o put a
gun in the hands of some and decorate them with brass buttons with U. S.
inscribed thereon to bring to the surface--like a plaster on a boil--all
the native savagery there is in the man; personally, I would prefer to
run my chances among the Head Hunters on the Isle of Borneo than among
uniformed thugs protected and encouraged by martial law to carry out
their natural murderous propensities as was the case in San Francisco,
following the earthquake on the morning of April 18, 1906.

THE GENIUS OF WAR

By JOHN FRANCIS VALTER.

_I am the Genius of War.
My standard's the Skull and the Bones.
I raise my voice--I stamp my foot,
And legions rise out of the ground._

_Armies advance and retreat,
Poisoned, diseased and maimed:
All that is left is a grewsome aspect
To the moonlight, the ghouls and Me._

_All this to a laudable end:--
The general has his star;
Shylock his four per cent;
The contractor's wife a costly gem
To enhance her vulgar charms;
The mother a harvest of tears;
The wife a broken heart;
The unborn babe a prenatal curse;
While I have my surfeit of blood_.

[Illustration]

DIGNITY SPEAKS.

"Hark ye, millions, and tremble! I am more powerful than the Law.
Together with my sister, Respectability, I reach far beyond the boundary
of the authority of governments. I am supreme.

Behold the miserable criminal, desperately resisting the brutal
treatment of the police officer. I shall force him to his knees. I shall
subdue him. Enthroned upon the seat of Justice, robed in the solemn
black of my sacred office, I shall break the rebel's spirit.

'Tis in this that the highest refinement of tyranny manifests itself--it
enters into the very innermost depths of the human mind and there it
ravages, till its foul breath has withered the last resistance of the
unfortunate soul, and the consciousness of self is destroyed; this
accomplished, the man himself is dead.

The Law! See how the timid masses cower at the mere mention of my name.
See them tremble as I enter the arena of the Legislature.

The Dignity of the Law!

The Majesty of the Law!

It must forever remain my great secret that the Law is the Cerberus that
guards the portals of our earthly paradise against the common herd--we
must not be disturbed in our orgies.

The Law! 'Tis our beastly greediness, our bloodthirsty rapacity
expressed i