Abstract

Editorials

The article discusses issues related to politics from the world. The struggle at Albany, New York, which has been occupying the attention of the United States for the last fortnight, would be very paltry and insignificant if Roscoe Conkling were simply a wrongheaded man who was trying to recover the Senatorship, which he had recklessly thrown away in a fit of bad temper. He is really, however, far more than this. He is the product of a system which he is performing the great public service of working out to its logical results in a peculiarly conspicuous way. Whether Conkling's public career has been meritorious or not is a question, which there is little use in discussing without the aid of a common standard of excellence. German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck has just failed in an attempt to introduce biennial sessions and biennial budgets, in other words, to check the flow of forensic eloquence and render less frequent the hateful seasons in which by law the Imperial Diet now meets for debate, enquiry, and criticism. The measure was rejected; it appears, by a large majority, which is not surprising.