they are unlike either of the other elements, for they can be conservative or radical at will, and even both at the same time; and in political aims they are selfcentred and clannish, as argon is chemically inert and refuses to enter into a true combination with any other element. Doubtless it will have occurred to many readers that there is a fairly close analogy between the situation in this country and in Great Britain. There as here the conservative party has been in power for many years, although in both countries there have been brief intervals in its hold upon the government. There as here the conservative party has been at the head of affairs during a war that resulted in an acquisition of territory from the inhabitants of which it seemed to the ruling party expedient to withhold full self-government; and in both cases the decision to that effect stirred up an anti-imperialist movement within the organization of the minority. In both countries the system of protection by means of a tariff is stronger in the conservative than in the radical party. In both the party out of power contains an element which is not radical nor antiimperialistic. Lord Rosebery, who never gave more than a half-hearted support to Irish Home Rule, and who is no more a "Little Englander" than is Mr. Balfour himself, is the type of the British Liberal in the wrong camp. The leaders of the radical party in Great Britain have long been seeking for an issue on which they could challenge successfully the government of the day. In that, too, they are like their fellow radicals of the United States. Possibly the British Liberals have found it, in the education question. The American Democrats have not found it. The radicals alienated the conservatives among them by advocating free silver; the conservatives alienated the radicals by trying to be "safe and sane." Now, all over the land they are asking themselves what was the cause of the stupendous defeat which they experienced in November, and what they must do to be saved. They are divided on the question whether or not the party should be reorganized. It was reorganized in 1896 and again in 1904, and on both occasions defeat followed. A suggestion that has been made by more than one person of high and honorable standing in the party is that the Southern wing shall now assume a position of authority and prescribe Democratic principles and policies. The difficulty with that proposition is that the unanimity of the Southern white people in supporting the party is due solely to their belief that they can in no other way have their will in deciding the political and social status of the negroes who form so large a part of the population of the South. In fact, their democracy is purely artificial, and a result of local causes. Were the race question out of the way, they would divide, as do the people in other parts of the country, on national questions upon which, in spite of appearances to the contrary, they are not unanimous. It follows that a reorganization of the Democratic party under Southern auspices would result in an effort to elevate to a prominent position as a political issue a question which does not at present greatly interest Northern men, but which, if pressed, would surely excite sectional prejudices. It is therefore on all accounts the true policy of the South not to force that question upon the attention of the country. Upon what other issue, past or present, plainly visible or faintly discoverable, are Southern Democrats more united than are their Northern brethren, upon what issue can they summon the party to align its ranks for an attack upon the political enemy? It may or may not be that if all men who describe themselves as Democrats had voted for the candidates of the party at the last three elections they would have been successful on one or more of those occasions. For our present purposes it does not matter whether they would or would not. The point to be observed is that, as at present constituted, the Democratic party is not and cannot be a united, homogeneous body, and that it cannot become such a body until some new, spirit-arousing national issue effects a complete rearrangement of party lines, - until the radical element in the Republican party is permanently drawn into the Democratic organization, and until the truly conservative take refuge in their natural home, the Republican party. To make the statement in another and concrete form, it is absolutely impossible to draft a platform, frankly and explicitly setting forth a set of political principles, to which Mr. Cleveland, Mr. Bryan, Mr. Gorman, Mr. Morgan, Mr. Olney, Mr. Hearst, Mr. McKelway, and Mr. Cockran could give their cordial approval as an adequate expression of their views. It would be necessary either to limit the platform to vague truisms to which all men would subscribe, or to contrive the vague, two-sided declarations known as "straddles," on the tariff, on silver free coinage, on "imperialism," on trusts, on the Panama Canal, on the income tax, on "government by injuncin short, upon every real issue that has arisen between the two parties in the last dozen years. Indeed, if it was really true that the question of executive usurpation was "paramount" in the late election, if Mr. Roosevelt himself was the issue, as was proclaimed with not a little emphasis, the Democrats have shown that they were not united even upon that. tion, All this does not signify that the various and heterogeneous elements constituting the Democratic party may not now and then get together, and even succeed in electing their candidate for president. But even should they do so, they will surely be powerless to accomplish any positive, characteristic, partisan legislation. On the only occasion in recent years when they had full possession of the government they were so hopelessly divided that on one great measure, the tariff, they would have failed altogether had they not yielded to the conservative minority of their own members; on the other, the repeal of the silver purchase clauses, they succeeded only by the help of substantially all the Republican members. Moreover, whatever may have been said, on the one side or the other, during the progress of the campaign, no one seriously believes that if it had been possible to elect Judge Parker and a Democratic Congress there would have been any real change of national policy as to the Philippines or Panama, or in "curbing the trusts." For observe what reorganization of the party in a conservative sense signifies. The result would be complete agreement with the Republican party on some issues that have, quite recently, been "paramount; " difference on other issues that could not be perceived without careful weighing of the meaning of cunningly devised phrases; clear disagreement with the great body of the Democratic party itself on most of the questions of the day. The impossibility of harmonizing views so diverse as those held by members of the party was admirably illustrated by the speech-making campaign of Judge Parker toward the close of the canvass. He was originally nominated as 'safe and sane," in the hope of enlisting the support of the men who were driven off by the radicalism of Mr. Bryan, and particularly of those large interests which were supposed to have been more or less alienated from the Republican party by Mr. Roosevelt's attitude toward the large corporations and trusts. In his early speeches there was a distinct tone of conservatism, illustrated by his suggestion that the trusts might be dealt with under the common law. But his mildness was so distasteful to a great body of those to whom he looked for support that he deemed it expedient gradually to intensify his opposition to trusts in general, and to use toward them language which was as violent, if not as picturesque, as anything Mr. Bryan has said. That is not the only example that might be given of his eleventh-hour radicalism, which seems 66 neither to have terrified the conservatives, among whom he is properly to be classed, nor to have mollified the radicals. That is the situation as it appears to one who has already sufficiently indicated that he does not belong to either wing of the Democratic party, but who has endeavored to recount history and to interpret events fairly and candidly. It would be an impertinence for such a person to give advice to the party to which he has all his life been opposed. To predict what is likely to be the outcome of the situation is not the function of the historian or the observer, but of the prophet. Yet it is to be hoped that the writer will not be thought to be going too far in submitting some observations which must necessarily partake something of the nature of prophecy, something of the nature of advice. It remains true, and it will always be true, that it is desirable that the two great parties in the country shall be nearly equally matched, that there shall always be a strong opposition party. Long continuance of one party in power is followed by a train of evils, some of which are experienced when the ruling party is excessively strong even for a short time. The country may suffer from some of these evils as a result of present conditions, for the Republican party has held the power for many years, and is now in a position where it is almost unchecked by the minority. The question is how to rescue the country from possible disaster, by means of an opposition party grown so strong that it can effect a political revolution. It is quite futile to attempt to create, or to invent, a party. One cannot sketch, plan, and construct a body of that sort as one might plan and build a house. Parties create themselves. Nor is it possible to "organize" a minority so as to convert it into a majority. Efforts in that direction are usually the reliance of small political managers who cannot grasp the ideas that the purpose of political endeavor should extend beyond carrying the next election, and that the only victory worth achieving is that which is won by men who, having like aims and aspirations, constitute a majority of the electors. When great issues are at stake, those who think alike act together by an impulse that cannot be resisted, and organization is needed merely to indicate in what ways the common impulse may be made most effective. If, then, there are to be two strong parties in this country, each will be a party composed of men holding like principles and cherishing like political aspirations. That cannot be a strong party in which both Mr. Cleveland and Mr. Bryan are leaders of factions, nor can it be strong if either of them is titular leader and the other nominally a follower. It is merely the expression of an opinion which can be neither verified nor refuted, that at present Mr. Bryan reflects the political sentiments of by far the more numerous wing of the party. Assuming that to be the fact, the logical consequence of the existing situation is that those who form that wing should and will take permanent control of the organization. Inasmuch as they would be hampered in the future as they have been in the past by men who call themselves Democrats but who have no sympathy with their forward policy, they should enter upon their new course with such clear and unmistakable statements of their purposes as to compel the withdrawal from the party of those who are with it but not of it. The Democratic party so constituted might not carry the next election, nor the one after it, but a demonstration of earnestness and sincerity would redeem it from its present self-neutralization, and would offer to the voters of the country a choice between two clearly defined and mutually opposed tendencies in government. Such a party would also surely attract a great many of those who are now Republicans by habit or by inheritance whose instincts are radical rather than conservative. Such a change would have far-reaching consequences. It would render politically homeless that body of sincerely conservative and most highly respected men who by the process would be reduced to impotence in the party; for they could not remain in it with self-respect, and they would not become Republicans. Their situation would be akin to that of the supporters of Bell and Everett in the canvass of 1860. Ultimately they might distribute themselves between the parties, but the most of them would probably be, and to the end remain, independents and mugwumps. It remains only to suggest that when a strong, united party enters upon a new and vigorous campaign, the indifference of the South to all other national issues, so long as it is left free to deal with the negro, will probably disappear forever. HANS BREITMANN AS ROMANY RYE1 BY ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL To the many who do not know, it is not easy to explain the charm of the Gypsy. But what it means to the few who feel it, Borrow, long ago, left no chance of doubt. I have come under the spell. There was a time when I found my hand's breadth of romance "mid the blank miles round about" on the road and in the tents. But when I look back, the centre of the group round the fire or under the trees was not the Gypsy, but a tall, fair man, with flowing beard, more like a Viking,my Uncle, Charles Godfrey Leland, without whom I might never have found my way to those camps by the wayside. shan" of greeting. Of his love for the Gypsies I can, therefore, speak from my vivid memory of the old days. And as, since his death, all his Gypsy papers and collections have been placed in my hands, by his wish, I now know no less well perhaps better than anybody — just how hard he worked over their history and their language. For if "gypsying" was, as he said, the best sport he knew, it was also his most serious pursuit. There are notebooks, elaborate vocabularies, stories, proverbs, songs, diaries, lists of names, memoranda of all sorts; there are great bundles of letters: from Gypsies, from other "Romany Ryes," - Borrow, Groome, the Archduke Josef, Mr. MacRitchie, Professor Palmer, Mr. John Sampson, Mr. Hubert Smith, Dr. Bath Smart, Mr. Crofton. Nothing, I do believe, has ever united men as closely as love of the Gypsy, when it has not estranged them completely, — and it happened that never was there a group of scholars so ready to be drawn together by this bond, Borrow their inspiration, as they would have been the first to admit. If the "Romany Rye" is, as Groome defined him, one, not a Gypsy, who loves the race and has mastered the tongue, Borrow did not invent him. Already stu1 Copyright, 1905, by ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL. He first took me to see the Gypsies after his return to Philadelphia, in the spring of 1880. He had already written his first books about them, was already honored as a Romany scholar throughout the learned world, and welcomed as a friend in every green lane where Gypsies wander. I like best to remember him as he was on these tramps, gay and at ease in his velveteen coat and soft wide-brimmed hat, alert for discovery of the Romany in the Philadelphia fields, and like a child. in his enjoyment of it all, from the first glimpse of the smoke curling through the trees and the first sound of the soft "sari dents had busied themselves with the language; already Gypsy scholars, like Glanvill's, or Matthew Arnold's? "had roam'd the world with that wild brotherhood." But they had been scattered through the many centuries since the first Gypsy had appeared in Europe. It was Borrow who, hearing the music of the wind on the heath, feeling the charm of the Gypsy's life, made others hear and feel with him, till, where there had been but one Romany Rye, there were now a score, learning more of Romany in a few years than earlier scholars had in hundreds, and, less fearful than Glanvill's youth, giving the world their knowledge of the language and the people who spoke it. A very craze for the Gypsy spread through the land. I know of nothing like it, save the ardor with which the Félibrige took root in Provence. Language in both cases with the Félibres their own, with the Romany Ryes that of the stranger led to sympathy and fellowship. There were the same meetings, the same friendships and rivalries, the same collaboration, the same exaltation even,only, the sober men of the North were less intoxicated with the noise of their own voices, less theatrical in proclaiming their brotherhood, less eager to make of a common study a new religion, and more self-conscious. They would have been ashamed to blow their trumpets in public, to advertise themselves with joyous self-abandonment. The Félibres were proud to be Provençal; the Romany Ryes loved to play at gypsying. And so, while the history of the Félibrige - probably with years of life before it has been written again and again, the movement Borrow started still waits its historian, though, if the child has been born who will see the last Gypsy, as has been said, the race of Gypsy scholars must now be dying out. It is a pity. The story of their studies and their friendships, as I read it in these yellowing letters and notebooks, is worth immortalizing. Of all the little group, not one got to know the Gypsies better, loved them more honestly, and wrote about them more learnedly and yet delightfully, than the Rye, the name by which they all called him, by which I knew him best. During his life he had a wider notoriety as "Hans Breitmann," but I think he will be remembered better as the Romany Rye, for into his Gypsy books he put more of himself as well as his most perfect work. If his study of the Romanies began only when he came to settle in England in 1870, it was simply because, until then, he had found no Romanies to study. Love of them must always have been in his blood. Nothing appealed to him more than the mysterious. The passion for the strange that set him reading Paracelsus at an age when most boys, if they read at all, are deep in penny dreadfuls; that gave him, as his last keen pleasure just before his death, the recovery of the Voodoo stone stolen from his hotel in Florence;-this passion, always so strong in him, predestined him to dealings of the "deepest" with the Gypsies, — everything connected with whom is a mystery, as Lavengro told the Armenian, the Gypsies came his way. The Rye - I cannot speak, as I cannot think, of him by any other name did not make Borrow's pretence to secret power; he did not pose as the Sapengro, their master. Nor was there anything of the vagabond about him. I cannot imagine him in the dingle with the Flaming Tinman and Isopel Berners. He would have been supremely uncomfortable wandering through Norway, or through life, with Esmeralda. He could not have passed himself off for a Gypsy with Wlislocki or Herrmann in the mountains of Transylvania, with Sampson on Welsh roads, with Borrow in Spain. It was not his way of caring for the Gypsies that was the only difference; he cared for them no less. For him the fascination was in the message their dark faces brought from the East, the “fatherland of divination and enchantment;" in the shreds and tatters of myths and magics that clung to them; in their black language—the kālo jib—with the some once |