good or not, it is opposed to the strong non-partisan tradition of the National Association, and it is a question on which the parent body should clear its own mind. Then, again, the rival constitutional amendments need to be discussed on their merits. One, as is well known, is the straight amendment decreeing national suffrage. The other, devised last year, provides for submitting the question to the voters of each state by initiative petition. The supporters of the second amendment have national suffrage in view, but they believe the longest way round is the shortest way home. It is healthy that there should be rivalry on this question. On the question of party tactics, however, rivalry is a politer name for dissension. And if the suffrage agitation is to be anything more than political gymnastics, the less dissension and the more candid understanding, the better.
THOUGH events of historic importance are happening in Mexico to-day, it is almost impossible to find out anything about them. From the meager news which trickles into the newspapers we catch glimpses of revolutionary programs, of moving armies, of a country so profoundly disorganized that civil law has practically disappeared and all security laid at the mercy of military chiefs. We see "generals" in a convention founded on no expressed popular assent making decisions for Mexico which may at any moment provoke widespread violence and entail unforeseen international consequences. But the facts as they come through the newspapers are so bare, the interpretations are so haphazard and inadequate, that no one outside of official circles in Washington can secure any sort of consecutive impression of what is happening. We know that Huerta is gone, we gather that the Constitutionalists are divided; and there the average man's knowledge stops. He is still vaguely aware that American troops occupy Vera Cruz, but over the question of their withdrawal he has not sufficient facts to make up his mind. Yet when we remember that conditions in Mexico have several times within the last years brought us to the verge of war, that within a few months the United States has actually seized a Mexican port, the failure of the press to keep us informed seems like a wanton neglect of duty.
It is all very well to fill newspapers and magazines with denunciations of the secret and undemocratic diplomacy of Europe. So long as our own foreign relations are left in darkness Europe might well retort that it is not for us to throw stones. In regard to Mexico the newspapers have an opportunity of showing that popular diplomacy in possession of the facts is more hopeful than the European entanglements they denounce. It is no answer to say that the people are not interest in Mexico. It is the business of journalism to make important events interesting by making them intelligible, and in Mexico the possibilities are always so explosive that easy-going ignorance is out of the question. Moreover, when it is claimed that the sensations of the war in Europe make everything else dull, it would be well to remember that our greatest contribution to the world just now would be an example of how a thoroughly informed and powerful democracy can promote the national interests of a weak and struggling neighbor.
WHEN President Jackson first laid down the proposition that the President is the direct representative of the people, there was a furious outcry from Congress, and Jackson's claim was denounced as an arrogant usurpation of the constitutional prerogative of Congress. The present attitude of Congress appears to be one of acquiescence. In a recent debate Senator Thomas, of Colorado, referred to the President as one "whom the people regarded, and constantly regard more and more, as their representative, as the protector of their interests, as contradistinguished from members of Congress, who, of course, represented only states and districts in states." Nobody had a word of objection to make to this statement, although it was enough to make Clay and Webster turn over in their graves. Quite in line with the doctrine of the President as the only representative of the nation is the President's letter reviewing and commending the work of Congress, which was printed in the Record with Representative Underwood's grateful acknowledgments. It comes to this, that Congress no longer pretends to represent the general welfare, but simply local and particular interests. That being the case, there is manifest need for the adjustment of political structure to the representative function of the President. To discharge that function properly the President should have the right to introduce bills and bring them to vote. National interest should at least have as fair an opportunity of obtaining consideration as district interests.
THE opposition to a minimum wage law for women is curiously compounded of interested employers, abstract theorists and conservative and radical unionists. It presents a picture of the I. W. W., department store managers, Samuel Gompers, and a half dozen professional economists fighting side by side. The relation between republican France and autocratic Russia is a simple harmony compared to this group of allies so single minded for such various reasons. We do not pretend to have fathomed the reasons, for they range all the way from the reasons of employers who like sweating, through those of thinkers who believe in lassez-faire, to
