across the back, and fell dead on the main plaza, shot five times by a fusillade from our soldiers which also killed a trumpeter who was getting ready for guard. All during the spring the garrison has practically been in a state of siege. You will see by this, the way peace has been kept, and at what sacrifice."

Major-General James F. Wade, commanding the Division of the Philippines, who was sent to Jolo to investigate the trouble there, reported to the Government in December that General Wood's attack on the Moros was necessary under the unsettled conditions prevailing there.

CHAPTER V

SHOCKS TO NATIONAL PRIDE

Ex-President Cleveland in a public address at Philadelphia charged the American people with the vice of a national vanity. He deplored the general conviction that no matter what may go wrong with us for a time, things in the end will be sure to come out right, and that meanwhile it is not worth while to make any great ado about evils that are not likely to prove fatal. Such being the case, our national pride certainly received a good many shocks during the year 1903, and a comparative study of the European nations fails to show as wholesale corruption or a similar state of lawlessness in any other country except Servia, Russia, or Turkey. The postal scandal, corruption of the Missouri legislature, the Indian land lease frauds, graft in many of our leading cities, lynchings not only in the Southern States, but in Delaware and Indiana; and insurrection in the Colorado mines, are examples hardly paralleled by the German army scandals, French political corruption, the Hungarian bribery scandal, or the violent labor disturbances all over the continent.

United States Postal Frauds

The Post Office Department for the last half century had doubtless been subject to abuses, but a new crop of them seemed to spring up in the period of expansion following the war with Spain, and charges were made of so serious a nature that an investigation was inevitable. It was said that promotions had been sold, that there was extravagance and graft in the matter of salaries and allowances, that contractors had been favored, that men in office had used their influence to force supplies upon postmasters, and that the rural delivery officers and carriers had used their influence to help favored concerns to dispose of their wares. The reported discovery of frauds and of sales of promotion in the New York office only intensified this

feeling. Postmaster-General Payne, who had the reputation of being a spoilsman, showed considerable zeal and ability in unearthing frauds and in reforming his department. While he seemed to begin the investigation in a half-hearted manner, he warmed up to it in a way that convinced his critics that he was in earnest.

He was ably assisted by Robert J. Wynne, who had been appointed First Assistant Postmaster-General by President Roosevelt. Soon after taking office, Mr. Wynne found it impossible to secure the information he desired from subordinates. Convinced that dishonest practices were going on, he is said to have carried the case straight to the President, who promised support. The brunt of the work of investigation fell upon Fourth-Assistant Postmaster-General Bristow, whose methods were searching and thorough.

Wholesale Indictment of Corrupt Officials.

The last phase of the investigation was reached October 5, when the grand jury at Washington handed in the final indictments against the men charged with defrauding the Government by getting graft out of the postal service. The dragnet set by the President caught some big fish; two assistant attorneys-general, a superintendent of the money order division, a superintendent of the free delivery bureau, a superintendent of the division of salaries and allowances, a former congressman, a state senator, a mayor of an important city, several members of business concerns, and a number of smaller fry, amounting in all to twenty-seven persons indicted for conspiring to rob the Government.

George W. Beavers, former Superintendent of the Division of Salaries and Allowances, was indicted twice by the Brooklyn grand jury, and four times by the District of Columbia. Early in the spring, when the danger of investigation threatened him, he had resigned from office. The offenses with which he was charged were in the nature of selling promotions, and he was also implicated in the deals by which August W. Machen, former General Superintendent. of Free Delivery, had made commissions on letter boxes, the standards that support package mail boxes, the time-of-collection indicators on mail boxes, carriers' satchels, registered letter cases, satchel straps, the paint on mail boxes, and many other small transactions too nu

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merous to be enumerated here. George E. Green, President of the International Time Recording Company, was apprehended September 19, and held on $10,000 bail on two indictments, charging him with conspiracy and bribery in connection with the sale of time recorders to the department. He was charged with paying sums, ranging from $325 to $1,042, to George W. Beavers.

One incident of the indictments was exceptionally pathetic. James Noble Tyner, once Postmaster-General of the United States, seventy years old and partially paralyzed, ended thirty-nine years of prominent connection with the Government with threatened imprisonment for permitting "get-rich-quick" concerns and other fraudulent companies to use the mails in return for personal remuneration.

Previously, in April, Mrs. Tyner had complicated the delicate situation by a sensational movement. With the help of an expert safe opener, she had broken into the safe in her husband's office and removed all the papers it contained, giving out that she had done this by his orders. As soon as the department discovered what had been done inspectors were sent to the Tyner house to demand the papers. General Tyner and his wife refused to make restitution, declaring that the documents were personal property, but on April 25 the General's attorneys turned the papers over to the department. General Tyner's resignation had already been requested, on the ground. of physical unfitness, and the resignation was to have gone into effect on May 1, but on learning of the removal of the papers, his summary dismissal was ordered by Postmaster-General Payne.

James T. Metcalf, former Superintendent of the Money Order Division, was charged with opposing the acceptance of the lowest bid. for printing the money order forms of the Government, and trying to secure the acceptance of a bid $45,000 higher from the Winkoop Company, a firm in which his son was employed. Mr. Metcalf had been removed from office for this "indiscretion" by Postmaster-General Payne in June. He, with his son Norman, and another employé of the Winkoop Company were included in the indictments.

Maladministration of the Washington Office

In June, Postmaster-General Payne had made public the reply of Fourth-Assistant Postmaster Bristow to the charges of Seymour W.

Tulloch, former cashier of the Washington City Post-Office, regarding irregularities in the administration of that office; also reports of an investigation made by inspectors in 1899 and 1900. The inspectors said that the records showed direct orders from superior authority. for payment of questionable items, many illegal appointments, the payment of two salaries to one person, and the disbursements of thousands of dollars for which no service was performed. Evidence of graft abounded, and incontestable proofs of ignorance and criminal carelessness were found in almost every department connected with the office. The officials immediately involved were former Postmaster-General Smith and his First-Assistant, Perry S. Heath. The report was accompanied by a statement from Postmaster-General Payne in which he said: "The subject matter of the complaint is four years old, and all action thereunder was closed over two years ago. The charge of Mr. Tulloch is in its essence against President McKinley and PostmasterGeneral Smith. With regard to the present management of the Washington Post-Office and the conduct of any and all men charged with wrongdoing during the present administration, a thorough and searching investigation is now being made."

The report of Holmes Conrad and Charles J. Boneparte, the special commissioners appointed by the President to investigate charges of Seymour W. Tulloch's maladministration in the Washington Post Office was made public in December. The commissioners prac

tically sustained all the Tulloch charges. They found that there had been improper disbursements of the public funds and unauthorized expenditures. In fixing responsibility they said: "The persons primarily responsible for the abuses and the resulting scandals appear to have been Perry S. Heath and George W. Beavers. Charles Emory Smith, late Postmaster-General, James Willett, late Postmaster of Washington, John A. Merritt, his successor, Robert J. Tracewell, Comptroller, and Henry A. Castle, Auditor, all appear to have shared in some measure their responsibilities; the late Postmaster-General for his seeming failure to appreciate the gravity of their misconduct and the necessity for its punishment; the two Postmasters for toleration of these abuses and obedience to improper orders without exposure or protest; and the auditor and comptroller for their laxity in permitting the payment of illegal and fraudulent claims.”