"THE BAND" Her Social Success and Her Artistic Failure By CHARLES BELMONT DAVIS i THINK the reason that Philip Barstow and I get on so well together is because we both crossed the prestidigitator's bridge at about the same time. Every one has seen a prestidigitator's bridge-it is the plank covered with red baize that the magician uses to cross from the stage to the auditorium when he comes down into the audience to force cards on us or take rabbits from our inside pockets or coins from our ears. All of us bachelors who live long enough must cross the magician's bridge one day and take our places in the audience. The lucky man is the one who makes the transition willingly and in good season. That time usually comes about the moment when we begin to meet young women at dinners who look just like their mothers used to look twenty years before-twenty years ago when they married the other man; when we give up tennis for golf and insist that billiards is splendid exercise; when the bumps of our youth develop into rheumatic joints and the safety-valve of our internal machinery is forever sounding a warning to our appetites. It is not easy for some of us unmarried men to make the transition; there are those -a very few-who, after they have crossed the bridge, go back and take up the fight again-even marry. But these are not the true, bachelors, the bachelors who were born bachelors, who in their youth carry on most scandalously with every pretty girl in the village, but, way down in their hearts know that their finish is a trained nurse and a faithful body-servant. Barstow and I used to dine at the same club, but we gave that up some time ago. Now we have a little side table at Sherry's or Martin's or even Rector's, where the stage is amply filled and the actors are usually well-dressed and often beautiful, and we can watch their little affairs, and, unknown to them, have our innocent jokes at their expense. In the other days-the days at the club-we talked of ourselves, but that was before we learned that history was not fiction, but fact, and that if ever we did leave this world, the present social structure would go stretching on indefinitely and not come tumbling about the heads of those who were unfortunate enough to be left behind. There was one thing that worried us a good deal then, and even now, when there is plenty of time between the lighting of our cigars and the hour for starting for the play, we occasionally discuss it mildly. It is a trifling matter of who is going to save our country and effect a compromise with the Trust Senators just before they take our last dollar. Of course, we admit that something is going to save our countrythere seems to be a saving factor in our national makeup that always develops when it really becomes necessary. Barstow contends that when the time is ripe the old Puritan blood, the cold intelligence, and the hard common sense of New England will assert itself and straighten things out. But then Barstow was born and brought up somewhere near Boston, and not very far from Concord, and he is just about as narrow as one of his own stone fences. My argument is that the best life-the life that produced the greatest refinement and culture throughout the country, the life that put kindliness and hospitality and brotherly love above moneygrubbing-was the life that was pretty thoroughly choked out of the Southern States during the late unpleasantness. We Northerners certainly stamped it out as well as we knew how; but from what I have seen, there is a good deal of it left, and when they learn down there that the war is really over, I believe the old blood will quicken again, and if it circulates sufficiently far, and in enough different directions, it will do the country a whole lot of good. Of course, Barstow and I have no sectional feeling, and we would like to see every monument that has been raised by either side thrown into the deep sea. ultimate effect of the blood we worry about. It is only the Very early in July Barstow and I separate; he goes to Magnolia, where he meets nothing but Bostonians, and I go to Virginia, which Northerners avoid because they have a wrong idea that it is hot. When we return in September we swap experiences that are supposed to bolster up our old arguments, and although we have done this for ten years, it has not made any difference in our views. But when I get back I am going to tell Barstow my experiences with "The Band" at the Madison Sulphur Springs, which, in way of apology for all that I have said before this, was only made Her contract demanded that she play the piano every morning The Madison Sulphur Springs is not one of those numerous summer resorts in the South which have been rebuilt or restored. It is, in all ways, I imagine, very much as it was long before the war. There is the main building-big and spreading in all its proportions, with a broad porch and high fluted pillars. At one end there is the dining-room, square and severe, with whitewashed walls. Napkin-rings are still in favor and the colored servants, by waving long paper fans over your head, more or less successfully shoo away the flies while you eat. The door at the other end of the piazza leads into the ballroom, which is a little smaller than the diningroom, but equally severe in its lack of decoration. The hotel is surrounded by a wonderful lawn studded by splendid oak trees, and at the left of the lawn there is a semicircle of little whitewashed cottages devoted to the bachelor guests. There are no modern improvements of any kind, but the rooms are immaculately clean and fresh, and the colored servants are the kind who courtesy to you if they are women and if they are men throw their hats on the ground before they address you. There are no tennis courts, and it is too mountainous for a golf course; the sports, such as they are, consist of a croquet ground and a shuffleboard. The social relaxation is supposed to consist in polite conversation on the piazzas, an occasional game of whist in the hotel parlor, and dancing at night in the ballroom. No simpler life can be found anywhere, and a man who hires a runabout for an afternoon drive over the mountain roads is considered a good deal of a spendthrift. And yet there is something in the wooded hills, the clear blue skies, and the homely life that calls the same people back year after year to this little hotel hidden away in the Virginia mountains. Some of the cabins which once held the overflow of the hotel have been turned into servants' quarters, while others have crumbled into utter disuse; and this would seem to bear out the testimony of the oldest guests that The Springs was once the scene of a greater social activity. But be that as it may, the younger generation of Southern girls still comes there dressed in a simple finery, which, I fear, is often paid for after much saving through the winter months. But the Southern daughter of the old school must still have her month at The Springs, and there the young men still go to pay court to their future brides. With the exception of two summers, the music at The Springs, during my day at least, had always been furnished by a violin and a piano. However, during one season of great financial prosperity, a cornet was added, and once the orchestra consisted of four young boys, but as they were just learning to play, the music that year was perhaps a little worse than usual. But whatever, the number of the instrumentalists, and however great or small their ability, we always called them "The Band," and so during the past summer, when all the music was supplied by one young woman, we still gave her the same title as her predecessors. The real name of "The Band" was Miss Helen Glenham, which fact I gathered after considerable questioning from the guests who had preceded me at The Springs. Her contract demanded that she play the piano every morning in the main parlor from ten until eleven, and again in the ballroom at night from eight until eleven. I hope it was not on account of the quality of the music, but it is, nevertheless, a fact that this seemed to be an off season for dancing at The Springs. Occasionally the young people wandered into the ballroom, and on Saturday nights we organized several rather informal cotillions; but for the most part "The Band" played to an empty room. I must say, however, that she was most conscientious in performing her duty, and during the appointed hours remained faithfully at her post. Whether the ballroom was crowded or empty, one could always hear through the open windows "The Band," with a most fearful regularity, first banging out a waltz and then a two-step, then a waltz and next a two-step. The first time I saw her, she was resting between numbers, her hands lying idly on the keys. The piano was placed in the corner with the keyboard side next the wall, so that "The Band" sat facing the room, and I could see that she was looking out of a window into the night, and that her thoughts were very far away from the Madison Springs. And then, I suppose, she heard us talking in the doorway, for, without looking up, she mechanically took up a sheet of music which lay at her side, and, putting it on the rack, started to play again. She was a rather delicate-looking girl, fairly tall, with big brown eyes and heavy lashes and narrow arched brows, a fine sensitive mouth, and a nose a little turned up. This, with a rather high color, gave her almost a suggestion, I should say, of diablerie. Had there been a little more of animation and less of a certain tired look in her eyes, she would certainly, so far as beauty went, have outdistanced any of the alleged belles of The Springs. Her hair was piled high on her head-an arrangement as unbecoming as it well could be-and she wore a simple taffeta dress, which, while well enough made, was modest, indeed, as compared to the clothes of the young women for whom she played. Later in the evening I was introduced to her, and her manner was, to say the least, but coldly polite. Indeed, I think she rather resented the fact that I had made a point of meeting her. To my somewhat forced and formal remarks she slowly nodded her well-poised head, or spoke in monosyllables, for which I was sorry, because her low, even, Southern voice had a great charm for me. On several other occasions I made an effort to talk to her while she was resting between a waltz and a two-step, but my success was not more.conspicuous than at the time of our first meeting, and for my pains I was well laughed at by my fellow guests. They, too, it seems, had tried to be a little sociable with "The Band," but failed as ignominiously as myself. To some of the women who had asked her to take walks or to drive with them she had been, perhaps, a little more gracious than she had been to the men who met her, but, so far as I knew, she had accepted no invitations of any kind. "What she does with herself all day I don't know," said Mrs. Simmons one evening as we stood at the ballroom door. Mrs. Simmons was a whole-souled, stoutish lady, who wanted to mother the entire Springs and was usually granted the privilege. "One never sees her about anywhere. Surely she must go out of her room sometimes except to go to the ballroom, but I certainly can't catch her, and it isn't because I haven't tried." "It's her way of playing the part," I suggested. "Well, I don't like her way," Mrs. Simmons snapped at me. "She's a lady born and bred-at least she looks it-and. besides, I've heard she was. But just because you're a lady is no excuse for being a mystery, and piling up your hair on your head just to make yourself look like a sight, is it? I'd like to take her in hand. I'd drive one or two of these young things in their alllace dresses back to their Mobile homes. Only last night I asked her to drive over 'to Bowl Rock for tea this afternoon, and she hesitated for at least a minute, as if she were running over her engagements, and then she smiled sweeter than anything I ever saw in my life, and said: 'You're so good to ask me, Mrs. Simmons, but to-morrow it's just impossible.' I could have slapped her, and all the time she kept on smiling and picking out a waltz. You know that droop she has to her mouth when she smiles? I never felt so fat and uncomfortable in my life. I don't say she wasn't nice and pleasant, because she was, but when she started to bang out that waltz, while I was still standing there, I was greatly tempted to tell her that there was no better blood in Virginia than the Simmonses. But I didn't, because I knew she wouldn't care, so I waddled out, and I could feel her eyes going right through my back. I certainly will never ask her to another party of mine. Just look at her now. Why, with that dollar-twenty shirtwaist and that duck skirt, she makes those girls of plumage dancing round there look like scullery maids. I'm crazy about her." I had been at The Springs perhaps about a fortnight, and had quite given up all hope of knowing "The Band" at all, when quite by accident we became slightly acquainted. It was warm, and I was walking slowly, hat in hand, along a rather unused mountainous road, when I saw a white skirt in the shade of a large boulder some little distance from the roadway. I knew that the white skirt must belong to one of the guests from the hotel, and I knew that I must know the wearer, because I knew all of the hotel guests. So I climbed the snake fence, which separated me from the boulder and approached cautiously. "Good afternoon,' I said from the far side of the rock, and before I had discovered the identity of the lady in the white skirt. "Good afternoon," said somebody, whom I knew by the voice to be no other than "The Band." A little discouraged, I walked about. the rock and found her sitting with her back against the boulder. In her lap there lay a novel, and her sailor hat had been thrown aside. At at the top of the house seems after those three hours. "Why? Why, because I'm 'The Band.'"' "This is a perfectly respectable band," she said smiling. "I'm just as respectable as the clerk of the hotel, and that other very fresh young man who sits at my table and who runs the livery. We are all honest workers and are much more respectable than the young men who don't have to sit at our table, but who are supposed to dance instead of paying board. As a mat summer rolled on and I sat on the porch with the old ladies and listened to "The Band" banging out the twosteps and the waltzes with the same fearful regularity. It had always been the custom at The Springs to discontinue the music after the 1st of September, and a few of us men had each year arranged some little benefit for the musicians just before their departure. It was usually a concert, or amateur theatricals, but the style of entertainment really mattered very little so long as there was an admission fee charged. It was just a week now to the 1st of September, and the question naturally arose as to what we could do in the way of a benefit for Miss Glenham. "You can't do anything," said Mrs. Simmons decidedly. "The girl may be as poor as a church-mouseand I am quite willing to believe that she is the sole support of her motherbut I'm sorry for the committee which has to offer her the proceeds." And there the matter rested for that night. The next morning we sat about the porch and talked it over and over again, until I hit on an idea which met with everybody's approval. It seemed to me that, as long as the girl had been playing for other people to dance all summer, it would be a good thing to have one night when she could dance and the rest could play. We chose the evening just before she was to leave, and started in at once to make the plans. Old Howard Kinney, who had led all the famous cotillions at The Springs for the last twenty years, was, of course, to lead with Miss Glenham; Mrs. Simmons was to arrange the supper, and I was to get the favors. There was a big committee chosen to get the flowers and do the decorations, and I have never known an event at The Springs which the crowd took up with such real enthusiasm. That night Mrs. Simmons and several other ladies went into the ballroom after the last dance was over and officially asked "The Band" to come to her own dance. Mrs. Simmons told me later that the girl didn't seem to quite know just what they meant at first, but when she did understand she looked from one woman to the other and then threw her arms out in front of her on the piano and buried her face in them; so they never did hear her answer. As Mrs. Simmons said, they should have known better than to talk to the girl when she was tired out after playing all the evening. But she came down, all smiles, the next morning for breakfast; so the plans for the dance went right along. I found her standing waiting for me on the bank just beyond the station the sight of me she smiled, not brightly perhaps, but with the same lovely droop to one side of the mouth that Mrs. Simmons had spoken about. "Oh, it's you, is it?" she said. Of course, there are several ways of saying: "Oh, it's you, is it?" but the way "The Band" said it, it sounded to me as though, while she was not thrilled with the sight of me, she was glad it was not one of several others. Somewhat emboldened, I asked her permission if I might sit down. With a nod of her pretty head she granted the request. We both sat tailorfashion-she against the rock and I facing her. "Wouldn't you like to smoke?" she asked. As a matter of fact, I had just finished a rather heavy cigar, and did not feel particularly like smoking again, but her remark was so unusually human and unexpected that I promptly pulled out my cigar case. "I really feel," I said, "as if I had you at a terrible disadvantage-as if you were quite in my power." The girl looked up and down the deserted road and beyond to the unending ridges of hills. The mouth drooped into the wavering little smile again. "Yes?" she said. "You see you have no piano to protect you now, no high pile of waltzes and two-steps to look over, no keys to run little scales on while I am trying to tell you how well you played the last dance. For the first time since I had known her, the girl laughed. "No one was ever brave enough to tell me that," she said. "Why, my playing has killed dancing at The Springs." "The piano is not the best in the world," I suggested. "No, I suppose not, but it is so much better than the one I was taught on. "Who taught you?" I asked. "My mother-that is, she taught me all she knew." "How long have you played-professionally I mean?" The word brought a smile to the girl's lips. "Professionally," she repeated, "I have been playing three years. But it seems- -" then she stopped. "Oh, I don't know how it seems. Why should I talk to you like this?" "Because I'm old," I replied promptly, "and probably because we get on so famously. You were going to say those three years seem an eternity. "Those three hours I play in the ballroom seem an eternity, if you insist on knowing just how I feel. You can't imagine how sweet and pretty my little bedroom ter of fact, I suppose they would earn their bed and board a little more honestly if they could persuade any of the women to dance to my music." She opened the book which she had been reading when I interrupted her, and carefully turned back both covers until they touched her knees. Then she smiled at me and really looked very beautiful. "I want to tell you," she said, "that I only play for about four months each year. The rest of the time I live in Hodgenville alone with my mother. We are all that is left of the Glenhams, and indeed there isn't much more left of Hodgenville. Hodgenville is a very small place in Virginia, where two trains stop going north every day and two trains stop every day going south. Fortunately for Hodgenville, there is a tank there where the engines take on water. Nothing ever gets off at Hodgenville. Was there anything else you thought of asking me?" She was still smiling cheerfully. "I thought of asking you to walk back to the hotel," I suggested that is, after a while." "You are a brave man," she said, "to offer to walk down that hill and up the road to the hotel with 'The Band.' You are a brave man even to make the offer, and I admire you for it." I put on my hat and slowly arose. "Good-by," I said, "you're quite impossible.' "No, you're wrong again"-she put out two long tapering fingers, which for a moment rested in my hardened hand: "I'm not impossible-it's 'The Band' that's impossible." I shook my head by way of protest, but she did not see me because she was already deeply engrossed in her book. So once more I turned reluctantly, and with creaking joints climbed the snake fence. I sat on the top rail for a moment to rest, and then I turned to look back at her. She must have foreseen my action, for at the same moment she too glanced up and waved a delicate hand to me. But neither in the manner of the salutation nor in the smile that played about her lips was there an invitation to return to her, and so I climbed to the ground and went on alone to the hotel. We never met again during the remainder of the summer; that is, away from the hotel. I am sure she took good care thereafter to hide behind rocks where she would be wholly concealed from passers-by. Several times I spoke to her during the evening when she was at the piano in the ballroom, but she seemed to have forgotten our little talk entirely and was, I think, if anything, more unsociable than before. And so the It was the first intention to have several of the ladies do the playing, but it was decided afterward to hire the band of four pieces from the Alum Springs from over the mountain. Some of the people from the Alum Springs heard what the ball was all about and followed their band over and gave the dance quite a foreign flavor. The oldest guest admits that there never was a dance just like that one-and there have been some pretty famous dances at The Springs, too. It seemed as if every inch of the old whitewashed walls had been covered with flowers or green boughs. There were great masses of asters and phlox and dahlias hung about everywhere, and over the old fireplace they had made a sort of canopy of cedar boughs and fairly smothered it with golden rod. "The Band" stood under the canopy with several of the older ladies, and we all filed solemnly in and were received with great formality, just as if we hadn't separated on the porch five minutes before. She looked a little pale at first, but in a few minutes the high color came back into her cheeks, and the tired look went out of her eyes, and all that evening they fairly shone on all of us. She had arranged her hair differently, too; now she wore it in soft rolls and coils instead of piling it high on her head, and she wore a décolleté dress that showed the delicate throat and well-rounded arms, and how wonderfully her head was set on her shoulders. It was a nice simple white dress she wore, with just a dash of black ribbon about it. I don't know much about women's clothes, but I thought she was quite as well dressed as any one in the room, but at the same time it seemed to me that I had never seen the other women dress so simply before. The music from the rival Springs sounded really pretty well, and the favors which I had had sent on from New York were a great success. There were big hats, which had been trimmed with enormous bows of ribbon and shepherdess's crooks and wands for the girls, and for the men there were little bundles of cigars and imitation decorations, and for the final figure we had favors made of real silver. Of course, Miss Glenham danced all the time, and her favors were piled many feet high against the wall back of her chair. I never saw any one have a better time, apparently, and after the way she had treated us all during the summer, it was wonderful to see how gracious she could be, and what a wonderful charm and splendid poise she had for a young girl. At last the band played "Dixie" and "Home, Sweet Home," and we all marched out to the porch, where we had a most elaborate hot supper, including a fine claret cup, which Mrs. Simmons had brewed herself. I have never known a party to go off with more go and zing to it, and it was two o'clock in the morning before we said good-night. "The Band" shook hands with all of us, men and women, and even now I can see the tall, lithe figure of the girl as she walked up the staircase of the hotel, her head slightly bent above the beautifully rounded throat, a big bunch of red roses held in the white arms, and half a dozen men following carrying her favors with them. She left us the next morning, and I supposed it was to be the last time that I would, in all probability, ever see her, because I knew, as "The Band," she had not been much of a success. But just before she left she came to me and said that she had a great favor to ask of me. "When you go North," she said, "you will have to pass through Hodgenville about five o'clock in the morning. I should like to ask you to stop with us, but for certain reasons I fear that that is impossible. But the train stops there for about ten minutes to take on water. If you could let me know the day you are coming, and think that you could possibly get up that early, I could meet you at the station. It would only be for ten minutes, but there is something that I should like to say to you, and I could say it so much better there.' When at last the time came for me to start back to New York, I wrote Miss Glenham and told her the morning that I should pass through her town. As we did not leave The Springs until about eleven o'clock at night, I lay down on my berth with my clothes on, and told the porter to be sure to wake me at least half an hour before we reached Hodgenville. The train finally came to a stop, and I think it must have been the last of a long series of jolts that wakened me from a heavy sleep. I turned in my cramped berth, and with drowsy eyes looked out to learn if I could see how far we had gone on our journey. But one window was raised, and that only so high as to admit of the narrow wire screen which one finds in all modern sleeping cars. The window shade was drawn down to the top of the screen, and so my vision was limited to a frame, perhaps six inches high and two feet in length. There was a little station made of clapboards, which at one time must have been painted red. Over the door there was a kerosene lamp held in a rusty bracket, but the lamp was not lit, and, indeed, so far as I could see, there were no signs whatever of life about the place. And then I was suddenly shaken roughly by the She wore a shirt-waist and a short duck skirt, and her eyes were as bright and her skin as clear and cool as the fresh morning breeze that blew little wisps of hair across her forehead and about her ears. "And so this is Hodgenville?" I asked. She nodded in the direction of the five houses. "Yes," she said, "that is Hodgenville. The big house that used to be white is our home.' "And there is nothing beyond?" "Nothing," she said, "but a few big farms. I wanted you to see Hodgenville, so that you could understand just what you did for me-just how much that dance meant to me and always will mean to me.' " "But I didn't give the dance," I protested. But Miss Glenham insisted that I suggested it and did most to make it a success, and, looking as she did that morning, it was very difficult to deny her anything. "I only wish I could take you to the house and show you how we have decorated the hallway and the parlors with all the favors, and my dressing-table fairly It made groans now with all the silver ihings I got. my mother so happy, and I was so glad to tell her it was a Yankee who did it all for me. " I suppose I must have looked a little surprised when she used the word Yankee, because she at once tried to explain, and I think she found it very difficult. 'You see mother lives so far from the world and has been out of things for such a long time, and then you know it is not easy for very old people to forget. This bank we are standing on used to be the first terrace on our place. I instinctively glanced up at the wreck of the old house. The girl nodded. "They used to call it Glenham Hall. It was quite a showplace then-the lawn ran way down there to where you see the creek. It was a kind of park, and here where we are standing mother says there used to be peacocks strutting about and young deer. I think it must have been lovely then, don't you?" And then for a few moments there was silence. The sun was peeping over the pine trees now and the sky and air were fairly aglow with a warm yellow light. There were insects buzzing all about us, and many little birds were chirping a welcome to the warm sunshine. It was she who was the first to speak. Do you-do you have holly in New York?" she asked "I mean at Christmas?'" "Oh, yes," I said. "It comes in wreathes with a large red bow on each wreath. Ours isn't nearly so grand as that, but mother and I thought we would send you some about Christmas time-that is, if you would care for it. The woods about here are full of it, and there is so little-" She did not finish the sentence, for just then the whistle of our engine sounded and the porter came hurrying around the station to warn me that the train was about to start. From the car platform I saw her standing_there on the bank waving her handkerchief to me. Back of her were the ruins of the old weatherbeaten house, and at her feet were the chickens scratching at the ground where the peacocks used to strut. But as she stood there that morning, clothed in the golden sunlight of a new day, a smile on her lips, and her head held high, I am sure she looked just as fine, just as splendid, as the daughter of her own people, standing on her own terrace, should have looked. KENTUCKY PLANS A GREAT HIGHWAY FROM LOUISVILLE TO LINCOLN'S BIRTHPLACE every part of the country the Lincoln Farm Association has grown so rapidly in the last twelve months that the people of Kentucky, most properly, have felt it their duty to make some independent contribution to the success of the work of this patriotic society, which is building upon the birthplace of Kentucky's greatest son, Abraham Lincoln, the nation's greatest memorial. To this end there has been inaugurated a movement to build what the local newspapers call a "boulevard" from Louisville to the Lincoln birthplace farm. The contest for securing this broad, well-paved highway has thrown the counties between the two terminals into a war of roses. As the people of Jefferson County, of which the city of Louisville is the county seat, are to bear the largest burden of expense, by common consent the which this proposed "boulevard" shall take was given to the Fiscal Court of Jefferson County to determine. course Though the advocates of the three principal routes were given a hearing on the 19th of March, no decision has yet been reached, and it is apparent now that the decision is not to be expected for some weeks to come. The Three Routes ON the day of the hearing over one hundred delegates from the Counties of Bullitt, Spencer, Nelson, Hardin, and Larue were present to plead for their local interests, and the court-room was overtaxed with an interested populace. The three routes receiving serious consideration, and which were the subjects of serious debate, are popularly known as the "West Point Road," the "Bardstown Turnpike," and the "Shepherdsville Air Line.” Whichever line may be chosen, a picturesque country, full of historical interest, is sure to be opened up. honk of the motorist's horn will sound among the rolling hills that a century ago echoed the crack of the skin-cloaked trapper's rifle, and the picturesque post coach will traverse the fertile valleys plowed by the heroic pioneers who made the land "a Mecca for the patriot." The The West Point Road is already a well-made highway and through Jefferson County overlooks the broad sweep of the Ohio River, giving dis tant glimpses of the knobs and hills on the Indiana shore. It passes the "Dripping Springs," which possess a local fame. On this road also stands the old Blair Fort, with its grim reminder of early warlike times. About twelve miles from the Lincoln farm, this road, which is part of the old Louisville and Nashville Pike, of which Lin coln's father was a County Supervisor, passes through In point of actual prodigality of historical interest Lincoln's brother-in-law. Here, too, is the Nazareth Academy, where for many generations the gentlewomen of Kentucky went to school in days when journeys to the Eastern academies were out of the question. Here is the old Church of St. Joseph, with paintings and Communion service presented by Louis Philippe of France, when he was an exiled king, teaching school in Kentucky. The Bardstown road teems with picturesque points for the tourist's pleasure, and also has the strategic advantage of being the entrance of motorists from Louisville to the Bluegrass region, where the network of famous roads always proves a magnet. Both of these proposed roads are about sixty-three miles in length, while the middle path-the "air line" via Shepherdsville-is but forty-five miles long. Directness is always an advantage. Along the Shepherdsville road are several places that have been prominent summer resorts in other days. The building of this road would mean their revival and reequipment. At Salt River is the old town of Shepherdsville, with some four hundred inhabitants. This town has the distinction of being the second oldest town in the State. "Sheep-town was a town when Louisville was a pup," its inhabitants will tell you, and though a new court-house and miniature comicopera jail have recently been added to its municipal improvements, one may still see the quaint stone houses and rambling streets that bespeak the spirit of pioneer times. The town is picturesque and full of traditional interest. Pike, Not Boulevard LOUISVILLE and the Lincoln Farm Association are vitally interested only in having a complete, smooth highway. The Lincoln farm, however estimated, is a matter of national sentiment. Because the road is inspired by the development of this national shrine, and is to be a part of the general scheme, it also should hold to the sentiments it can properly claim. The word "boulevard" is a pretentious importation. Daniel Boone and his commonwealth builders never knew the term. Kentucky is rich in traditions, and her people should proudly conserve them. The men who made her fame were pike builders. The pikes were the arteries through the wilderness that made the commonwealth possible. The interest in the Lincoln birthplace farm lies almost a century back. Kentucky should hold this new and magnificent road to the traditions of that time, and upon whatever route it may be built its fame as a highway should rest upon THE LINCOLN PIKE. TH HE question whether a period of hard times is approaching is one upon which the experts are unable to agree. Mr. Jacob H. Schiff has predicted an era of great suffering among the poor. Mr. August Belmont told the assembled capitalists and workmen at Mr. Carnegie's industrial peace conference that we were about to have a halt in industry, which might not be altogether undesirable. Mr. James J. Hill, who has often seemed pessinristic in his views, denies that he has predicted a collapse of industry, but thinks that there will be a not unhealthy slackening. The view that trade has been going ahead too fast, and that it will have to slow down to give capital a chance to catch up, is pretty generally expressed. On the other hand, Chairman Gary, of the United States Steel Corporation, can see nothing but bright skies ahead, and a number of foreign observers take the same view. Upon the theory of periodical crises it is not yet time for a great industrial depression. We had such disasters beginning in 1819, in 1837, in 1857, in 1873, and in 1893. The normal interval between them is twenty years. The shortest hitherto has been sixteen years, between 1857 and 1873, and the effects of the Civil War furnished ample exAccordplanation of the curtailment in that case. ing to experience we should not expect another severe crisis until some time between 1909 and There has usually been a mild reaction from 1913. the prevailing prosperity about half-way between two great panics. We had one in 1884, a little over half-way from 1873 to 1893. The corresponding break in the present period of good times came in 1903, just ten years after the panic of 1893. According to precedent that ought to last us for nine or ten years longer. Those who say it will not lay the blame for the abnormal conditions they think they see upon the Roosevelt agitation or the Harriman revelations, or some other trouble of our times which previous periods of disturbance did not have. But previous periods had troubles of their own. For fifteen years before the panic of 1893 there was an era of silver inflation, which seemed worse to the financiers of that day than any of our difficulties with corporations would have appeared. In the United States prosperity is largely dependent upon the state of the crops. The Baring panic of 1890 would have brought on our panic of 1893 two years ahead of time if the disaster had not been stayed by the bonanza harvests of 1891. The present crop prospects, therefore, are of vast importance in estimating the prospects for 1907. From this point of view the outlook is encouraging. Kansas has been alarmed by "green bugs," but F. D. Coburn, Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture, asserted on April 8 that up to that time the ravages of the bugs had been "going on only in the minds of the fake-finders. He said that the six and a half million acres of winter wheat in Kansas, with an average condition of nearly one hundred per cent, constituted the most magnificent winter wheat field the world had ever seen in a like area. In Iowa the acreage of winter wheat is ten per cent greater than last year, and the harvest promises to be the greatest in the The Missouri crop of history of the Middle West. In the same cereal averages ninety-four per cent. Nebraska the condition of the crop in the early part of April was one hundred per cent, but there were fears of damage from dry weather and green bugs. In Minnesota and South Dakota the farmers are gradually shifting from spring to winter wheat, If the extraordinary succession of good crops THE CUBAN PROSPECTS HE visit of Secretary Taft to Cuba, on his way home from the Isthmus, was anxiously awaited by the conflicting elements of the Cuban population, the business men who wanted an assurance that American rule would continue, and the politicians who were anxious to get their hands at once upon the government. Mr. Taft held a series of conferences on April 8 with representatives of all shades of politics, as well as with business men and bankers. After hearing the various opinions he announced that a census would be taken as a basis for registration, the necessity for this being unanimously admitted, and that municipal and possibly provincial elections would be held as soon as possible thereafter. As the census can not be taken in less than four months, and the municipal elections can not be held in less than a month thereafter, the first ballots will not be cast before the middle of September. "The Presidential election," the Secretary added, "will follow at some indefinite future time, probcondiably five or six months, depending on tions." What these conditions are is not stated, but naturally a good part of them would be made up of the impression created by the Cuban politicians in their conduct of the local elections. It is gathered from Mr. Taft's statement that there is no chance of the withdrawal of the American officials from the island before June, 1908. The representatives of all the leading Cuban banks asked Mr. Taft to give them notice a year or two Unless in advance of holding national elections. this were done, they assured him, the commercial interests of the island would suffer disaster. THE ROOSEVELT TORNADO TH HE disclosures in the Harriman-Webster letter and the subsequently published correspondence led to startling results. On April 3 the President told the newspaper correspondents and other visitors at the White House that he had discovered a rich man's conspiracy" against him Five million dollars had been and his policies. raised to carry out this plot. The scheme was to secure the election of delegates to the Republican National Convention purporting to be Roosevelt men and pledged to vote for the President's renomination. Then when Mr. Roosevelt carried out his announced intention of refusing to run, these delegates would join in nominating a reactionary. The scheme, it was said, had been babbled by a drunken Senator at a dinner in the presence of a friend of the President's. The next day, when this Senator had partially, but evidently not entirely, recovered, he asked what he had said, and upon being told repeated his assertions, invited the President's friend to join in the conspiracy, and offered him a check for $25,000 for immediate use in promoting the intrigue. The bibulous Senator was afterward identified as Mr. Penrose of Pennsylvania. It was alleged by commentators upon the Presidential revelation that the conspirators had selected Senator Knox of Pennsylvania as their real candidate, although they were willing to encourage Foraker and anybody else that might help to sap the Roosevelt strength. In sophisticated political circles the story of the There plot was not at first taken very seriously. were frivolous remarks about "brain storms," and some capitalistic headliners said that the President But it soon became evident was "seeing things." that Mr. Roosevelt had lost none of his astonishing power over public opinion, and that if he said there was a plot that settled it, as far as the masses of concerned. the people were Senator Penrose hastened to explain that he was not guilty, that he had an alibi with regard to the conspiracy dinner, and that he was a loyal follower of the President and his policies. The lower house of his Legislature at Harrisburg seconded his assertions by unanimously passing a resolution extending to "Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States, its hearty approval and commendation of his efforts to prevent the great railroads and other corporations of the country from using their wealth and power to oppress and injure the citizens in their rights and property, and to enforce justice and a 'square deal' for all," and denouncing "any combinations of corporate wealth with politicians of any party or parties intended to reverse and defeat the policies of justice which the President has so wisely and fearlessly inaugurated." . A procession of statesmen filed through the White House to secure certificates of character indispensable to the continued happiness of home. Senator Scott of West Virginia, who had been accused of being one of the participants in the treason dinner, hurried to Washington to protect his reputation. After doing homage at the White House, he begged the correspondents to make it clear through all the newspapers that the President and he were the best of friends. The dinner story, he said, had been printed in. every paper in West Virginia, and had been "raising Cain in my State ever since." "Cain," however, was not the word he used. Canvasses of popular sentiment by opponents of the President have compelled them to admit that |