but not in the least daunted, prepared to again measure strength with the forces of the political machine now arrayed against him. In a series of masterly addresses he attacked the caucus and convention system, and advocated a more equal scheme of state taxation. The year 1898 found him again a gubernatorial candidate, with the principles mentioned above as the cardinal doctrines of his platform. While the principles which he advocated were adopted as platform pledges by both the party conventions, Mr. La Follette was again worsted by his opponents. In 1900 he made a third appeal to the people of the state, appearing as the champion of principles which had been adopted by the republican party in Wisconsin. This time the state convention, composed of 1,067 delegates, unanimously nominated him for governor. He was elected by over a hundred thousand majority, receiving the largest vote ever cast for an executive in that state.

Mr. La Follette believes that the platform utterances of a political party, instead of being smart phrases to catch votes, are really pledges to the people, to be put in practice and enacted into law by the people's representatives. With the assembling of the legislature in 1901, a carefully drawn direct nomination bill, practically embodying the governor's views, was presented. This measure met with the intense opposition of the so-called practical politicians, and after much sparring, and a good deal of alleged conniving and corruption, this bill was side-tracked to make way for what was known as the Hagemeister substitute, which was passed by both houses and was sent to Governor La Follette for his approval. But he promptly vetoed it in a state document, which Ernst Christopher Meyer, in his book, "Nominating Systems," says "exceeded in intelligence, vigor and moral earnestness any executive message which we have read in recent years." The vetoed bill was really a cunning attempt to throw dust in the eyes of the people, but it did not deceive the wide-awake man who sat in the governor's chair. With the session of 1901, the legislative contest for direct nominations was temporarily post

poned. The battle was then taken by Governor La Follette to the hustings.

He believes in the moral and political integrity of the people, and that when any principle of decent government is properly presented to them it will meet with their approval. They apparently met the governor more than half way on this proposition, and sustained him in the republican convention of this year, in which he was renominated, still standing for the definite governmental reforms to which he has given allegiance these many years.

It has to be admitted that a faction of the republican party in Wisconsin is opposed to Governor La Follette personally, and to the principles of tax and primary election reform for which he stands. In the hope of defeating the governor, and his principles which have been repeatedly endorsed by the republican party in convention, the opposing faction organized what is called "The Wisconsin Republican League," a political combination which Mr. Meyer in his book says "is in striking resemblance to Tammany Hall." But this league utterly failed to unhorse Mr. La Follette, or seriously interfere with his renomination.

It is claimed by the governor and his friends that the most offensive lobbyists in the legislature against direct nominations and other reforms which have become accepted republican doctrines in Wisconsin were federal office-holders. This condition led to the vigorous demand on the part of Wisconsin republicans that there shall be no interference from Washington with local politics, and that loyalty to the party's principles and platform pledges must be the qualification for party preferment of any sort in the state. It is this position which leads certain newspapers, especially in the East, to raise the false alarm that Governor La Follette and his followers are waging war on Senator Spooner. Nothing of the kind is contemplated or desired. The governor is not to blame that the machine politicians whom he opposes, and who have from the start opposed him and the reforms for which he stands, attempt to hide from the popular fury under the senator's wing. Supported by

the republican rank and file, Governor La Follette is determined to reform the primary election system in Wisconsin, and he will not allow himself to be held responsible for what may happen to people who get in the way of that popular purpose.

It has long been Mr. La Follette's well-formed conviction that guarding the primary sources of political conduct is one of the most important functions with which legislatures in our time have to deal. His speeches and documents on this subject are models of concise and clear statements of what to him is demonstrated truth. The following paragraphs very briefly develop his argument, and show the character of his style in dealing with the matter of direct nominations:

"Under our form of government the entire structure rests upon the nomination of candidates for office. This is the foundation of the representative system."

"If the voter is competent to cast his ballot for the candidates of his party, he is competent to express his choice in the same way at a primary election for the man he wants nominated on that party ticket. As a citizen and taxpayer it is his sovereign right, and any law which compels him to hand that sovereign right over to some other man, who must hand it over to some other man, who may do with it as he pleases, is a bad law and cannot stand."

"I say that a political convention is no place in which to discharge with fidelity the responsibility and trust of making nominations of candidates for office. It is never, under any circumstances, a deliberative body. Its work is hurried, its business transacted in confusion and in the midst of great excitement. It is the storm center of a political tempest and not a tribunal which would settle the most important business of representative government."

A man of both physical and intellectual vigor, Governor La Follette is one of the most forceful and interesting state executives in the whole country to-day. Should he be successful in the election this year, and that success be followed by the enactment of the La Follette reform principles into law by the next Wisconsin legislature, he would become a force to be reckoned with in the national politics of the near future. The governor of Wisconsin, politically and nationally, would seem to be a "coming man."

COLORED MEN AS COTTON MANUFACTURERS

JEROME DOWD

The opinion used to prevail in the South that the negroes could never be worked in a factory for the reason that the hum of the machinery would put them to sleep. Hence until recent years no effort was made to employ them in manufacturing enterprises. Their range of activities was limited chiefly to the plough, the kitchen, the barnyard and the wash-tub.

About 1880 there was a rapid development of tobacco manufacturing in North Carolina, Virginia and Kentucky, and negroes were freely employed to meet the increased demand for labor. At the present writing probably two-thirds of all the employees in tobacco factories are negroes. About fifteen years ago negro labor began to be extensively employed in cotton seed oil and fertilizer mills, then springing up all over the South. More recently, negro labor has been employed in a silk factory at Fayetteville, N. C., and in a hosiery mill at Columbia, S. C.

The first experiment with negro labor in a cotton factory was made about three years ago in the city of Charleston, S. C. The outcome was unsatisfactory and the factory soon closed down. However, this test was not made under favorable circumstances. The factory was situated too near the water. It is a notorious fact that negro labor is unreliable along water courses. Next to a watermelon, a fish is the dearest thing to a negro's heart and palate, and where the supply of fish is abundant, the matter of living is so cheap and easy that the negro is indifferent to regular employment. Besides, in Charleston there are too many street parades, camp-meetings, excursions, festivals and cheap theatricals.. It is difficult to keep the negro steadily at any sort of work where such events so largely fill up life. A more decisive test of the fitness of negro labor for cotton mills is now being made at the Coleman cotton mill

of North Carolina. The mill is owned and operated by negroes. The site is in the Piedmont section of the state, one mile from the city of Concord. The capitalization of the mill is $100,000, of which $66,000 has been paid in. The subscribers to the stock are scattered throughout the state and number about 350. The subscriptions vary from $25 to $1,000, and are payable in installments.

When the mill started up in July, 1901, all of the employees were inexperienced. Mr. A. G. Smith, of Massachusetts, the superintendent, and the only white person connected with the work, had to train each employee for his or her task.

The Coleman plant consists of 100 acres of land, one three-story brick building, 80x120, two boilers of 100 horsepower each, and a complete modern outfit of looms, spindles and other machinery necessary for spinning and weaving. The weaving capacity is 40,000 yards of cloth per week. A dozen or more very substantial tenement cottages have been erected and rented to the employees.

The writer has visited the mill and viewed the operatives at work, and was agreeably surprised to find that only one of the operatives was inclined to go to sleep. The superintendent expressed himself as entirely satisfied with the progress of the workers, and stated that he felt confident that the enterprise would prove a financial success. Several of the operatives, he said, had been "caught napping," but, he added, that such occurrences were not uncommon even among white operatives in Massachusetts. The operatives, so far, have been very prompt in coming to work, and have shown no disposition to drop out.

Among the directors of the mill are several of the most noted negroes of the state; for instance, John C. Dancey, ex-collector of customs at Wilmington, now register of deeds of the District of Columbia; S. B. Pride, a professor in Biddle University at Charlotte, N. C., and E. A. Johnson, dean of the law department in Shaw University at Raleigh, N. C.

The promoter and leading spirit in this enterprise is