OUR AMERICAN LETTER.

Evening Star, Issue 7650, 28 June 1888, Page 4

OUR AMERICAN LETTER.

Keokuk, lowa, U.S.A., June 2, 1888. SPKINO FLOODS. The Spring season is now fairly on, and with it came storms, wind, rains, and disastrous floods. The Mississippi and Missouri Rivers have overflown their banks, and millions of acres of fertile farms, thrifty villages, and growing cities are now lying under fifteen and twenty feet of rapid water. Thousands of people are rendered homeless, their homes, household effects, and accumulations of years having gone down the stream. Major Powell, of the Geological Survey, says that the Government can prevent these overflows by damming up the canons of the Rocky Mountains in which are the fountain heads of both the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, aud also damming back the tributaries in [Minnesota and West Wisconsin, which form immense reservoirs of waters that may be utilised to irrigate the arid lands and reclaim at least 100,000 square miles, and add an immense area to the resources of the nation. The experiment is not a new one. It has been tried many times with success. It is dependent upon the expenditure of money, of which the Government has enough and to spare. THE KNIGHTS OK LAIiOK. According to the latest reports of the general secretary, the Order has within the past twelve months decreased in membership from 730,000 to 200,000. The disintegration promises to end only in the complete dissolution of the organisation. The great loss in membership can be easily accounted for. The Order had grown too rapidly for its own advantage. Unscrupulous men with hot heads and feeble judgment obtained control in many places, and precipitated strikes and boycotts, whilst the management of Mr Powderley has been conservative. Pompous officials have ordered strikes off hand, entailing heavy loss to the working men, and the forfeiture of confidence and public respect; whilst Mr Powderky disapproved of every strike without first attempting arbitration and conciliation. As a result, the dissentious, rebellious, and indigestible are dropping out, and the Order is probably in better condition with the 200,000 than it was with 730,000. Its members are now the toilers and not the idlers. The former are desirous of improving their own condition and that of their families, and are using their society not as a weapon, but as a defence and a steppingstone to something still higher and better. POLITICS IN MEXICO. Mexico will soon be in the throes of a Presidential contest, with the probability that, with the assent of the States and the Federal Congress to a chango of the clause in the Constitution forbidding two terms in succession to the same President, Diaz will again be elected. All the electoral machinery is being adjusted to that end, and the pivotal positions are occupied by Government

candidates, though it is certain that both the church and his political opponents will set every possible scheme in motion to defeat him. While it is very doubtful whether anything like a fair election is possible in Mexico, and still more so that the approaching election is intended to be so, it cannot be denied that the return of the present incumbent to the Presidency would most advance the interests of the Republic. He is the best man that has been at the head of affairs for many years. He has initiated many important measures, and his administration has been effective and prosperous. He has suppressed disorder, quickened national life, givensecurity to trade and travel, has extended commerce, and given the country a well-regulated banking system under Government control, an accredited paper currency, and funded a foreign debt that had defaulted for a quarter of a century on a very satisfactory basis. He has given tho country a free school system, despite the determined opposition of the clergy; and a measure is now before the Congress to make education in the Federal districts compulsory. CHOKCIE AND STATE IN MEXICO. A company of Mexican pilgrims recently passed through the United States on their way to Rome. The bishop in charge of the party was interviewed in New York. He stated that as ecclesiastics he and his clergy have no legal rights in their own country ; but that President Diaz is liberal and on very good terms with the Archbishop. "It is the hope of the most intelligent church people that an agreement may soon be arrived at whereby the State Government will fix the salaries of the clergy." The prelate also indulged the expectation that the laws will be amended which now prohibit Government employes from attending church in uniform. After thus committing himself to the antiquated and dangerous idea of a united church and State, the Bishop added that it was the general wish in Mexico that the church should be placed upon the same basis in relation to the State that it stands on in the United States—" that is, to remove it entirely from all political associations." It is difficult for us to see how the clergy are to be paid "by the State, and yet the church to hold ths same relation to the Government that all churches hold to the National and State Governments in this Republic. It iB true that perfect religious toleration is maintained in some of tho Continental countries, which pay alike the clergy of all denominations. But there is not the slightest possibility that the Roman Catholic clergy of Mexico would consent to the payment of the Protestant clergy, who have of late years increased in numbers and influence. It is a sad commentary on the character of the religion that the Mexican clergy maintain that they have no legal status in their own country. Their civil death was effected by their own co-religionists and their own countrymen. No foreigner interfered; no foreign sect contributed a dollar to their political elimination. The conduct of the majority of their profession was so thoroughly antagonistic to the resolute determination of the Mexican people to be free and independent that no alternative to their suppression remained. It was a patriotic priest—Hidalgo—who lighted the torch of Republicanism and inaugurated the struggle which culminated in the Republic. There is not a particle of danger of their rehabilitation. The people are masters. The clergy must take back seats in politics. Those of them who deserve support will receive it. Those whom their own followers will not support will not fatten upon the National Treasury. Republicanism is rock-rooted in Mexico, and reactionary tendencies will not be suffered to acquire any momentum. Ulysses.