do you think that any
Republicans are likely to vote in the interest of the President's
policy at this session?

_Answer_. Of course I cannot pretend to answer that question from
any special knowledge, or on any information that others are not
in possession of. My idea is simply this: That a majority of the
Senators are opposed to the President's policy. A majority of the
Senate will, in my judgment, sustain the Republican policy; that
is to say, they will stand by the American system. A majority of
the Senate, I think, know that it will be impossible for us to
compete in the markets of the world with those nations in which
labor is far cheaper than it is in the United States, and that when
you make the raw material just the same, you have not overcome the
difference in labor, and until this is overcome we cannot successfully
compete in the markets of the world with those countries where
labor is cheaper. And there are only two ways to overcome this
difficulty--either the price of labor must go up in the other
countries or must go down in this. I do not believe that a majority
of the Senate can be induced to vote for a policy that will decrease
the wages of American workingmen.

There is this curious thing: The President started out blowing
the trumpet of free trade. It gave, as the Democrats used to say,
"no uncertain sound." He blew with all his might. Messrs. Morrison,
Carlisle, Mills and many others joined the band. When the Mills
Bill was introduced it was heralded as the legitimate offspring of
the President's message. When the Democratic convention at St.
Louis met, the declaration was made that the President's message,
the Mills Bill, the Democratic platform of 1884 and the Democratic
platform of 1888, were all the same--all segments of one circle;
in fact, they were like modern locomotives--"all the parts
interchangeable." As soon as the Republican convention met, made
its platform and named its candidates, it is not free trade, but
freer trade; and now Mr. Mills, in the last speech that he was
permitted to make in favor of his bill, endeavored to show that it
was a high protective tariff measure.

This is what lawyers call "a departure in pleading." That is to
say, it is a case that ought to be beaten on demurrer.

--_New York Press_, July 29, 1888.

SOCIETY AND ITS CRIMINALS*

[* Col. Robert G. Ingersoll was greatly interested in securing for
Chiara Cignarale a commutation of the de