when there was honest competition without an attempt being made to
restrict trade and the home market was more than able to consume the
production of our mills and factories, the danger and the injury to the
consumer of the country was not so great or apparent as it is to-day,
when the control of many great industries has been concentrated in the
hands of a few men or a few corporations, because domestic competition
was prohibited. When we cease to have competition at home and the law
prohibits competition from abroad by protecting profits, there is no
relief for the consumer except to cry out for government regulation. To
my mind, there is no more reason or justice in the government attempting
to protect the profits of the manufacturers and producers of this
country than here would be to protect the profits of the merchant or the
lawyer, the banker or the farmer, or the wages of the laboring man. In
almost every line of industry in the United States we have as great
natural resources to develop as that of any country in the world. It is
admitted by all that our machinery and methods of doing business are in
advance of the other nations. By reason of the efficient use of American
machinery by American labor, in most of the manufactures of this
country, the labor cost per unit of production is no greater here than
abroad. It is admitted, of course, that the actual wage of the American
laborer is in excess of European countries, but as to most articles we
manufacture the labor cost in this country is not more than double the
labor cost abroad. When we consider that the average _ad valorem_ rate
of duty levied at the custom house on manufactures of cotton goods is
53% of the value of the article imported and the total labor cost of the
production of cotton goods in this country is only 21% of the factory
value of the product, that the difference in labor cost at home and
abroad is only about as one is to two, and that ten or eleven per cent
of the value of the product levied at the custom house would equal the
difference in the labor wage, it is apparent that our present tariff
laws exceed the point where they equalize the difference in cost at home
and abroad, and we realize how far they have entered into the domain of
protecting profits for the home manufacturer. This is not only true of
the manufacture of cotton goods, but of almost every schedule in the
tariff bill. To protect profits of necessity means to protect
inefficiency. It does not stimulate industry because a manufacturer
standing behind a tariff wall that is protecting his profits is not
driven to develop his business along the lines of greatest efficiency
and greatest economy. This is clearly illustrated in a comparison of the
wool and the iron and steel industries. Wool has had a specific duty
that when worked out to an _ad valorem_ basis amounts to a tax of about
90% of the average value of all woolen goods imported into the United
States, and the duties imposed have remained practically unchanged for
forty years. During that time the wool industry has made comparatively
little progress in cheapening the cost of its product and improving its
business methods. On the other hand, in the iron and steel industry the
tariff rate has been cut every time a tariff bill has been written.
Forty years ago the tax on steel rails amounted to $17.50 a ton, to-day
it amounts to $3.92. Forty years ago the tax on pig iron was $13.60 a
ton, to-day it is $2.50. The same is true of most of the other articles
in the iron and steel schedule, and yet the iron and steel industry has
not languished; it has not been destroyed and it has not gone to the
wall. It is the most compact, virile, fighting force of all the
industries of America to-day. It has long ago expanded its productive
capacity beyond the power of the American people to consume its output
and is to-day facing out towards the markets of the world, battling for
a part of the trade of foreign lands, where it must meet free
competition, or, as is often the case, pay adverse tariff rates to enter
the industrial fields of its competitor.
Which course is the wiser for our government to take? The one that
demands the protection of profits the continued policy of hot-house
growth for our industries? The stagnation of development that follows
where competition ceases, or, on the other hand, the gradual and
insistent reduction of our tariff laws to a basis where the American
manufacturer must meet honest competition, where he must develop his
business along the best and most economic lines, where when he fights
at home to control his market he is forging the way in the economic
development of his business to extend his trade in the markets of the
world. In my judgment, the future growth of our great industries lies
beyond the seas. A just equalization of the burdens of taxation and
honest competition, in my judgment, are economic truths; they are not
permitted to-day by the laws of our country; we must face toward them,
and not away from them.
What I have said does not mean that I am in favor of going to free
trade conditions or of being so radical in our legislation as to
injure legitimate business, but I do mean that the period of exclusion
has passed and the era of honest competition is here.
Let us approach the solution of the problem involved with the
determination to do what is right, what is safe, and what is reasonable.
ELIZABETH ROBINS
Mrs. Elizabeth Robins Parkes, the well-known novelist of the
psychological school, was born at Louisville, Kentucky, August 6,
1862. She was taken from Louisville as a young child by her parents
for the reason that her father had built a house on Staten Island,
where she lived until her eleventh year, when she went to her
grandmother's at Zanesville, Ohio, to attend Putnam Female Seminary,
an institution of some renown, where her aunts on both sides of the
house had received their training. _Mrs. Gano_, the one fine character
of Miss Robins's first successful novel, _The Open Question_, is none
other than her own grandmother, Jane Hussey Robins, to whom she
dedicated the story; and the house in which she lived is faithfully
described in that story. In 1874, when she was twelve years of age,
Miss Robins made her first visit to Kentucky since having left the
State some years before; and she has been back many times since, her
latest visit being made in 1912. Her mother and many of her kinsfolk
are buried in Cave Hill cemetery; and her brother, uncle, and other
relatives, including Charles Neville Buck, the young Kentucky
novelist, reside at Louisville. She is, therefore, a Kentuckian to the
core. On January 12, 1885, she was married to George Richmond Parkes,
of Boston, who died some years ago. While passing through London, in
1889, Mrs. Parkes decided it was the most pleasing city she had seen,
and she established herself there. She now maintains Backset Town
Farm, Henfield, Sussex; and a winter home at Chinsegut, Florida. Mrs.
Parkes won her first fame as an actress, appearing in several of
Ibsen's plays, and attracting wide attention for her work in _The
Master Builder_, especially. While on the stage she began to write
under the pen-name of "C. E. Raimond," so as not to confuse the public
mind with her work as an actress; and this name served her well until
_The Open Question_ appeared, at which time it became generally
understood that the actress and author were one and the same person.
She soon after began to write under her maiden name of Elizabeth
Robins--and thus confounded herself with the wife of Joseph Pennell,
the celebrated American etcher. With her long line of novels Miss
Robins takes her place as one of the foremost writers Kentucky has
produced. A full list of them is: _George Mandeville's Husband_ (New
York, 1894); _The New Moon_ (New York, 1895); _Below the Salt_
(London, 1896), a collection of short-stories, containing, among
others, _The Fatal Gift of Beauty_, which was the title of the
American edition (Chicago, 1896); _The Open Question_ (New York,
1898). Miss Robins was friendly with Whistler, the great artist, and
he designed the covers for _Below the Salt_ and _The Open Question_, a
morbid but powerful novel. She has been especially fortunate in
seizing upon a subject of vital, timely importance against which to
build her books; and that is one of the real reasons for her success.
What the public wants is what she wants to give them. When gold was
discovered in the Klondike, and all the world was making a mad rush
for those fields, Miss Robins wrote _The Magnetic North_ (New York,
1904). That fascinating story was followed by _A Dark Lantern_ (New
York, 1905), "a story with a prologue;" _The Convert_ (New York,
1907), a novel based upon the suffragette movement in London, with
which the author has been identified for seven years, and for which
she has written more, perhaps, than any one else; _Under the Southern
Cross_ (New York, 1907); _Woman's Secret_ (London, 1907); _Votes for
Women: A Play in Three Acts_ (London, n. d. [1908]), a dramatization
of _The Convert_, produced by Granville Barker at the Court Theatre,
London, with great success. The title of this play, if not the
contents, has gone into the remotest corners of the world as the
accepted slogan of the suffragette cause. _Come and Find Me!_ (New
York, 1908), another story of the Alaska country, originally
serialized in _The Century Magazine_; _The Mills of the Gods_ (New
York, 1908); _The Florentine Frame_ (New York, 1909); _Under His Roof_
(London, n. d. [1910]), yet another short-story of the suffragette
struggle in London, printed in an exceedingly slender pamphlet; and
_Why?_ (London, 1912), a brochure of questions and answers concerning
her darling suffragettes. Upon these books Elizabeth Robins has taken
a high place in contemporary letters. Her very latest story is _My
Little Sister_, based upon a background of the white slave traffic in
London, the shortened version of which appeared in _McClure's
Magazine_ for December, 1912, concluded in the issue for January,
1913, after which it will be published in book form in America under
the original title; but the English edition will bear this legend,
"Where Are You Going To?" When the first part of this strong story was
printed in _McClure's_ it attracted immediate and very wide attention,
and again illustrated the ancient fact concerning the author's novels:
her ability to make use of one of the big questions of the day as a
scene for her story. Another book on woman's fight for the ballot, to
be entitled _Way Stations_ may be published in March, 1913. Miss
Robins is the ablest woman novelist Kentucky has produced; but her
short-stories are not comparable to Mrs. Andrew's.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The Critic_ (June, 1904); _The Bookman_ (November,
1907); _McClure's Magazine_ (December, 1910); _Harper's Magazine_
(August, 1911).
A PROMISING PLAYWRIGHT[35]
[From _The Florentine Frame_ (New York, 1909)]
Mrs. Roscoe invoked the right manager. _The Man at the Wheel_ was not
only accepted, it was announced for early production. Special scenery
was being painted. The rehearsals were speedily in full swing. The play
had been slightly altered in council--one scene had been rewritten.
Generously, Keith made his acknowledgements. "I should not have gone
at it again, but for you," he told Mrs. Roscoe. "It had got stale--I
hated it, till that day I read it to you."
She smiled. "Nobody needs an audience so much as a dramatist. I was
audience."
"You brought the fresh eye, you saw how the _scene a faire_ could be
made more poignant. Do you know," he said in that way he was getting
into, re-envisaging with this companion some old outlook, "I sometimes
feel the only difference between the poor thing and the good thing is
that in one, the hand fell away too soon, and in the other it was able
to give the screw just one more turn. You practically helped me to
give the final turn that screwed the thing into shape."
She shook her head, and then he told her that after a dozen rebuffs he
had made up his mind to abandon the play that very day he and the
Professor had talked of cinque cento ivories.
It was not unnatural that the scant cordiality of Mrs. Mathew,
whenever Keith encountered that lady at her sister's house, was
insufficient to make him fail in what he acknowledged to Fanshawe as a
sort of duty. This was: keeping Mrs. Roscoe fully informed of all the
various stages in the contract-negotiation, the cast decisions, and
the checkered fortunes of rehearsal.
It is only fair to Mrs. Mathew to admit that she had one reason more
cogent even than she quite realized for objecting to the new addition
to a circle that had, as Genie complained, grown very circumscribed
during the days of mourning.
If keeping Mrs. Roscoe _au courant_ with the fortunes of the play had
appeared to Keith in the light of an obligation imposed by common
gratitude, Mrs. Mathew conceived it as no less her duty not to allow
dislike of the new friend's presence to interfere with the sisterly
relation--a relation which on the older woman's part had always had in
it a touch of the maternal. If that young man was "getting himself
accepted upon an intimate footing"--all the more important that
Isabella's elder sister should be there at least as much as usual, if
only to prevent the curious from "talking."
In pursuance to this conception of her duty, one evening during the
later rehearsals, Mrs. Mathew stood just inside the door of the cloak
room that opened out of the famous gray and white marble entrance hall
of the Roscoe house. Engaged in the homely occupation of depositing
her "artics" in a corner where they would not be mixed up with other
people's, Mrs. Mathew was arrested by a slight noise. Upon putting out
her head she descried Miss Genie creeping down the stairs with a
highly conspiratorial air. The girl, betraying every evidence of
suppressed excitement, came to a halt before the closed doors of the
drawing-room. The sound of Keith's voice reading aloud came softened
through the heavy panels, and seemed to reassure the eavesdropper. She
ran on noiseless feet to the low seat, where a man's hat showed black
against the soft tone of the marble. She lifted the hat and appeared
to be fumbling with the coat that was lying underneath.
Suddenly the flash of a small square envelope on its way to the
recesses of the visitor's overcoat!
"What are you doing?" demanded Aunt Josephine, coming down the hall.
"Oh! How you startled me! I'm not doing anything in particular--just
waiting about till that blessed reading's over." She left the letter
concealed in the folds of the coat, and for an instant she held the
hat in front of her perturbed face: "Don't men's things have a nice
Russia-leathery smell?" she remarked airily.
"Genie Roscoe, what pranks are you playing?" As Mrs. Mathew took hold
of the coat, the girl's self-possession failed her a little. She clung
to the garment, sending anxious glances toward the door, whispering
her nervous remonstrances and begging Aunt Josephine not to talk so
loud. "You'll interrupt them."
"What is going on?" demanded Aunt Josephine, relaxing her hold on the
coat.
"He's reading."
"Your poor mother!"
"Oh, she likes it."
"Humph! And that young man--does he never get tired of his own works?"
"It isn't _his_ works that he's reading. It's other people's--to make
him forget the way they murder the play at rehearsal. It's French
things they read, usually." Genie hurried on with a nervous attempt to
be diverting. "There's a new poet, did you know? I like the new ones
best, don't you? What I can't stand is when they are so ancient, that
they're like that decayed old Ronsard--"
The form Mrs. Mathew's literary criticism took was a violent shake of
the visitor's coat. Out of the folds dropped a note. It was addressed
in Genie's hand to Mr. Chester Keith.
"What foolishness is this--"
"Don't tell mother," prayed the girl, trying in vain to recover the
envelope.
Mrs. Mathew's face grew graver as she took in the girl's feverish
anxiety.
"Dear Aunt Josephine!" Genie slipped her hand coaxingly through the
arm of the forbidding-looking lady. "I know you wouldn't be so unkind.
For all mother seems so gentle and you sometimes look so severe,
you're ten times as forgiving, really, as mother is. You're more
broadminded," said the unblushing flatterer.
"Oh, really"--Mrs. Mathew smiled a little grimly--but she had ere now
proved herself as accessible to coaxing as the cast-iron seeming
people often are. They betray, on occasion, a touching gratitude at
not being taken at their own grim word.
"Why should I hesitate to tell what you don't hesitate to do?"
But Genie's arm was round her. "Oh, _you_ know why. Mother has such
extravagantly high ideas about what people ought to do."
In the other hand Mrs. Mathew still held the note, out of the girl's
reach. "You make a practice of this?"
"No, no. It's the first time, and I'll never do it again, if you'll
promise not to tell on me."
Mrs. Mathew hesitated.
"Dearest auntie, _be nice_! If you tell," the girl protested, "I'll have
no character to keep up and I'll write him real--well, real letters."
"What do you mean? Isn't this a real letter?"
"No. It doesn't say half. It's _nothing_ to what I could--"
"Very well, if it's nothing--" Mrs. Mathew tore open the note.
Before she could so much as unfold it, Genie had plucked it out of her
hand and fled upstairs.
Half way to the top she leaned over the bannisters. "If you tell I'll
remember it all my life. If you don't I'll love you for ever and ever."
"You're a very silly child. And I'm not at all sure I won't speak to
your mother."
"But I am!" the coppery head was hung ingratiatingly over the hand rail.
Aunt Josephine was already thinking of matters more important than a
school girl's foolishness. "How long has that man been here?"
"Oh, hours and hours!" said Genie, accepting the diversion with due
gratitude. "He stays longer and longer."
"Humph! that's what I think!" Aunt Josephine stalked into the
drawing-room.
FOOTNOTE:
[35] Copyright, 1909, by the Macmillan Company.
ELLEN CHURCHILL SEMPLE
Miss Ellen Churchill Semple, Kentucky's distinguished
anthropo-geographer, was born at Louisville, Kentucky, in 1863. Vassar
College conferred the degree of Bachelor of Arts upon her in 1882, and
the Master of Arts in 1891. She then studied for two years at the
University of Leipzig. Miss Semple has devoted herself to the new
science of anthropo-geography, which is the study of the influence of
geographic conditions upon the development of mankind. Since 1897 she
has contributed articles upon her subject to the New York _Journal of
Geography_, the London _Geographical Journal_, and to other scientific
publications. Miss Semple's first book, entitled _American History and
Its Geographic Conditions_ (Boston, 1903), proclaimed her as the
foremost student of the new science in the United States. A special
edition of this work was published for the Indiana State Teachers'
Association, which is said to be the largest reading circle in the
world. In 1901 Miss Semple prepared an interesting study of _The
Anglo-Saxons of the Kentucky Mountains_, which was issued in 1910 as a
bulletin of the American Geographical Society. Miss Semple's latest
work is an enormous volume, entitled _Influences of Geographic
Environment on the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography_
(New York, 1911). This required seven long years of untiring research
to prepare, and with its publication she came into her own position,
which is quite unique in the whole range of American literature.
Although scientific to the last degree, her writings have the real
literary flavor, which is seldom found in such work. Miss Semple
lectured at Oxford University in 1912, and in the late autumn of that
year she discussed Japan, in which country she had experienced much of
value and interest, before the Royal British Geographical Society in
London, and later before the Royal Scottish Geographical Society in
Edinburgh. Between various lectures in Scotland and England she
continued her researches in the London libraries, returning to the
United States as the year closed.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The Nation_ (December 31, 1903); _Political Science
Quarterly_ (September, 1904).
MAN A PRODUCT OF THE EARTH'S SURFACE[36]
[From _Influences of Geographic Environment_ (New York, 1911)]
Man is a product of the earth's surface. This means not merely that he
is a child of the earth, dust of her dust; but that the earth has
mothered him, fed him, set him tasks, directed his thoughts,
confronted him with difficulties that have strengthened his body and
sharpened his wits, given him his problems of navigation or
irrigation, and at the same time whispered hints for their solution.
She has entered into his bone and tissue, into his mind and soul. On
the mountains she has given him leg muscles of iron to climb the
slope; along the coast she has left these weak and flabby, but given
him instead vigorous development of chest and arm to handle his paddle
or oar. In the river valley she attaches him to the fertile soil,
circumscribes his ideas and ambitions by a dull round of calm,
exacting duties, narrows his outlook to the cramped horizon of his
farm. Up on the windswept plateaus, in the boundless stretch of the
grasslands and the waterless tracts of the desert, where he roams with
his flocks from pasture to pasture and oasis to oasis, where life
knows much hardship but escapes the grind of drudgery, where the
watching of grazing herds gives him leisure for contemplation, and the
wide-ranging life a big horizon, his ideas take on a certain gigantic
simplicity; religion becomes monotheism, God becomes one, unrivalled
like the sand of the desert, and the grass of the steppe, stretching
on and on without break or change. Chewing over and over the cud of
his simple belief as the one food of his unfed mind, his faith becomes
fanaticism; his big spacial ideas, born of that ceaseless regular
wandering, outgrow the land that bred them and bear their legitimate
fruit in wide imperial conquests.
Man can no more be scientifically studied apart from the ground which
he tills, or the lands over which he travels, or the seas over which
he trades, than polar bear or desert cactus can be understood apart
from its habitat. Man's relation to his environment are infinitely
more numerous and complex than those of the most highly organized
plant or animal. So complex are they that they constitute a legitimate
and necessary object of special study. The investigation which they
receive in anthropology, ethnology, sociology and history is piecemeal
and partial, limited as to the race, cultural development, epoch,
country or variety of geographic conditions taken into account. Hence
all these sciences, together with history so far as history undertakes
to explain the causes of events, fail to reach a satisfactory solution
of their problems, largely because the geographic factor which enters
into them all has not been thoroughly analyzed. Man has been so noisy
about the way he has "conquered Nature," and Nature has been so silent
in her persistent influence over man, that the geographic factor in
the equation of human development has been overlooked.
FOOTNOTE:
[36] Copyright, 1911, by Henry Holt and Company.
MRS. ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON