed on the 4th of August and were attacked. "A sanguinary
battle followed between the Arabs and the European soldiery,
the French cruiser opening fire and shelling the Moorish
batteries. Scenes of great disorder and violence followed upon
the firing, a raging mob of Moors attacking and pillaging the
entire city. The Jews particularly were massacred by hundreds.
Another French warship soon appeared upon the scene,
accompanied by a Spanish cruiser, and troops were landed to
the number of 4000. General Drude, the French commander, was
chosen to head the allied troops, Spanish and French, and
reinforcements were hurried from France." A number of
encounters followed. "The most serious were the attacks, on
August 28, and September 2, upon Casablanca and its outskirts,
both resulting from a reconnaissance in force by the French
Algerian irregular cavalry and the famous Foreign Legion.
Seven or eight thousand Moors attacked the Europeans, sweeping
down from the hills with all the ferocity and courage
traditional in their race. By the aid of machine guns and the
batteries from their warships the French succeeded in
repelling the tribesmen with considerable loss of life."
Justification of the bombardment of Casablanca was somewhat
questioned at the time, and with good reason if the following
account of the circumstances, by an eye-witness, a Scotch
missionary, are to be believed. His statement was published in
the Glasgow _Herald_, and is given here as summarized in
_The Outlook_, of September 21, 1907.
"This missionary, Dr. Kerr, has lived many years in the
country, and he asserts that in many ways the French residents
and officials have continually irritated the Moors and
provoked them to anger. Dr. Kerr states that no further
outbreaks occurred after the massacre of French and Spanish
workmen on July 30, and that when the bombardment began on
August 1 there was absolutely no immediate provocation for it.
He denounces it as contrary to the usages of civilized war and
as ‘wicked and unjustifiable,’ adding that the British
merchants in Casablanca will probably sue the French
Government for damages caused to their property by what they
consider an unnecessary bombardment. The punishment of the
Moors concerned in the murder of the eight workmen, says Dr.
Kerr, no one could object to, but instead of this the
punishment took the form of an unprovoked massacre of persons
many of whom were entirely innocent. The details of the affair
as he gives them are certainly deplorable, and if his
assertion that the landing force of the French fired the first
shot is true, the succeeding episodes described are
unpardonable. One of these episodes may be quoted here:
"‘I saw two young women walking as quickly as they could. …
Suddenly a volley was fired into them by the Spanish marines.
They fell, but picked themselves up, and took refuge in a
ledge of a wall. After waiting a few minutes they made to
return, when another volley was fired at them, and they fell
again. … One of these brave daughters of Ishmael refused to
flee without taking with her the "khaik," or outer garment,
which fell from her [thus leaving her face uncovered, contrary
to Moslem law]. She turned back, picked up her garment, and
fled as fast as she could, bleeding all over.’"
In the fall of 1907 General Drude was succeeded in the command
at Casablanca by General d’Amade, who prosecuted a more
vigorous campaign against the obstinately hostile tribes of
the region, and made but slow progress in reducing them to
submission.
Meantime a rising against Sultan Abd el Aziz, in favor of one
of his brothers, Mulai Hafid, had been started and was making
rapid headway. Mulai Hafid was proclaimed Sultan at Marrakesh
on the 25th of August, 1907, and on the 4th of the following
January his supporters had gained possession of Fez and
proclaimed him there. Abd el Aziz kept the field against his
rival until August, 1908, when he had practically no following
left, and the direction of Government was assumed formally by
Mulai Hafid. His authority had soon become established so
fully that the German Government addressed a note to the
Powers proposing an immediate recognition of it. France and
Spain objected, insisting that Mulai Hafid must confirm
existing treaties, accept responsibility for the debts of the
previous regime, give pledges of indemnity for the Casablanca
outbreak, disavow the "Holy War" which he had countenanced and
which had given him his success, and take effective measures
for securing the safety of foreigners in the Empire. Their
objection was approved generally; Germany assented to the
requirements proposed, and it was not until Mulai Hafid had
satisfied them that he obtained recognition as the legitimate
sovereign of Morocco. This was given in the following note,
handed to his representative on the 5th of January, 1909, by
the _doyen_ of the Diplomatic Body at Tangier:
"The signatory Governments of the Act of Algeciras have
received the letter which Mulai Hafid sent to them through the
agency of the Diplomatic Body at Tangier in reply to their
_communiqué_ of November 18. The Governments represented
in Morocco received with satisfaction this reply, in which
they saw a proof that the explanations which they formulated
in their Note of November 18, in the interest of the relations
of friendship and confidence which they desire to maintain
with the sovereign authority of the Shereefian Empire, are in
accordance with the views of Mulai Hafid. In consequence the
signatory Powers of the Act of Algeciras have decided to
recognize his Majesty Mulai Hafid as legitimate Sultan of
Morocco, and have charged the _doyen_ of the Diplomatic
Body at Tangier to notify their recognition of him to the
representatives of his Majesty in that town."
{428}
Before this settlement was reached an incident had occurred at
Casablanca on the 15th of September, 1908, which irritated the
chronic sensitiveness of feeling between Germany and France.
Five or six soldiers of the Foreign Legion in French service
at Casablanca, including three Germans, deserted, and the
German Consulate attempted to protect the Germans when their
arrest was undertaken by French gendarmes. There was some
struggle, but the arrest was accomplished, and the demand of
the Consul for the release of the three Germans was refused.
Germany demanded satisfaction for the treatment of her Consul.
France maintained that satisfaction was due to herself for the
interference of the Consul with her military rights; but
offered to submit the affair to the Hague Tribunal for
arbitration. Germany was willing to arbitrate the questions
involved if France would first express regret for the official
conduct on her side of the matter. France in reply suggested
expressions of regret by both parties; and on these terms,
supposedly vindicating national dignity on each side, the case
went to The Hague. The Court of Arbitration held its first
meeting on the 1st of May, 1909, and announced its judgment on
the 22d of the same month. As summarized in an English
despatch from The Hague, the opinion of the Court was as
follows:
"The Court considered that in this case there was a conflict
of jurisdiction between the Consular and the military
authority of two foreign Powers, the one Power exercising full
Consular authority over her subjects, who happened to be
soldiers in the Foreign Legion of the other Power. The latter
Power had effected the military occupation of a certain
territory, and in consequence exercised full authority over
that territory. As it was impossible to decide this conflict
by any absolute ruling, which might indicate in a general way
the precedence of either jurisdiction, the Court considered
that the question must be determined by the particular
circumstances of any given case.
"In this case the jurisdiction of the occupying force had
precedence because the persons in question did not leave the
territory occupied by that force. The Court decided that the
Secretary of the German Consulate at Casablanca wrongly and
through a grave and manifest error tried to embark in a German
steamer deserters of the French Foreign Legion, who were not
of German nationality. The German Consul and the other
officials of the Consulate were not responsible for that fact;
the Consul, however, in signing the safe conduct, which was
laid before him, committed an unintentional error.
"The German Consulate in the circumstances obtaining at that
time was not entitled to grant its protection even to
deserters of German nationality; the legal error, however,
which was committed in this connexion by the officials of the
Consulate could not be reckoned either as an intentional or as
an unintentional error.
"The French military authorities were wrong in not respecting,
as far as possible, the _de facto_ protection exercised
over those deserters in the name of the German Consulate. The
circumstances did not justify either menace by revolver on the
part of the French soldiers, or the blows given to the
Moroccan soldier of the Consulate."
This proved satisfactory to all concerned, and the Casablanca
incident was happily closed.
A more important adjustment of matters between Germany and
France, aiming at a general clearing of causes of friction in
their relations, so far as concerned Morocco, had preceded the
Casablanca arbitration by nearly three months. All Europe had
been surprised and delighted on the 9th of February, 1909, by
the announcement of a Franco-German Agreement, just concluded,
in the following words:
"The Government of the French Republic and the German Imperial
Government, actuated by an equal desire to facilitate the
execution of the Act of Algeciras, have agreed to define the
significance which they attach to its clauses with a view to
avoiding any cause of misunderstanding between them in the
future.
"Consequently, the Government of the French Republic, wholly
attached to the maintenance of the integrity and of the
independence of the Shereefian Empire, decided to safeguard
economic equality there, and accordingly not to impede German
commercial and industrial interests, and the German Imperial
Government, pursuing only economic interests in Morocco,
recognizing at the same time that the special political
interests of France are closely bound up in that country with
the consolidation of order and of internal peace, and resolved
not to impede those interests, declare that they will not
prosecute or encourage any measure calculated to create in
their favour or in favour of any Power whatsoever an economic
privilege, and that they will endeavour to associate their
nationals in business for which these may be able to obtain
contracts (_l’entreprise_)."
This most important agreement resulted from negotiations that
were said to have been opened by a suggestion from the German
Foreign Secretary, Baron von Schön. Its importance to Europe
was hardly exaggerated by the Paris _Matin_, when it
said:
"It is a great and happy event, the importance of which need
not be emphasized. … This close of the Moroccan quarrel may,
if such be the desire, mark a date of capital importance in
the history of Europe. In fact, as Prince Bülow has said and
repeated, Morocco was only a pretext. If therefore it has
become an object of agreement, it is not merely because it has
been recognized that the local problem was not insoluble, but
also because the general situation has changed or because the
‘opportunity’ no longer exists."
MOROCCO: A. D. 1908.
A German Statement of the Moroccan Policy of Germany.
See (in this Volume)
GERMANY: A. D. 1908.
{429}
MOROCCO: A. D. 1909.
Discontent with the new Sultan.
His struggle with Pretenders.
Spanish War with the Tribes of the Riff.
Success of Mulai Hafid against his Rivals.
French operations in and around the Moorish Empire.
French Mauretanie.
French Demands.
The Mannesmann Mining Concession.
France and Spain were now strengthened in the execution of
their Algeciras commission, by a harmonious backing in Europe,
and the native Government in Morocco had acquired, seemingly,
a strong and capable man at its head. Sultan Mulai Hafid made
that impression very positively on a correspondent of the
London _Times_, to whom he gave audience on the 13th of
February, and who wrote of him that day: "It is quite evident
that Mulai Hafid is a man of large and independent ideas, with
a leaning toward democracy. In appearance and manner he is
most attractive, and both his looks and his conversation
betoken a character at once strong and of quick decision.
Everything he says is very much to the point, and his remarks
are often touched with humour and even cynicism. His
openmindedness and cordiality extend almost to breaches of the
rigorous Moorish etiquette."
Five days later the same correspondent wrote again: "The Fez
Moors had hoped at Mulai Hafid’s accession for material though
indefinite advantages, for they felt that the new Sultan, who
owed his throne not to inheritance but to election, would be
an instrument in their own hands, and that they would be able
to exert their influence for their own purely selfish ends.
But they had counted without Mulai Hafid. Once on the throne,
he consolidated, at all events locally, his power, and the Fez
population, who during the previous reign had undoubtedly held
and used considerable influence, found themselves in the hands
of a firm, masterful man, who did not hesitate to tax them to
an extent formerly unknown, and gave them clearly to
understand that he would brook no interference in matters of
policy. The effect was instantaneous. The Fezzis began openly
to regret the slack _régime_ of Mulai Abdul Aziz, and
Mulai Hafid became unpopular, as any monarch who really
governs in Morocco must always be.
"But if Mulai Hafid was unpopular, he inspired at the same
time a wholesome fear. His indifference to public opinion, his
breaches of the absurd prescriptions of Moorish etiquette, his
personal supervision of every detail, and the publicity in
which he lives show not only remarkable courage, but also
remarkable knowledge of the people whom he governs. … Yet he
has but a small army, and he is financially hampered. He
receives Europeans publicly, and grants audiences in the
presence of the whole Court, often before the whole army. He
invites his guests to be seated, and chats in a natural and
sympathetic manner on all kinds of subjects. But it is quite
apparent that his _entourage_ is in terror of him. Never
have the viziers had less freedom or fewer opportunities for
plunder. The Government is Mulai Hafid, and Mulai Hafid alone,
and yet Mulai Hafid is a democrat. He desires to put down—and
has already largely done so—the fanatical and always
mischievous influence of the great Shereefian families. He
works from morning till night, and keeps every one else
working. His negotiations with the French Minister are
progressing in a way that astonishes every one. … Mulai Hafid
obtained the throne by preaching a holy war against Europeans.
He will maintain himself upon the throne by a policy of reform
which will win for him the assistance of France against his
own fanatical people."
But subsequent events did not realize the confident
expectations of this writer. A month later he reported:
"Shereef Sid Mohammed Kittani, a descendant of a former
dynasty and chief of an important reactionary religious sect,
who was freely spoken of as possible Sultan before Mulai
Hafid’s proclamation, left Fez secretly yesterday. Apparently
he had previously succeeded in dispatching his family and
movable property from time to time to some spot in the Berber
tribelands without exciting suspicion. His flight has caused
what can only be described as consternation. His influence is
very great, and he is known to lay claim to the Throne."
Within another month this pretender had defeated Mulai Hafid’s
forces in a sharp engagement and had an army encamped about
eighteen miles east of Fez. French officers were reported to
be doing notable work in organizing and equipping the Sultan’s
troops. On the 8th of May there was alarming news that Mulai
el Kebir, another brother of Mulai Hafid and of the ex-Sultan,
Abd el Aziz, "who was accompanying the Southern Kaids to Fez,
had left their camp secretly by night and had fled into the
Zimmour country," and "many believe that he will take
advantage of the Sultan’s unpopularity to raise a rebellion."
Two days later "nothing is known of the whereabouts of Mulai
el Kebir," and "the Sultan does not conceal his anxiety.
Mulai-el-Kebir was on the best terms with his Majesty, but the
Sultan’s severe treatment of other members of his family no
doubt filled him with fear."
From Paris, on the 26th of May, it was telegraphed that the
Sultan’s Minister of Finance, El Mokri, then visiting Paris on
a financial mission, "observes that Mulai Hafid’s authority is
more solidly established at present than might at first sight
appear to be the case. At no time has any Sultan been
recognized over a much wider area of Moroccan territory. In
the Beled el Makhzen his sway is uncontested. The kaids of the
Haouz and the southern Atlas have always been his partisans.
El Mokri has no fear of the pretenders."
There were now two pretenders in the field: for Mulai Kebir
had been heard from, "beyond Mekinez," where he had raised the
standard of revolt. And Bu Hamara was on the stage of civil
war again, east of Fez, with an army which "is camped at less
than four hours distance from the capital," and which is
"actively pillaging the only tribe that remains loyal to Mulai
Hafid in that region." Troops sent against him a few days
later were said to have been badly beaten. The Sultan was
reported to be in quarrel with his viziers; was ill,—invisible
in the palace,—and the situation did not seem to look well for
him.
Then, suddenly, all news reports from Morocco became silent as
to Mulai Hafid and his rivals, and gave entire attention to a
serious outbreak of warfare in that northeastern corner of the
empire, known as the Riff, where Spain has had a long
recognized "sphere of influence," and where she had undertaken
the working of valuable iron mines near Melilla. Hostilities
were begun in July by an attack of tribesmen on the miners,
killing several, and the Spanish troops sent to the scene met
disaster, being insufficient in force. In the end, so
extensive a rising of Moorish tribesmen had occurred that
Spain was obliged to put a large army into the field against
them and organize a costly campaign. It was not until late in
September that much success attended the Spanish arms, and not
until late in November that the campaign was regarded as
closed, the Spanish forces having secured positions which,
when fortified, were expected to give them a firm footing in
the region, and having brought most of the tribes to terms.
{430}
Meantime, the war had been bitterly unpopular among large
classes in Spain, and the feeling had been manifested in
destructive rioting at Barcelona and elsewhere.
See (in this Volume)
SPAIN: A. D. 1907-1909.
What France had been doing meanwhile, in and around Morocco,
has been told by a writer in _The Atlantic Monthly:_
"During the year [May, 1908, to May, 1909] the French army
under General d’Amade, has continued occupying Casablanca, and
the fertile Chaouïa (Shawia) region. It has forced peace, law,
and order, and open markets on the inhabitants, to their great
advantage. Agriculture has revived; and German trade itself
has run up two million francs. Even so the ‘economic
interests’ of Germany in Morocco are scant indeed compared
with those of France and England; they are perhaps less than
those of Spain—and yet they have long threatened the peace of
Europe. … Meanwhile the interior of Morocco has been chiefly
occupied in the unmaking and making of Sultans. Toward the
German Emperor these fighting Moors have now a feeling much
like that of the Transvaal Boers when the Kruger telegram
failed to lead to eventualities. … The real success of France
is along the entire land-frontier of Morocco. For its whole
length this is now also the frontier of French
territory,--Algiers to the east, the Sahara with its line of
French posts to the south, and so on to the Atlantic Ocean
through the new French civil territory of ‘Mauritanie.’ Here
foreign geography will still be incomplete for some time; but
it is childish to dismiss these territorial stretches as so
many acres of sand. The empire which France might have had in
Canada was, in like manner, denounced by Voltaire as acres of
snow.
"France absolutely refused to allow any question concerning
this land-frontier to be brought up at the Conference of
Algeciras. It is no business of Europe; it concerns the two
neighbors, France and Morocco, only.
"General Lyautey has had its more than eight hundred miles
well under control. … Of late years France has successfully
occupied territory farther and farther to the south, pushing
forward the railway, and throwing out a long line of military
posts through the Sahara. People who amuse themselves marking
obscure changes of conquest on the map, may safely stick their
pins one full degree farther west all along this part of
Algiers, beginning where Spain at Melilla blocks the way along
the Mediterranean coast."
_Stoddard Dewey,
The Year in France
(Atlantic Monthly, August, 1909)._
When newspaper attention reverted to Mulai Hafid a great
improvement was found in his affairs. Seemingly, the
pretenders to his throne had disappeared, and Bu Hamara, the
rebel, now styled El Roghi, was decisively routed by troops of
the Sultan on the 16th of August, captured a few days later,
and taken to Fez in an iron cage. On the 13th of September it
was announced that he had been executed the day before. Later,
this was contradicted, and there seems to be no certainty as
to his fate.
The Moroccan Government was now being sharply pressed by
France with demands over which negotiation had proceeded
hitherto very slowly. M. Pichon, the French Minister for
Foreign Affairs, made a statement on the subject to the
Chamber of Deputies on the 23d of November, to the following
effect: "On August 14 the representatives of the Sultan
received a note summing up the conditions imposed by the
French Government. These conditions were the evacuation of the
Shawia region on condition of the organization by the Maghzen
of a force; the evacuation of Casablanca when the French
Government felt convinced that the organization of the Shawia
police had become sufficiently effective; the organization of
the police service on the Algero-Moroccan frontier; the
payment of the Maghzen’s debts and the reimbursement of the
costs of the French military expeditions. The Maghzen owed at
present £3,200,000, more than £400,000 of which was due to
private creditors. The French Government would allow the
Moroccan Government to raise a loan in France in order to
facilitate the payment of its debts. … The French conditions
had been acknowledged to be very moderate by all who had had
cognisance of them. Germany had recently informed the Maghzen
that it was high time to contract a loan. M. Pichon dwelt on
the loyalty with which the Franco-German Agreement had been
observed by the Berlin Government. Nevertheless the adhesion
of the Moroccan Government had not yet been obtained. That
Government had admitted the principle of the loan of
80,000,000f. and that of the indemnity of 70,000,000f. for the
French military expedition, but there was disagreement still
in regard to the guarantees required for the realization of
that operation. Mulai Hafid, moreover, demanded the immediate
evacuation of the Shawia and of Casablanca. On November 6 M.
Pichon informed the Sultan’s envoys that it was futile to
continue the _pourparlers_ if France did not obtain a
satisfactory reply. It would not be without danger for the
Moroccan Government to persevere in its attitude."
A little later it was made known that the Sultan had yielded
to the terms prescribed by the French Government and was to
obtain the loan which would help toward the payment of his
debts.
By this time a new Morocco question had sprung out of a
sweeping mining concession which certain German exploiters,
the Brothers Mannesmann, had obtained from Sultan Mulai Hafid,
in distinct violation of the agreements at Algeciras which the
Sultan had been a party to. The Mannesmann mining rights under
this concession, if allowed, would swallow up all others, and
large interests, French, Spanish, German, English, Italian,
and Dutch, were arrayed against their claims. The backing of
the Mannesmanns in Germany, however, by commercial and
newspaper influence, appears to have been very powerful, and
it has not been easy for the Government to resist being drawn
into alliance with it. But the attitude of the Imperial
Government appears to have been strictly loyal to the
Algeciras agreements, and it has gone no farther for the
Mannesmanns and their partisans than to negotiate with the
other Powers concerned for a submission of the question of
legality in the Mannesmann concession to a Court of
Arbitration. That will probably be the mode of settling it.
{431}
MOROS, The.
See (in this Volume)
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1901-1902.
MORRIS, SIR EDWARD:
Premier of Newfoundland.
See (in this Volume)
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1908-1909.
MORTON, PAUL:
Secretary of the Navy.
See (in this Volume)
UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1905.
MORTON, PAUL:
President of Equitable Life Assurance Society.
See (in this Volume)
INSURANCE, LIFE.
MOSCOW,
Risings and Disturbances in.
See (in this Volume)
RUSSIA.
MOSLEM LEAGUE.
See (in this Volume)
INDIA: A. D. 1907 (December); also, 1907-1909.
MOSQUITO TERRITORY, THE.
See (in this Volume)
CENTRAL AMERICA: A. D. 1905.
MOTIENLING.
See (in this Volume)
JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).
MOVING PICTURE SHOWS.
See (in this Volume)
SCIENCE AND INVENTION.
MUIJTEHEDS:
The higher Persian Priests.
See (in this Volume)
PERSIA: A. D. 1905-1907.
MUKDEN: A. D. 1903.
Opened to Foreign Trade.
See (in this Volume)
CHINA: A. D. 1903 (MAY-OCTOBER).
MUKDEN: Battle of.
See (in this Volume)
JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905 (SEPTEMBER-MARCH).
MULAI AHMED BEN MOHAMMED, EL RAISULI.
See (in this Volume)
MOROCCO: A. D. 1904-1909.
MULAI HAFID:
Sultan of Morocco by Dethronement of his Brother.
See (in this Volume)
MOROCCO: A. D. 1907-1909, and 1909.
MULAI HASSAN, Late Sultan of Morocco.
See (in this Volume)
MOROCCO: A. D. 1903.
MULLAH, ABDULLA MUHAMMED.
See (in this Volume)
AFRICA: SOMALILAND.
MULLAS:
The common Persian Priests.
See (in this Volume)
PERSIA: A. D. 1905-1907.
MUNICIPAL COMMITTEES IN INDIA.
See (in this Volume)
INDIA: A. D. 1907-1909.
----------MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: Start--------
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT:
American Democracy’s most Serious Problem.
Present Interest in it.
Hopeful Movements.
Americans have long been forced to acknowledge that political
democracy in the United States makes its worst showing in the
government of municipalities; and those who give any searching
thought to the matter have little dispute over reasons for the
fact. It connects very plainly with another fact, namely, that
_municipal politics_, as a political interest distinct
and apart from the interests of government in Nation and
State, has had no growth in the country as yet. Up to the time
of the formation of the national union, the few cities of
America had a quite positive political life of their own,
which might have carried them into conditions very different
from what they have realized since, if it had not undergone
the absorption that it did in the politics of a national
government. The national political parties formed then on
exciting issues, sectional, constitutional, and economic,
caught all political feeling into their embrace, not
instantly, but gradually, and surely, and appropriated the
whole mechanism of political organization to themselves.
Cities are the natural centers of such mechanism, and the
great parties of Federal politics were able easily to impose
on them a domination which left no free working of public
opinion on the immediate concerns of the cities themselves.
All political action was drawn into the mill which turns out
Presidents, Congresses, Tariffs, Bank Acts, etc., and the mere
by-product of Mayors, Aldermen, and City Ordinances which it
drops incidentally into the cities, receives almost no stamp
of quality or design from the local mind.
Until the wheels of local government are loosened in some way
from the clutch of the great party machines, and can work
independently, under motive forces of their own, to produce
the satisfaction of local needs, interests, and aims, there
will be little success in undertakings of municipal reform.
How to accomplish that political ungearing is one of the
greatest, if not the greatest, of the problems now occupying
the minds of the American people. Fortunately it is occupying
their minds. Within the last few years they have given more
thought to this subject than it ever received from them
before; and it has been bold thought, as well as profoundly
earnest. It has not been afraid of hospitality to new ideas
and new experiences, but is giving them fair hearings and fair
tests. The present attitude of the whole country in this
matter is of the happiest hopefulness, and every day brightens
the prospect of a better future for municipal government in
America.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: BOSTON: A. D. 1909.
A Plan of Government chosen by popular vote.
In connection with the election of November 2, 1909, the
citizens of Boston, Massachusetts, had two plans of City
Government submitted to their vote, and the charter under
which the City will be ruled and its business conducted after
the beginning of February, 1910, was determined by the choice
between these plans which a majority expressed at the polls.
One of the plans emanated from an official body, called the
Finance Commission, which had been appointed to investigate
bad conditions in the City Government, and whose
investigations had given rise to the demand for a radical
reform. This plan had the approval, moreover, of a citizens
Committee of One Hundred, which had given much attention to
the subject; but it was exceedingly unsatisfactory to the
party politicians, whose personal interests were flagrantly
disregarded in its scheme. These drafted a form of charter
which fitted their own purposes, and the two plans were
submitted to the Legislature in the winter of 1909. That body
escaped the responsibility of a decision between them by
referring both to the voters of Boston. The charter wanted by
the party managers was designated as "Plan No. 1"; that of the
Finance Commission and the Committee of One Hundred as "Plan
No. 2."
{432}
A strenuous campaign of education was fought for some weeks
before election day by the supporters of Plan No. 2, who seem
to have included practically all single-minded seekers of good
government, and an equally active campaign of wire-pulling was
carried on by the champions of Plan No. 1. The education was
successful in convincing 39,175 voters that Plan 2 should be
preferred, while 35,306 were persuaded to the contrary, and
about 34,000 remained so indifferent or undecided that they
gave the question no vote. But public considerations prevailed
over party motives and influences by 3869 votes, which is a
highly important fact.
The charter thus adopted for Boston differs in many features
from what has acquired the name of "the Des Moines plan," but
is fundamentally akin to it in principle and aim. Its prime
purpose is to divorce local politics from national politics,
freeing municipal elections from the baneful control of
parties which have nothing rightly to do with the city’s
affairs. Its secondary object is to concentrate official
responsibility in a moderated way. It subjects the mayor of
Boston, at the middle of his term, to a reconsideration of the
vote which elected him (in the nature of the Swiss "recall"),
but it does not introduce the initiative and referendum. The
operation of the new charter under its provisions was outlined
as follows by the Boston _Herald_ on the day following
its adoption:
"By the acceptance of plan 2, party and all other designations
will be eliminated from the ballots for the municipal
elections, which will be held on the first Tuesday after the
second Monday in January of each year. The coming city
election will be held on January 11.
"Candidates for mayor must be nominated by petition of not
less than 5000 registered Boston voters. The candidate who
receives the highest vote at the city election will hold
office for four years, unless recalled at the end of two
years. The salary will be $10,000 a year.
"At the state election in the second year of the mayor’s term
the ballots will contain the question: ‘Shall there be an
election for mayor at the next municipal election?’ And this
will be answered by ‘Yes,’ or ‘No.’ If a majority of the
registered voters vote ‘Yes’ an election for mayor will be
held at the following city election.
"Whether recalled or not, the mayor holding office will have
his name on the ballot at the city election unless in writing
he requests the election commissioners not to place his name
on the ballot. The mayor then elected will hold office for
four years, subject to recall at the end of his second year.
"The city council will consist of nine members, all elected at
large. The salary will be $1500 each. In the election on
January 11 the voters may vote for nine candidates, and the
nine receiving the highest votes will be declared elected. The
three highest will have three-year terms, the three next
highest will serve for two years and the next three for one
year each. Each year thereafter three candidates-at-large will
be elected, and the voters may vote for three. All members of
the city council will be elected at large, and there will be
no ward members of the body. By the abolition of party
designations no primary elections or caucuses for municipal
offices will be held.
"All candidates for mayor, city council and school board must
be nominated by papers of not less than 5000 registered
voters. No voter may sign more than one paper for mayor, not
more than nine for council for the first election and for
three candidates thereafter, and not more than two papers for
the school board when there are two members to be elected.
"If a candidate for any of the offices decides to withdraw
from the contest before the election, vacancies in nominations
for any cause may be filled by a committee of not less than
five persons authorized in the nomination papers to fill such
vacancies.
"Members of the street commission, formerly elected at large,
will be appointed by the mayor, subject to approval by the
civil service commission, but without restriction as to their
political affiliation. All department heads will be appointed
by the mayor, subject to approval by the civil service
commission.
"The new municipal year will begin on the first Monday in
February, when the mayor and city council will be inducted
into office."
The election, held at the appointed time, January 11, 1910,
was managed so badly as to divide the vote of the reforming
element between three candidates, against one, the former
Mayor, Fitzgerald, whose scandalous administration had
afforded the prime incentive to the reform movement, and thus
giving opportunity for his election by a small plurality. A
committee of the reform leaders had chosen for their candidate
Mr. James J. Storrow, President of the Boston Chamber of
Commerce, and strove to concentrate the opposition to
Fitzgerald upon him; but the Mayor in office, who had secured
renomination, persisted in keeping the field, and won the
petty number of 1816 votes, which a little more than sufficed
to elect Fitzgerald. The vote given the latter was 47,142,
against 45,757 to Mr. Storrow, and 613 to the fourth
candidate, Taylor. A recount of the vote was secured, but made
no substantial change.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: California:
Charter-framing Power given to Cities.
"All cities in California except the very smallest are
permitted to frame their own charters, which become effective
upon ratification by the legislature. The cities are quick to
avail themselves of this privilege, with the result that
almost every possible experiment in municipal organization may
be found on trial somewhere in California. That the cities are
progressive is shown by the fact that within the past decade
every city of any size in the State has remodeled its
organization either by a new charter or by far-reaching
amendments. A high standard of efficient city organization has
been set by the recent charter of the city of Berkeley
[adopted 1909], which furnishes a very perfect example of the
‘commission’ plan. Elections are freed from the influence of
national parties, and the possibility of a final choice in the
direct primary is sufficient to bring out the entire vote of
the city.
"The popular initiative, the referendum, and the recall are
now generally established in all the larger cities of the
State, but outside of San Francisco and Los Angeles without
sufficient use to test their value for good government. In San
Francisco the popular initiative has been used more frequently
for bad measures than for good. In Los Angeles the spectacular
removal of the mayor in 1909 will doubtless be regarded as a
justification of the method of recall."
_Frederick H. Clark,
Head of History Department, Lowell High School,
San Francisco, California._
{433}
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: Chicago:
The Municipal Voters’ League.
In 1896 there was thought in Chicago of attempting to organize
a strictly Municipal Party for action in municipal politics
alone, and a conference of citizens appointed a committee to
deal with the scheme. The committee decided this project to be
impracticable, but its deliberations resulted in the creation
of a Municipal Voters’ League, acting through a non-partisan
committee of nine, whose function was to scrutinize all
candidacies and nominations for the City Common Council, and
afford information concerning them to voters of all parties
who desired the election of honest and capable men. A
permanent office force was employed, and thorough
investigations made as to the record and character of every
nominee for the Council. The results of these investigations
were published, with recommendations for or against the
respective candidates. The league brought pressure to bear, in
the first place, to prevent the nomination of objectionable
candidates, and then exerted its influence to defeat such
candidates at the polls.
This has been done with such effect in election after election
as to produce a remarkable change in the character of the
Council. Similar agencies have been brought into action in a
number of cities within the few last years, with equally good
results.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT:
Chicago’s Struggles for a Better Charter.
A body known as the "Charter Convention," made up of delegates
appointed by or representing the Governor of the State, the
State Assembly, and the several branches and departments of
the City Government, was organized in December, 1905, and
labored at the framing of a new City Charter until the early
part of 1907, when the product of its labors was submitted to
the Legislature of Illinois. Some of the main features of the
charter were these:
Consolidation in the municipal government of Chicago of the
power vested in the board of education, township, park, and
other local governments within the city;
submission of propositions to popular vote;
aldermen to be elected once in four years;
the raising of adequate revenue by the issue of bonds and
by other means;
the power to own, maintain, and operate all public
utilities in the city, including intramural, railroads,
subways and tunnels, and telephone, telegraph, gas,
electric lighting, heating, refrigerating and power plants;
the parks to be under the management of a city department
of parks;
the public-school system to be a department of the city
government and under the control of a board of education of
fifteen members appointed by the mayor for terms of three
years;
the public library to be managed by a board of nine
directors appointed by the mayor for terms of six years.
As it went to the Legislature this draft charter represented
much compromising of divergent opinions, and, probably, was
not really satisfactory to anybody. The Legislature made it
less so by amendments, and when it went to the people of
Chicago, in September, 1907, for their verdict on it at the
polls, they rejected it by 121,935 votes against 59,786.
Early in 1908 the Charter Convention was reassembled and
revised its former work, cutting the requisite legislation up
into seven distinct bills, with a view to securing better
chances of success for some reforms, if the whole could not be
won; but the entire lot was killed in the Legislature.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: The Galveston or Des Moines Plan.
Its Features.
Extent of its Present Trial.
Curiously enough, the present trend of opinion on the
question, "What structure of municipal government will lend
itself best to the reforms that it needs?" is in a direction
that was given to it by accident, about ten years ago. Perhaps
nothing short of a great catastrophe, like that of hurricane
and flood, which wrecked the city of Galveston, on the 8th of
September, 1900, could have broken the conventional pattern on
which our cities were constructed so long. At all events, it
was that catastrophe which started a crack in the antique
pattern first. In improvising for the needs of a desperate
emergency, the wrecked community had sense and energy enough
to follow the plain instincts of business, and put itself, as
a municipal corporation, under the kind of administration that
any other corporation would construct. All the folly of
localized interests in this and that part of the town,
requiring to be "represented" by ward aldermen, went out of
their heads. Their common calamity compelled them to
understand that particular interests within the narrow bounds
of a civic commonwealth are either included in or superseded
by the common interests of the whole. They acted accordingly;
dismissed their locally representative aldermen, dropped their
old corps of administrative functionaries, and put the
undivided management of their affairs into the hands of five
commissioners, with a "mayor-president" at the head.
It would not seem to have needed much political wisdom to
predict the success of this experiment; but the quick effect
of its teaching was more than there could be reason to expect.
Houston, the near neighbor-city, was prompt to receive and
apply the lesson, but bettering it somewhat. For Houston
employed the whole time of its five business managers, paying
them fair salaries for the service; whereas Galveston
contented itself with less service and paid less.
The two examples then presented, of a municipal corporation
conducting its business in the plain mode and by the plain
methods of the commercial corporations, drew increasing
attention, in all parts of the country, west and east. Boston
was soon discussing the Galveston experiment with deep
interest, and at a meeting of the highly influential Economic
Club of that city, in January, 1907, President Eliot, of
Harvard University, declared that he saw in it the dawning of
a brighter day. "We have got down very low," he said, "in
regard to our municipal governments, and we have got dark days
here now, but we can see a light breaking, and one of the
lights broke in Galveston. I have personally been interested
in the enormous improvement in just one branch of municipal
business in our country within the last ten years—that is,
school boards and school administrations. There has been a
real wave of reform sweeping over the country, in the great
cities particularly, with regard to school boards, and every
bit of that experience goes the way I am describing it.
{434}
It is all in the direction of a few men not paid, originally
determining the general policy of the schools of the city and
trusting entirely to experts for executive action. Our whole
experience in Massachusetts with the commissions we have had,
tends the same way. If we ask what have been the best
performances of the governmental functions in Massachusetts
for the last twenty-five years, we have but one answer to
make, namely, the work of our commissions, water, sewage,
railroads, gas and electric lighting, public libraries where
owned by the city, hospitals where owned by the city. You can
think of numerous instances in Massachusetts where admirable
work has been done by commissions acting on the principles
which I have described. I say the day is dawning. What it
needs, that the light may grow and get to full noon, is that
the people, the great body of the people, should be convinced
that municipal government means nothing but good, intelligent
conduct of business."
Meantime, in the West, action was already following study of
the Galveston plan of city government, and the four states of
Iowa, Kansas, North Dakota, and South Dakota passed acts in
1907 to enable the adoption of it by any city so desiring. One
of the first to exercise the privilege was the city of Des
Moines, Iowa, certain of whose progressive young business men
had been studying the municipal problem of late, and who had
determined to bring some system of local government into
operation that would make their city what it ought to be. On
the basis of the Galveston plan they worked out the details of
a charter which has become the model of its species most
widely accepted, so that more has been heard latterly of "the
Des Moines Charter" than of "the Galveston Plan." What is
called the Des Moines charter, however, was no special
enactment for that city, but a legislative frame of municipal
government which any city in Iowa having not less than 25,000
inhabitants may fit itself into.
It confides the whole management of strictly local affairs in
the city to four councilmen and a mayor, all elected by the
voters of the city at large. It divides their administration
into five departments, namely:
The department of Public Affairs;
The department of Accounts and Finances;
The department of Public Safety;
The department of Streets and Public Improvements;
The department of Parks and Public Property.
The mayor, by virtue of his office, is chairman of the
council. He is also superintendent of the department of public
affairs, and exercises a general supervision over the whole of
the city administration.
The council thus composed, with the mayor at its head, is
invested with all executive, legislative and judicial
authority, formerly exercised by perhaps twelve different
officers, and twelve different boards. It appoints the city
attorney, the city treasurer, the city auditor, the city
engineer; and, in fact, every other appointive official. It
makes every appropriation, and conducts the entire affairs of
the city. "At the first meeting of this council, immediately
following the election of its members, the work of the city is
assigned to its most appropriate department; to one of these
five departments. Each of the members of the council is also
named as superintendent of a particular department; the theory
of the law being that the man who is best qualified, by reason
of his experience and training, will be placed at the head of
that department where his training and experience will be of
most value. As superintendent of this department, he is held
strictly accountable for all matters which come within his
jurisdiction; he is also charged with responsibility for all
that is done or not done in his particular department." In the
nomination and election of this important council, no party
names are permitted to be connected with the candidates, in
any manner whatsoever. Each candidate for the office becomes
so by the filing of a petition with the city clerk, bearing
the signatures of not less than twenty-five citizens, who make
affidavit to the effect that the man is of good moral
character, of age, and qualified to fill the office. "Ten days
before the election is held, the city clerk takes the
petitions which have been filed and prepares the ballot. He
does this by arranging the names of candidates in alphabetical
order. The candidates for mayor are arranged under the heading
‘Mayor’; the candidates for councilmen are also arranged in
alphabetical order under the heading ‘Councilmen.’ There is no
party designation, and because of this alphabetical
arrangement there can be no favorite position on the ballot.
The result is, that the candidate comes before the whole
people of the city on his own merit, and on his own record."
As a citizen of Des Moines has described the proceeding,
"after the primary has been held the general election is
called, and in order to secure names for the ballot in the
general election, we take the two candidates who have received
the highest number of votes for mayor at the primary, and
place their names on the ballot. In order to secure the
councilmen, we take the eight candidates for councilmen who
have received the highest number of votes at the primary and
place their names on the regular election ballot. This gives
us two opportunities to weed out undesirable men. In the first
place, we have the choice among all candidates at the primary.
At the election, we have the choice of one of two men for
mayor, and the choice of four out of eight candidates for
councilmen."
A most important provision of this Iowa charter for cities has
to do with the civil service. "At the first meeting of the
city council, after the election of these five commissioners
or five councilmen--they are not commissioners—they appoint a
civil service board composed of three members, and this civil
service board, in whose charge is placed the work of preparing
a civil service examination, is appointed for a period of six
years. Thus they are removed from any influence that might be
exerted by the councilmen, who are only elected for two years.
This civil service commission prepares once a year an
examination for all employees of the city, with the exception
of unskilled labor and the heads of the departments, such as
city attorney, city treasurer, city assessor, etc. (all of
whom are appointed by a majority vote of the council). Having
passed the examination successfully, the applicant is placed
in a position, and so long as his work is satisfactory and he
remains competent, he cannot be removed. He may be suspended,
but he cannot be removed, and he is entitled to a hearing
before the civil service board. This provision at once takes
away all chance of a machine being built up through
patronage."
{435}
This is a sufficient description of the official frame of
government that has been instituted at Des Moines and other
cities of Iowa under a general law of that State. The law goes
farther, and connects with this frame or system a
supplementary provision of methods for giving the whole body
of the people an immediate agency in municipal legislation and
a power to recall their election of any elected official
during his term. By the use of the Swiss process of
"initiative," a sufficient number of voters (25 per cent. of
the whole) can propose measures which the Council must either
adopt or else submit to the general vote, and can suspend
measures adopted by the council until the general body of
citizens has voted for or against them. These features, of the
initiative, the referendum and the recall, are no more
essential attachments to the Des Moines or Iowa form of
municipal organization than to any other. To what extent the
States and cities making trial of the general features of the
Galveston scheme of municipal organization have followed Iowa
in making the Swiss additions to it, information at present is
wanting. Apparently the Des Moines pattern is having wide
acceptance.
In the fall of 1909 the towns in the United States which had
adopted the so-called Des Moines plan of government were
reported to number 12 in Texas, 7 in Kansas, 6 in Iowa, 3 in
Massachusetts, 3 in California, 2 in Colorado, 2 in Missouri,
2 in Tennessee, 1 in West Virginia, 1 in Mississippi, 1 in
North Dakota, 1 in South Dakota, being 42 in all. Movements
looking to the introduction of the same system were on foot in
other cities. At the November election a draft of charter on
the lines of the Des Moines plan was submitted to popular vote
in the city of Buffalo, New York, and approved by 8848
electors, out of a total of 11,346 who expressed themselves on
the subject. The total vote, however, was only about one-sixth
of that cast for candidates at the election. On the strength
of the opinion expressed, the Legislature is now being asked
to enact the charter. Should it do so, the form of government
will have trial in the largest city that has yet introduced
it.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: London, England:
Defeat of the Progressives in the County and Borough Elections.
See (in this Volume)
LONDON: A. D. 1907-1909.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: Los Angeles, California:
Experiments and Experiences.
Since 1900, Los Angeles, California, has been going through
some interesting experiences, due to a series of charter
amendments. The former charter of the city had been of the
common pattern, organizing the municipal government under a
mayor and a board of aldermen elected by wards. The amendments
of recent years have created a Board of Public Works, with large
powers in the management of municipal work; have changed the
Board of Education from a body of nine members elected by
wards to a membership of seven chosen from the city at large;
have provided an elaborate system of municipal civil service
regulation; and finally have provided for a complete system of
popular initiative and referendum in municipal legislation,
and for recall of elective officers. Popular initiative in
legislation is made possible upon the demand by petition of 15
per cent of the voters, estimated upon the total vote for
mayor at the preceding municipal election; referendum in
ordinary legislation is required upon a petition of 7 per cent
of the voters; a recall election must be ordered upon the
demand of 25 per cent of the voters concerned in the filling
of the office. The official whom the petition seeks to remove
is made a candidate for reflection without other nomination,
unless in writing he notifies the city clerk that he is not a
candidate.
The recall methods, provided for in charter amendments of
1903, have been put into actual service; first, in 1906, when
a councilman was replaced by vote of the Ward, and again in
February, 1909, when a recall election was ordered for the
office of mayor. The proceedings in this case attracted
widespread attention and interest throughout the country. They
failed, however, to afford a perfect test of recall methods
for the reason that after the election had been ordered but
before the date had arrived the mayor in office resigned, thus
surrendering without a struggle to the opponents who had
sought his removal.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: Michigan:
Home Rule for Cities.
The lately revised Constitution of Michigan authorizes cities
and villages to frame, adopt and amend their charters, and to
pass laws and ordinances in regard to their municipal
concerns. Under this improved Constitution, the Michigan
Legislature of 1909 adopted the necessary legislation for the
formulation of action and for the limitation of taxes and
debts. The following, from the New York _Evening Post_,
is a summary of the more important provisions of the Act:
"Charters of new cities will be framed by a commission of nine
electors chosen by popular vote. Revised charters of existing
cities will be framed, after a vote of the electors in favor
of revision (submitted by a two-thirds vote of the local
legislative body or on an initiatory petition of twenty per
cent. of the total vote cast for Mayor), by an elected
commission of one member from each ward and three electors at
large. Candidates for charter commissioners are to be placed
on the ballot without party affiliations designated. Charter
amendments may be proposed by a two-thirds vote of the local
legislative body, or by an initiatory petition of twenty per
cent. of the vote for Mayor.
"Every charter and charter amendment, before submission to the
electors, must be submitted to the Governor of the State, but
if disapproved by him, and passed on reconsideration by a
two-thirds vote of the Charter Commission or local legislative
body, shall be submitted to the electors. Copies of charters
and charter amendments approved by the electors of the city
shall be certified to the secretary of state, and shall
thereupon become a law.
"The law names certain things which each city charter shall
provide, and imposes certain restrictions on the powers of
cities. There must be an elected Mayor and a body vested with
legislative power; the clerk, treasurer, and assessors, and
other officers may be elected or appointed. This permits the
establishment of a commission system, or of a Mayor and
council with distinct powers. Provision must be made for the
levy, collection, and return of State, county, and school
taxes, for annual appropriations for municipal purposes, and
for a system of accounts.
{436}
"Provision may be made for municipal taxes and for borrowing
money up to prescribed limits, for the regulation of trades,
occupations, and amusements, for the purchase of franchises,
for a plan of streets within three miles beyond the city
limits, 'for a system of civil service,' for the referendum,
and the following omnibus clause: for the exercise of all
municipal powers in the management and control of municipal
property and in the administration of the municipal
government, whether such powers be expressly enumerated or
not; for any act to advance the interests of the city, the
good government and prosperity of the municipality and its
inhabitants, and through its regularly constituted authority,
to pass all laws and ordinances relating to its municipal
concerns, subject to the Constitution and general laws of the
State.
"Limitations include the following: Existing limits to the tax
rate and borrowing powers to remain until a change is
authorized by vote of the electors, with a maximum limit of 2
per cent. of the assessed valuation for the tax rate and 8 per
cent. for loans; but, as authorized by the Constitution, bonds
may be issued beyond this limit for public utilities, when
secured only upon the property and revenues of the utility. A
sinking fund must be provided for bonds. A charter or charter
amendment may not be submitted oftener than once in two years.
The salary of public officials may not be changed after
election or appointment. Certain municipal property may only
be sold or vacated when approved by three-fifths of the
electors voting thereon.
"A separate act was passed for villages. This follows the main
features of the law for cities, but is briefer."
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: New York City: A. D. 1901-1909.
The Municipal Elections of 1901, 1903, 1905, and 1909.
See (in this Volume)
NEW YORK CITY.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: New York City: A. D. 1905-1909.
The Working of the Bureau of Municipal Research.
The Bureau of Municipal Research, instituted in New York City
by an organization of citizens in 1905, has proved to be as
effective an agency as has ever been employed for the
straightening of crookedness and the correcting of negligence
in the conduct of municipal affairs. Its working is described
fully in an article which appeared in the _Atlantic
Monthly_ of October, 1908, by the head of the Bureau, Dr.
William H. Allen, under the title, "A National Fund for
Efficient Democracy." What the writer aims to do, and does
most effectively, is, first, to show how inefficient our
democracy is in its practical working, how demoralizing that
inefficiency is, how feebly education and religion are
struggling against its demoralizations, so long as they do not
work to make government efficient; and then he unfolds the
remedy indicated in results obtained already from the public
enlightenment—the citizen education—which the Bureau of
Municipal Research is developing in New York. His final
purpose is to plead for the great national fund that would
establish a central foundation for the extending and
organizing of similar educational work throughout the country
at large.
The simple object of the New York Bureau of Municipal Research
has been to make and to keep the public acquainted with the
working of things in its government; to make and keep it
attentive to the facts of efficiency or inefficiency in that
working, which proves to be the kind of political education
that bears the most practical fruits. The aim of the bureau,
says Dr. Allen, has been "educative, not detective. Infinitely
more interested in pointing out what is needed than what is
wrong, it realizes that the great problem of democracy is not
the control of the officer, but the education of the citizen.
It began, not by laying down principles of government or
discussing men, but by studying the needs of the community and
its official acts. It would educate democracy in facts about
democracy’s acts and methods, democracy’s need, and
democracy’s opportunity." Something of the results achieved is
set forth in the following passage:
"Three years, $150,000, and scientific method, have
accomplished results surpassing all dreams of those who
outlined its programme. So convincing are these results that
onlookers who said three years ago, ‘The tiger will never
change its stripes,’ are now saying, ‘You could hardly do this
in cities where the tiger marks are less obvious.’ Although
many phases of municipal administration have not yet been
studied, there is hardly an obstacle to efficiency and honesty
that has not been encountered and overcome by light. The
real-estate bureau that eluded all graft charges is being
reorganized to prevent either graft or one hundred per cent.
profits for land sold the city at private sale. While its own
staff, consisting of three investigators in 1907 and 40 in the
summer of 1908, can of itself do no inconsiderable educational
work, the bureau gauges its effectiveness, not by what its own
staff accomplishes, but by what the city’s staff of 70,000,
and through them the city’s population of 4,000,000, are
enabled to accomplish because of its educational effort.
"Methods that manufacture corruption and inefficiency, and
that for 50 years defied political reform, are giving way to
methods by which 70,000 employees must tell the truth about
what they do when they do it, about what they spend when they
spend it, in clear, legible form. … Tammany officials, when
interested, make excellent collaborators. The commissioners of
accounts, for 30 years, through reform and Tammany
administrations alike, a whitewashing body that condoned and
glossed over wasteful and corrupt acts, have become, as a
direct result of the bureau’s work, a great educational
agency."
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: New York City: A. D. 1909.
Proposed New Charter, not acted on in the Legislature.
A Commission appointed for the purpose by Governor Hughes,
after long and careful study of the subject of a new charter
for Greater New York, reported in March, 1909, submitting a
recommended draft, which was submitted to the Legislature then
in session, but obtained no action from that body before its
adjournment. The ruling principle in the work of the
Commission had been that of reducing the number of elected
administrative officers, of putting into separate hands the
power to appropriate and the power to spend money, and of
concentrating power and responsibility in a few.
{437}
As originally organized, the "Greater New York" City is
divided into five boroughs. At the head of each borough is a
Borough President, who has charge of the streets and the
public buildings within the borough. There is also a Board of
Estimate and Apportionment, consisting of the Mayor,
Comptroller, the President of the Board of Aldermen, and the
Borough Presidents. There is also a Board of Aldermen. The
Commissioners proposed that the Borough Presidents shall cease
to have administrative functions and shall devote their
attention exclusively to the great financial work of the Board
of Estimate and Apportionment; that the administrative work be
given to heads of departments responsible to the Mayor, and to
bureaus, some of them under the Board of Estimate and
Apportionment and some under the various departments; and that
the Board of Aldermen be supplanted by a Council of
thirty-nine members to serve without pay; to have enlarged
legislative powers, but none connected with the grant
franchises, which the Board of Estimate and Apportionment
should control. A new Department of Street Control was
proposed, to take over all street work, abolishing the
Street-Cleaning Department.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: Philadelphia: A. D. 1905.
A Temporary House Cleaning of the Municipality.
Mayor Weaver’s Conversion.
"Philadelphia has reformed. It is the swiftest and most
thorough municipal revolution known in American civic annals.
Without an election and without primaries, without warning and
without preparation, the great deep of small
householders,—which is Philadelphia,—moved from below. When
the work was over, Mayor Weaver, who led the revolution, had
not only changed the heads of the two executive departments,
with ten thousand employees, but he was in full control of
City Councils; he was recognized as the head of the city
Republican party organization; he had forced the city
Republican committee to withdraw the local ticket already
nominated and await the choice of another ticket by the reform
leaders; he had begun criminal prosecution, stopped work on
contracts for filtration plants, boulevards, and highways
amounting to some twelve million dollars, beginning a
searching investigation by a board of expert engineers, and
had defeated two grabs, one a contract for seventy-five years
in gas and the other a street-car grab of one hundred and ten
miles of streets, sought by the two local public-service
corporations, the United Gas Improvement Company and the
Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company. Both had been successfully
passed before this revolution broke, and both were recalled,
on the demand of the mayor, by the same councils that had
passed them.
"The coherent homogeneous vote of the myriads of small homes
which make up Philadelphia has made this sweeping victory
possible against great odds. The party majority in
Pennsylvania and Philadelphia is the strongest in the country.
The city machine is as well organized as Tammany Hall. It
holds city, State, and federal patronage. For ten years it has
without challenge chosen the executive officers at Harrisburg
and Philadelphia and held the Legislature and Councils. The
city ring, in a decade of unchecked rule, has issued
$40,000,000 of city bonds; let on the filtration plant alone
$13,660,000 of contracts; as much more on various public
improvements, and had pending work authorized, but not let,
costing about $30,000,000. The criminal investigation already
made indicates that on the filtration-plant contracts alone
the margin of loose profit is from 28 to 30 per cent. In this
period the city gas works have been leased for a term ending
in 1927, on provisions which yield $2,000,000 a year, twice
the expected profit to the lessee, the United Gas Improvement
Company. The other public-service corporation, the
Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company, has had a free gift of a
subway and over two hundred miles of street without payment
and without limitation. The combination, under an antiquated
law which threw no safeguards about the ballot of a venal vote
controlled by machine office-holders of the great
corporations, railroad and public-service, and of a corrupt
combination of contractors and politicians, seemed omnipotent.
By the adroit use of State and city appropriations for private
charities and educational institutions, the respectable were
placated. The leaders of this organization were also wise
enough to meet reforms non-political halfway. The last State
legislature passed excellent sanitary legislation, reorganized
on sound lines the city schools of Philadelphia, passed
efficient child-labor laws, and at many points improved State
legislation. Carefully separating political management and
elected officers, the leaders of the machine chose judicial
candidates usually unexceptionable, and elected as governor of
the State and mayor of Philadelphia men honest, dull, highly
respected, without stain but pliant.
"In April, so far as Philadelphia was concerned,
self-government seemed to have disappeared. Its charter was
amended, in the teeth of universal protest, so as to rob
future mayors of all powers. Senator Boies Penrose and
Insurance Commissioner Israel W. Durham made all nominations,
State and city. The former awaits investigation. Durham has
been shown to be a silent and secret partner in a contracting
firm holding $13,660,000 of contracts, under city ordinances
he passed, led by officers he chose, and yielding some 30 per
cent. profit. In Pennsylvania and Philadelphia, the
corporation pays the machine and the machine aids the
corporation. It is like this in other States, but preeminently
in that founded by Penn. After a long series of like gifts and
franchises, councils voted the Rapid Transit Company one
hundred and ten miles of streets, passed a costly boulevard
system, and in return for $25,000,000 intended for more
contracts proposed to lease the city gas works for
seventy-five years, postponing reduction in the price of gas
for three-quarters of a century.
"This ran the pliant fingers of the machine into the pockets
of every householder who had a gas bill to pay, some two
hundred and eighty thousand in number. Suddenly this great
mass moved from within. The pulpit of small churches knew it
before the press, the little division leaders before the ward
managers, and they before the chiefs of the organization. In a
week, the city seethed. Children of councilmen came crying
from the public schools. No one would play with them. Callous,
thick-skinned politicians found their mail, their telephones,
and their daily tours one hot rain of protest from their old
neighbors. Division leaders reported defection by the
avalanche.
{438}
The small householder, the narrow burgher, comfortable,
contented, owning his house, careless over ideals, education,
corruption, and venal voter, was aflame over a bigger gas
bill. It is the old story of ship money and stamp taxes. No
vote was necessary. No primary was needed. The leaders of a
political machine are ignorant of much, but they know the
voice of the voter in the land. John Weaver, the mayor, chosen
by the machine, and its lifelong friend and supporter, had
been a fair case lawyer and district attorney. Honest, narrow,
clean-lived, of a legal mind, restive at the way he was
treated as a mere figurehead, he recognized the civic
revolution because he was himself of the class that had risen.
He had, moreover, in his day won his division and was a ward
leader."
_American Review of Reviews,
July, 1905._
The Israel W. Durham referred to above, who was the absolute
"boss" of Philadelphia from 1896 to 1905, died on the 28th of
June, 1909.
See, also,
PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1906.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: A. D. 1909.
The old Evil Conditions revived.
Defeat of Revolt against them.
The old mastery of the City Government by an all-powerful and
shameless political "machine" was recovered at the end of the
term of Mayor Weaver, and conditions were soon as rotten as
before the momentary and partial cleansing had been performed.
In 1909 a hopeful revolt against them was undertaken, under
the lead of D. Clarence Gibboney a young lawyer who as
secretary of an active "Law and Order Society," had shown
inspiring powers of leadership and high qualities of sincerity
and resolution. Gibboney had been put forward for District
Attorney in 1906 on Democratic and Independent tickets, and
had suffered defeat. Now he was brought again to the front,
for that office, from which the plunderers of the city could
be most advantageously attacked. A William Penn Party had been
organized in the interest of reform, and his nomination by
this was endorsed by the Democratic organization. A great
effort was made to rouse the conscience and the self-respect
of the city, to throw off the thraldom of blind partisanship
under which it submits to be corrupted and robbed. But the
effort failed. Gibboney was rejected by a majority of about
40,000 voters.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: Pittsburg:
Achievements of a Reforming Mayor.
George W. Guthrie became Mayor of Pittsburg in 1906. "When
Mayor Guthrie went into office there was no merit system in
Pittsburg; but he soon established an effective one of his
own, and at the 1907 session of the Pennsylvania Legislature
effectively co-operated with the Pennsylvania Civil Service
Reform Association and similar bodies, with Mayor Dimmick, of
Scranton, and the business bodies of second-class cities, to
secure a law which would permanently establish the merit
system in them. He and his colleagues succeeded. A short time
ago some one asked the Mayor how many Democrats he had
appointed to office. His immediate reply was, 'I haven’t the
least idea. The question of party has never entered into the
matter.’ …
"The tax levied in February, 1906, before Mayor Guthrie
assumed office, was 15 mills. That levied in February, 1907,
the first under his administration, was 12½ mills. This year,
had it not been for the annexation of Allegheny, the city
would have required only 10 or 10½ mills. The Mayor’s first
estimate was 11 mills; but the final figures, as made up by
the Finance Committee, showed that the lower figure would have
been sufficient. When the Mayor entered office, there was a
cash deficit of $400,000, caused by the payment of bills left
over from the previous administration. He closed his first
year with a small surplus, and the second (1907) with a large
one. The total tax valuation of the old city of Pittsburg is
$599,852,923. Its total bonded indebtedness is $24,956,001,
and its net indebtedness (arrived at by deducting bonds in the
saving fund) is $16,532,425, or .0275 per cent of the
valuation. This highly desirable financial result, however,
has not been reached by any false economy. Inadequate salaries
have been raised. All the street repairing for 1907 was paid
for out of the tax levy, and the work on the filtration plant
has been pushed unceasingly. Enough of the filter beds are
finished to provide for present needs, and as soon as they are
‘ripened’ and the pumping machinery rearranged the city will
have filtered water. …
"For many years, under the old regime, Pittsburg had been free
from many of the evils of an open city; but a syndicate of
Councilmen and politicians had made immense sums out of the
business. They controlled the leases of the houses, which they
sublet at exorbitant sums. They also controlled the supplies
which were furnished to them. The Mayor issued but one order
for the regulation of this district. He made no attempt to
solve the entire problem. As the law was plain about the sale
of liquor, he declared that that must stop absolutely; and
that no house could be run on streets on which there were
surface cars. This order proved to be the death-blow of the
combination that had previously existed. The politicians, when
they heard the order, laughed. They had fooled every other
Mayor, and they thought they could fool Guthrie. He would need
Councils and must necessarily ‘deal’ with them. But he needed
no one, and he ‘dealt’ with no one. He waited six weeks for
his warning to be taken, and then he acted. One Saturday night
the police drew a net around the district, and over one
thousand arrests were made. Then came the final blow that
stopped political interference. Under the old system police
magistrates had been in the habit of holding fines or delaying
sentences, which, under the pressure of political influence,
were remitted or suspended. Such money as was paid in was held
for a month before being turned over to the city treasury. …
Mr. Guthrie established the rule that all fines and jail
sentences, once imposed, would have to stand unless revoked by
the county courts. Not only have the revenues of the city
largely increased by this policy, as we have already seen, but
one of the greatest sources of political evil has been
removed. Since this policy was inaugurated there has been no
political or machine interference in the administration of the
law. Incidentally, I may mention that one Councilman went to
jail for his complicity with the protection of the social
evil.
{439}
"The situation in Pittsburg is so changed and improved that
the Secretary of the Civic Voters' League was able to say
recently; ‘While we have forced Councils to be good, elected
the best Mayor in the country, put in county offices men of
ability and honesty, forced the politicians to give us a good
civil service measure, I am convinced that our most important
victory has been to convince the political leaders and bosses
that there is a new era in politics, and that for the future
none but the best men can be elected to public office.’"
_Clinton Rogers Woodruff,
A Mayor with an Ideal
(The Outlook, April 25, 1908)._
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT:
Defeat of the Reforming Mayor in 1909, but no Discouragement
of the Reforming Activity of the Voters’ League.
Unparalleled Success in convicting Bribed Officials
and their Bribers.
Mayor Guthrie, nominated for reëlection in 1909, was defeated
by the nominee of a corrupt party "machine"; but this put no
check on the efforts of the Voters’ League behind him to hunt
down the corrupting influences and agencies which had mastered
the city once more. A fortunate accident gave the League a
single clue to the hidden labyrinth of rascality, and it
sufficed for astounding revelations. It tracked and caught,
first, a single ex-Councilman, who had handled large sums of
bribe-money, receiving and dividing it among his fellow
members of a gang known as the "Big Six." This man, John P.
Klein, when he found himself helplessly in the toils, and
likely to be the scape-goat for all his confederates and their
corrupters, made confessions which uncovered much, if not all,
of the bribe-giving and bribe-taking of several past years.
Down to the 23d of March, 1910, when the following summary was
published, the results coming from this confession had been as
follows:
In penitentiary—
W. W. Ramsey, ex-president of the German National Bank;
William Brand, ex-president of the Common Council;
Joseph C. Wasson, ex-Councilman, and H. M. Bolder.
Under sentence to the penitentiary—
John F. Klein, ex-Councilman.
Awaiting disposition of their cases—
E. H. Jennings, president of the Columbia National Bank, and
F. A. Griffin, cashier, who pleaded _nolo contendere_.
Under indictment—
Forty-one Councilmen.
Confessors of bribe-sharing—
Twenty Councilmen, former and present, Select and Common.
More confessors awaiting turn—
Ten former and present Councilmen.
As this goes to the printers, the bribe-givers, including some
of the multi-millionaires of Pittsburg, are being dragged into
court.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: St. Louis: A. D. 1900-1940.
The Unearthing of Thievery and Corruption
by Circuit Attorney Folk.
Prosecutions, Confessions, and Convictions.
One of the most notable and effective cleansings of a
corrupted municipality that has occurred in the United States
was accomplished in St. Louis by Joseph Wingate Folk, using
the powers of the office of Circuit Attorney of the City, to
which he was fortunately elected in the spring of 1900. That
bribery was active among the Aldermen and Councilmen of the
two chambers of the municipal legislature, and that
unscrupulous men of business were habitually employing it to
secure iniquitous franchises and jobs, appears to have been a
matter of common belief; but the belief had not roused feeling
enough to bring about any change, until the opportunity to act
was given to Mr. Folk.
One notoriously suspicious transaction, which consolidated the
street railways of the city, was outlawed for all but a single
actor in it by the Missouri statute of limitations, which bars
criminal proceedings after three years; but the one man had
been absent from the State during so large a part of those
three years that he could be reached by the law, and the
Circuit Attorney turned the search light of a grand jury
investigation on his case. This man, R. M. Snyder, of Kansas
City, was indicted, arrested, and held for trial under bonds
of $50,000. From that beginning Mr. Folk went on to the
probing of a more recent franchise grant, and unearthed the
fact that two deposits of cash, for sums of $60,000 and
$75,000 were boxed in safety deposit vaults, each guarded by
duplicate keys held on one side by a corporation agent, and on
the other side by agents of the Council and the Aldermanic
body respectively, waiting for distribution among the
officials who had sold the public franchise for those sums. A
rival corporation had, meantime, attacked the legality of the
grant, held it up by an injunction, and so kept these
corruption funds in suspension between the bribers and the
bribed.
By what resolute persistence, what shrewdness, what bold
ventures of surmise, Mr. Folk uncovered the cunningly secreted
facts, terrified the "boodlers" and the bribers into betraying
one another, and fastened their crimes upon them, cannot be
told here. Two of the wealthy buyers in the rascally trade, a
Mr. Turner and a Mr. Stock, became witnesses for the State
against the men whose crime they had bought. The two agents
for Aldermen and Councilmen, who held the keys of the
deposited bribe, J. K. Murrell and Charles Kratz, fled to
Mexico, forfeiting their bail. Three others of the accused,
Emil Meysenberg, Julius Lehmann and Harry Faulkner, were
tried, convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for three and
two years. The escape of Murrell and Kratz beyond reach of
extradition embarrassed the prosecution of the remaining
confederates, who seemed likely to go free for lack of
sufficient evidence; but unexpectedly, in September, 1902,
Murrell reappeared in St. Louis, saying that he could not
endure exile any longer and was ready to bear the penalty of
his wrongdoing. On his confessions eleven aldermen were
arrested, charged with bribery in two cases and with perjury
before the grand jury. Seven others made successful flights.
In the course of the next year another of the refugees from
justice returned, supposing his time of danger to have passed.
This was Charles F. Kelly, who had been Speaker of the St.
Louis House of Delegates and a ready tool of Edward Butler,
the St. Louis political "Boss" and legislative broker. Butler
had been involved in the prosecutions, and Kelly had fled to
avoid giving testimony against him, being paid, as he
confessed finally, $50,000 for his retirement into obscure
foreign parts. What happened to him later, and what
confessions he made were the subject of a brief story in THE
OUTLOOK of November 5, 1904, in part as follows:
{440}
"Returning when it was believed that his patron was secure
through the operation of the statute of limitations, Kelly was
arrested and sentenced to two years in the penitentiary for
perjury in his testimony in one of the boodle cases. He
appealed to the Supreme Court, and meanwhile was rearrested on
the charge of accepting a bribe in another deal. At, this
juncture he complained that Butler had deserted him and had
advised him to plead guilty. ‘It didn’t look right,’ he said
in an interview, ‘that we should take our medicine and that he
should go free.’ Therefore he determined to relate his
dealings with Butler in the bribery cases. In his statement he
says that he has reason to believe that boodling had been in
progress in the St. Louis Municipal Assembly for the last
twenty-five years. The boodlers did not fear exposure, because
they ‘knew that most of the politicians and many of the large
financiers of St. Louis’ would be with them. One prosecutor
who attempted to bring them to justice was ‘bluffed off.’ When
Mr. Folk began his work, there were threats of assassination,
and finally a deliberate plot was arranged to ruin the
prosecutor’s influence by falsehoods. ‘Prominent financiers’
as well as the boodlers were engaged in this attempt,
according to the confession.
"The general scheme of the boodle ‘combine’ is already fairly
well known, but Mr. Kelly adds some interesting details. There
were nineteen members, and the combine was ‘not along party
lines.’ ‘My experience,’ he remarks, ‘has been that boodlers
line up according to their interests, and not under party
standards.’ The members of the combine held regular meetings,
and decided by a majority vote on the prices to be charged for
various measures. There was a ‘fixed schedule of prices’ for
bills in accordance with the value of the privileges to be
given. The combine rarely sold out for less than a thousand
dollars, though once ‘some of the boys took five dollars each,
but were so ashamed of it they would not speak of it
afterwards, because the price was so small.’ The combine was
in the habit of selecting one of its members to act as agent
in the deals, and only in one or two instances did the
representative prove untrustworthy. ‘Among ourselves,’ says
this frank boodler, ‘we had a high code of morals, and it was
considered extremely dishonest for a member of the combine to
accept bribe money without dividing it among his fellows.’ A
particularly interesting feature of the confession is the
warning which it gives to St. Louis of the danger of a relapse
to the old conditions when Mr. Folk’s term as Circuit Attorney
shall have expired. Kelly asserts that Butler advised his
indicted friends to get continuances until a new Circuit
Attorney should be elected, and that he promised them that the
prosecutor should be ‘his man.’ ‘What,’ asks Kelly, ‘has been
done in St. Louis? Nothing at all. The prosecutor has, after
three years’ fighting, whipped us. But it seems to me, such is
the condition of public sentiment in St. Louis, that when the
new prosecutor, who of course will be Ed Butler’s man, takes
charge, boodlers will be in clover again.’ In his opinion the
great trouble is that ‘so many of the large corporations of
the city are mixed up in boodle one way or another’ that the
town is willing to tolerate corruption."
Here, as in all exposed cases, the power to organize "boodle"
or "graft" in municipal government is found to have been
derived from the "machines" of the national political parties.
The exhibit of character and ability made by Mr. Folk in his
extraordinary enforcement of law in St. Louis, to the
overthrow of the stronghold of municipal thieves and
corruptionists, so commended him to the people of Missouri
that they nominated and elected him Governor of the State in
1904, despite the most desperate endeavor of the party
organizations to defeat him. In his higher office he continued
his work of reform.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: SAN FRANCISCO: A. D. 1901-1909.
The Struggle with Political Corruption.
"Before the enactment of the charter of 1899 the mayoralty in
San Francisco had little power, and successive political
bosses had ignored it. Instead of this, they aimed to control
the municipal Board of Supervisors, which had the awarding of
contracts and franchises. The charter of 1899 changed all
this, by concentrating vast powers of appointment and removal
in the mayoralty, the office being filled by biennial
election. The office was ably and honestly administered for
the first two years by Honorable Jas. D. Phelan.
"During the latter portion of Phelan’s term there occurred a
long and bitter industrial struggle, known as the ‘Teamsters’
Strike,’ in which the sympathy of other labor organizations
was deeply stirred. At the request of the employers Mayor
Phelan consented to placing the city police upon drays and
wagons as guards for non-union drivers. This action aroused
violent denunciation on the part of the union labor leaders.
It also served as a political object lesson. It was seen that
to gain possession of the mayoralty in the interest of union
labor would be a great political advantage, especially in a
recurrence of industrial strife.
"In the following election (1901) Eugene E. Schmitz, orchestra
leader at the Columbia theatre and head of the musicians’
union, the candidate of the union labor party, was elected
mayor by 21,776 votes as against 30,365 votes somewhat evenly
divided between the Republican and the Democratic candidates.
Two years later (1903) Schmitz was reëlected in the same way,
and in 1905 he was again successful, this time securing a
large majority over the fusion candidate nominated by the
Democratic and Republican parties combined. Throughout the
whole period Schmitz's chief political manager was Abraham
Ruef, a native of San Francisco, well educated, gifted and
ambitious, an adroit politician, previously affiliated with
the Republican party. In 1904 he was a delegate at large for
California in the Republican national convention at Chicago.
"Almost from the beginning of the Schmitz administration it
became recognized throughout the city that the most certain
way of obtaining favors from the mayor’s office was through
the law office of Abraham Ruef, who acted as the legal and
political adviser of Mayor Schmitz. Ruef steered a different
course from political bosses generally. He kept his office
open for all comers, high and low. He was thoroughly
accessible. He welcomed all applicants and dealt out
encouraging assurances to every request. It soon became a
matter of general belief that under the guise of legal
services Ruef was selling licenses, securing special
privileges for favored clients and protecting illegal
concerns. Ruef’s income increased enormously during the
Schmitz regime, but to the end he maintained this pretense of
‘attorney’s fees,’ and only a few months before he was
indicted for extortion he stoutly maintained before a public
meeting that he had never made a dollar out of politics.’
{441}
"In 1905 the grand jury made a thorough investigation of the
municipal administration and became convinced of the existence
of a wide-spread system of bribery and corruption. In its
report to the Superior Court, filed August 19, 1905, it
stated: ‘that wholesale and wide-spread violation of law is
open, notorious and flagrant; that it meets with the
acquiescence of the mayor; that it receives the approval of
the police commission; that it is aided, abetted and protected
by police officials. … We find that vice and crime have been
organized so systematically, and fostered with such vigilant
attention to detail, that nothing which business acumen or
political expediency could suggest has been neglected or
omitted.’ For lack of legal evidence, however, or the funds
with which to carry on an investigation for securing it, no
indictments in these matters were returned.
"The municipal election of 1905 gave to Ruef the control of
the Board of Supervisors as well as the administrative
departments of the city. The great upheaval in business
conditions produced by the earthquake and fire of April, 1906,
brought new and wealthier clients to his office. Evidence made
public in the later prosecutions goes to show that Ruef was
paid to secure from the Board of Supervisors for the United
Railroads permission to use an overhead trolley system for
operating its street cars instead of the cable system in use
before the fire; that the gas company had bribed the
supervisors to raise the price of gas from 75 to 85 cents per
thousand feet; and that the telephone companies had used the
same means to promote their interests.
"The work of securing the evidence upon which criminal
indictments could be based was performed by a few determined
men. Rudolph Spreckels, a young man of large fortune, came
forward with a pledge of $100,000 for the expenses of a
searching investigation. District Attorney William H. Langdon,
who had been elected on the same ticket with Schmitz,
announced that he would conduct the inquiry without regard to
party affiliations, and appointed Francis J. Heney, assistant
district attorney. A man of courage and devotion to public
honesty, Heney had gained distinction by the successful
prosecution of land frauds before the Federal courts in
Oregon. Heney requested and obtained the assistance of William
J. Burns, a detective in the United States Secret Service.
"Ruef and Schmitz were soon indicted by the grand jury,
charged with extorting money from restaurant proprietors.
During the progress of his trial Ruef changed his plea from
‘Not guilty’ to ‘Guilty.’ Judgment against him was delayed,
however, by the prosecution for the purpose of gaining
evidence against others. Schmitz was tried on a similar charge
and with the aid of testimony given by Ruef was convicted and
[July, 1907] sentenced to imprisonment for five years in the
state penitentiary.
"Meanwhile, some of the weaker supervisors having been caught
in a trap set for them by Burns, confessions of bribery were
obtained by the grand jury from fifteen out of eighteen
members of the Board. In return for these confessions the
district attorney entered into immunity contracts with the
supervisors, and became temporarily the directing power in the
municipal government. The office of mayor was declared vacant,
and Honorable. Edward R. Taylor, a learned and conscientious
man, a professor in the Hastings College of Law in San
Francisco, was appointed to the position. Gradually the whole
Board of Supervisors was replaced by honest and experienced
men.
"On the confessions of the discredited supervisors there
followed a large number of indictments against Ruef, Schmitz
and the various officers and employees of the public service
corporations concerned in corrupting the city government. By
May 25, 1907, the number of so-called ‘graft’ indictments was
137, against 19 persons. From collateral issues the number of
indictments later rose to 160. The indictments against a few
of the accused were subsequently dismissed. Five of the
original 19 accused persons had been put on trial one or more
times previous to January, 1910,—the expiration of the term of
office of District Attorney Langdon. These trials were carried
on with the utmost rancor on the part of opposing counsel. The
greatest difficulties were encountered in securing juries and
in several cases juries failed to agree. Throughout the
community and in the public prints there developed factional
division and bitterness. This factional hatred culminated in
acts of violence and terrorism. Two houses in Oakland, Alameda
County, one occupied, the other owned by James L. Gallagher,
former supervisor and lieutenant of Ruef, later a most
important witness for the prosecution, were dynamited and
nearly destroyed. For these crimes a culprit was discovered
and sent to the state prison for life by the courts of Alameda
County. On November 13, 1908, during the trial of Ruef on
bribery charges, Mr. Heney was shot from behind while at his
post in the court-room by a half-demented sympathizer with the
accused. A day later the assassin took his own life while in
jail. By the merest chance Mr. Heney’s wound proved not to be
fatal, and after a few months he returned to his duties.
"Even in the few cases in which convictions were obtained
judgment was arrested by appeals to the higher courts, which
uniformly resolved all technical questions in favor of the
accused. To the end of 1909, the record of these cases is as
follows:
"Number of indictments 160.
"Contracts of immunity 19.
"Tried and acquitted twice:
Tirey L. Ford, attorney for the United Railroads.
"Trials in which the jury disagreed:
Louis Glass, manager for the Pacific States Telephone Co.;
Tirey L. Ford;
Abraham Ruef;
Patrick Calhoun, president of the United Railroads.
"Judgments reversed by higher court,
Eugene E. Schmitz and Louis Glass.
"Plea of guilty nullified by higher court:
Abraham Ruef.
"Convicted, but appeals to higher court in progress:
Abraham Ruef and M. W. Coffey, a supervisor who broke his
immunity contract.
{442}
"Thus it is evident that the prosecution has so far failed to
punish extortion and bribery by criminal procedure. The real
results of the prosecution are to be found in the prompt
reform of the municipal government of San Francisco in 1907,
and, in a larger way, in an awakened public conscience and a
strengthened sense of civic duty. These results are not
limited to San Francisco, but are a part of the great work of
political regeneration in which the whole country is
concerned.
"The question of further efforts to secure convictions in
these ‘graft’ cases was made a political issue in San
Francisco by the candidacy of Mr. Heney for the office of
district attorney in 1909. That a large number of voters
considered such continued efforts useless or hopeless was
shown by his defeat by a decisive majority of 10,000 votes
against him."
The new Mayor placed at the head of the City Government by
this election was the nominee of the same Union Labor Party
which had seated Schmitz and his manager, Ruef, and it was
made plain that he represented the opposition to all that had
been done and attempted toward municipal reform.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: Spain: A. D. 1907-1909.
Municipal Reforms.
See (in this Volume)
SPAIN: A. D. 1907-1909.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: The Transvaal: A. D. 1909.
Introduction of Proportional Representation.
See (in this Volume)
ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: United States:
The "Municipal Program," framed
by the National Municipal League.
"At the joint invitation of the City Club of New York and the
Municipal League of Philadelphia, a Conference for Good City
Government was held in Philadelphia in January, 1894. Out of
this conference grew the National Municipal League, formally
organized in New York City in May, 1894. The League includes
in its affiliated membership, the leading municipal reform
organizations of the country, and, in its associated
membership the leading students of municipal government. At
the annual meeting of the League in 1897 held in Louisville, a
special committee was appointed ‘to report on the feasibility
of a _Municipal Program_ which will embody the essential
principles that must underlie successful municipal government,
and which shall also set forth a working plan or system,
consistent with American industrial and political conditions,
for putting such principles into practical operation; and the
Committee, if it finds such _Municipal Program_ to be
feasible, is instructed to report the same with its reasons
therefor, to the League, for consideration.’
"The Committee appointed under this resolution made a
preliminary report at the annual meeting of the League held in
Indianapolis in 1898, and a final one at the annual meeting of
the League held in Columbus in 1899. The Committee did not
claim that its report constituted the final word upon the
subject referred to it, but its members were convinced, as a
result of their studies and investigations, that ‘_A
Municipal Program_’ which would embody the essential
principles that must underlie successful municipal government
was entirely feasible, and they recommended certain
Constitutional Amendments and a general Municipal Corporations
Act, as setting forth a working plan or system consistent with
American industrial and political conditions, for putting such
principles into practical operation. The Committee’s
recommendations were unanimously adopted by the League at its
Columbus meeting."
_Horace E. Deming,
The Government of American Cities,
page 203 (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York)._
As originally published, the "Municipal Program" has gone out
of print, but Mr. Deming, under an arrangement with the
League, has reproduced it as an appendix to his book, with an
explanatory discussion of it. The main objects sought in it
are "to clothe the city government with such broad powers as
will enable it to perform all the appropriate functions of a
local government without resort to the State Legislature for
the grant of additional power"; and to "prevent the
interference by the State Legislature with the free exercise
by the city of the governmental powers granted it." Beyond
this, the designers of the "Program" have worked out what
seemed to them the most effective plan of organization in
municipal government for the exercise of such full powers.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: WISCONSIN:
Organization of a Municipal Reference Bureau
by the State University.
Within the past year a Municipal Reference Bureau has been
organized in connection with the Extension Department of the
Wisconsin State University, its purpose being to offer the
widest possible use of the material on questions relative to
municipal government which the University has collected, by
answering inquiries. The Bureau is under the charge of Mr.
Ford H. MacGregor, and will work in cooperation with the very
useful Legislative Reference Department of the Wisconsin Free
Library Commission, which was organized a few years ago and is
still conducted by Dr. Charles McCarthy.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT.
See, also, (in this Volume)
ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: UNITED STATES, AND SOCIAL BETTERMENT.
----------MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: End--------
MURRELL, J. K.:
Confessions.
See (in this Volume)
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: ST. LOUIS.
MÜRZSTEG PROGRAMME, The.
See (in this Volume)
TURKEY: A. D. 1903-1904, and 1905-1908.
MUSHIR-ED-DOWLEH.
See (in this Volume)
PERSIA: A. D. 1907-1908 (SEPTEMBER-JUNE).
MUSTAFA FAZIL PASHA.
See (in this Volume)
TURKEY: A. D. 1908 (JULY-DECEMBER).
MUTINY IN THE RUSSIAN NAVY.
See (in this Volume)
RUSSIA: A. D. 1905 (FEBRUARY-NOVEMBER).
MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY:
Legislative Investigation.
See (in this Volume)
INSURANCE, LIFE.
MUZZAFER-ED-DIN:
Late Shah of Persia.
See (in this Volume)
PERSIA: A. D. 1905-1907.
MYTILENE, International Occupation of.
See (in this Volume)
TURKEY: A. D. 1905-1908.
{443}
N.
NABUCO, DR. JOAQUIN:
President of Third International Conference
of American Republics.
See (in this Volume)
AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
NACIONALISTAS.
See (in this Volume)
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1907.
NAGEL, CHARLES:
Secretary of Commerce and Labor.
See (in this Volume)
UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909 (MARCH).
NAKAMURA, GENERAL.
See (in this Volume)
JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905 (MAY-JANUARY).
NANSHAN, BATTLE OF.
See (in this Volume)
JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (FEBRUARY-JULY),
A. D. 1904-1905 (MAY-JANUARY).
NAPOLEON I.:
Declining Worship of his Memory in France.
See (in this Volume)
WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1907-1908.
NASR-UL-MULK: PRIME MINISTER OF PERSIA.
His exile.
See (in this Volume)
PERSIA: A. D. 1907-1908 (SEPTEMBER-JUNE), AND 1908-1909.
NATAL.
See (in this Volume)
SOUTH AFRICA.
NATHAN, ERNESTO: MAYOR OF ROME.
See (in this Volume)
ITALY: A. D. 1909.
NATIONAL CIVIC FEDERATION, The.
See (in this Volume)
SOCIAL BETTERMENT: UNITED STATES.
NATIONAL CIVIC FEDERATION, The:
Its notable Conference on Industrial Disputes.
Its great Committee for Intermediation and Conciliation.
See (in this Volume)
LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1902.
NATIONAL CIVIC FEDERATION, The:
Its Intermediation in Coal Strike.
See (in this Volume)
LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1902-1903.
NATIONAL CIVIC FEDERATION, The:
National Conference at Chicago, 1907, on Trusts
and Combinations.
See (in this Volume)
COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL, &c.: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1907.
NATIONAL CIVIC FEDERATION, The:
Its work in Promotion of Trades Agreements.
See (in this Volume)
LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1908.
NATIONAL CIVIC FEDERATION, The:
Its work for Uniformity in State Legislation.
See (in this Volume)
LAW AND ITS COURTS: UNITED STATES.
NATIONAL CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION.
See (in this Volume)
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: UNITED STATES.
NATIONAL FARMERS’ UNION.
See (in this Volume)
LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1902-1909.
NATURAL RESOURCES, The Conservation of.
See (in this Volume)
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES.
NATURALIZATION:
Convention between American Republics.
The following Convention was adopted and signed at the Second
Conference of the American Republics, at Rio de Janeiro, 1906.
See (in this Volume)
AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
"Article I.
If a citizen a native of any of the countries signing the
present Convention, and naturalized in another, shall again
take up his residence in his native country without the
intention of returning to the country in which he has been
naturalized, he will be considered as having resumed his
original citizenship, and as having renounced the citizenship
acquired by the said naturalization."
"Article II.
The intention not to return will be presumed to exist when the
naturalized person shall have resided in his native country
for more than two years. But this presumption may be destroyed
by evidence to the contrary."
"Article III.
This Convention will become effective in the countries that
ratify it three months from the dates upon which said
ratifications shall be communicated to the Government of the
United States of Brazil; and if it should be denounced by any
one of them, it shall continue in effect for one year more, to
count from the date of such denouncement."
"Article IV.
The denouncement of this Convention by any one of the
signatory States shall be made to the Government of the United
States of Brazil and shall take effect only with regard to the
country that may make it."
NATURALIZATION: In the British Empire:
Proposed Uniformity of Law.
See (in this Volume)
BRITISH EMPIRE: A. D. 1907.
NATURALIZATION: In the United States:
The Question of Treatment of Expatriated Citizens who
visit their Native Country.
The Principle asserted to Germany.
New Law of American Citizenship.-