formality of the charges against the accused police judges in San Francisco. The charges were published to the world. by a grand jury, regularly drawn, and armed with authority to inquire into all branches of the public service, as conducted within the municipality of San Francisco. The foreman of that grand jury has charged and reiterated that certain police courts are corrupt. He has thereby changed street gossip into conviction. The public believes in its innermost soul that there are impure men on the bench. A new angle of the scandal has been exposed as the public thinks that offenders will escape the pillory of public opinion by the action of the State attorney-general in dismissing the cases against besmirched jurists. Imagine what such public belief imports to San Francisco, and the entire State of California. The citizens of the metropolis of the State should not forget that only a few years ago there was a "graft prosecution" in San Francisco. It attracted the attention of the Nation, and incidentally made one of the special assistants of the district attorney a presidential possibility, by his energetic efforts to send several leading citizens to jail. The effectiveness of that energetic house, cleaning, will be doubted by the Nation, when the news shall have spread abroad, that San Francisco is suffering from another plague of debilitated morale, with the State attorney general and the San Francisco Bar Association at outs on the principle of exposing official rascality. So far, the investigation of the police courts, has seemed to a layman a veritable travesty. Instead of placing the accused judges on trial, the sword of justice was leveled at a saloon man who made political bossism and bond-brokerage profitable side-lines for his groggery. The principal witness against the thrifty boss was a police court practitioner who according to his own statement was an expert in bribery. His practice was so large that he needed a dozen assistants in his legal establishment. He was as outspoken of his alleged knavery, as if he boasted a record of spotless virtue. His accusations against the accused bond-broker and boss, were flatly contradicted by the defendant. What one side swore were true facts, the other averred with equal positiveness, were lies. The reputation of the principal witness was made much of. "Would any decent citizen believe him if he swore on a stack of Bibles as high as a skyscraper?" "Certainly not," declared the witnesses for the political boss. So the prosecution of that phase of the judicial scandal ended without unpleasant consequences to the politically influential defendant. In the editorial words of that conservative and influential newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, the trial ended in a Scotch verdict of "not proven." Because of that termination of a sideissue of the scandal, the attorney-general, who had been called into the prosecution when he should have been kept well aloof from it, has decreed that nothing more shall take place in the courts to cause the accused police judges uneasiness. Contemplated prosecutions shall be dropped. But most unfortunately for the attorneygeneral and the State government which he is supposed to represent, the San Francisco Bar Association has given him battle. Except upon the theory that California has been removed from the United States and annexed to Mexico, it is hard to see how the attorney general can fly in the face of public opinion, as represented by the Bar Association. The president of that body is a lawyer of first class standing. He once filled the position of Superior Court judge with credit. He has maintained a high position in his profession and in the social circles of San Francisco. If the Supreme Court were asked to pick out a thoroughly reputable lawyer for chairman of the Bar Association it could not select a worthier citizen and lawyer. This man, Judge Sullivan, demands that the intended trials of the accused judges be not quashed. He disavows any sinister purpose in his demands. None is suspected. It is accepted as beyond question, that Judge Sullivan aims only at purification of the courts. What could be more needed? Who will attempt to champion our existing court system? Is it not in the mouths of everybody that the criminal records show an extraordinary laxity in the prosecution of malefactors. Reports of desperate crimes are so common in newspapers that murder seems to have become a popular pastime. Protection of life and property seem to be no longer a return for the taxpayers that pay the municipal bills. The more police judges we appoint, and the higher we raise the pay of policemen, the wider the immunity. which desperate felons appear to enjoy. But all this is superfluous, as the recent grand jury has set it forth in its specific statements, in which the undesirable condition of the police courts are described. If we had the proper spirit in the judiciary, the accused police judges would at once have demanded full investigation. There could be no fight over publicity. The mayor of the city, who is paid for supervision of the official conduct of the municipality, would have demanded that the inquiry be undertaken and the accused judges be suspended until the truth or falsity of the charges were determined. What public harm can be done by the open investigation of departments indi cated as derelict or dishonest by a grand jury? What is the grand jury for, when its reports are shelved, and prosecutions of accused officials stopped by order of a State officer in Sacramento? What does the charter of a great city amount to? The State government's contemptuous defiance of public opinion in San Francisco, can only make the road of the criminal smoother. It seems to be an utterly unjustifiable and autocratic exercise of technical power by the attorneygeneral, to have stopped the open trials of police judges, though requested by the Bar Association to permit their continu ance. Unless we take the judiciary out of politics we shall continue to go from bad to worse. The courts are the foundations of government, and anybody who undermines them is a dangerous enemy of the commonwealth. Judges, on whom the security of the State depends, should be appointed, not elected. Above all, police judges should be removed from the sinister influence of the criminal vote of large cities. THE RAVAGES OF TIME By Eli L. Huggins. The monuments of human pride and power, Time slays or withers all on which we dote. Is threadbare on the seams with three years' wear, Out at the elbows and beyond repair? Winners in the Overland Monthly's Selected The New Poetry in Scant Favor with the Many Competitors. By George Douglas ROMISE in haste and repent at spiritual quality. They were not limited Pleisure. I have had three months in which to repent the promise to serve as arbiter in The Overland Monthly's Selected Verse Competition. As last I can sympathize with the woman who takes a week to choose a new hat. Also I can understand why some astute milliners put only one hat in their windows. A good quotation standing by itself seems final; set among scores of others equally good and only the author of one of them would dare to say which is the best. It seems such a simple thing to select from selections. One felt sure that at least a dozen of one's own favorite quotations would be submitted. How very easy to decide a matter already decided by one's own preferences! As Scott says, somewhere in Ivanhoe: "The trial moves rapidly on when the judge has determined his verdict beforehand." But in this case it dragged-not one of the judge's favorites was presented in court. In this there is nothing surprising. So boundless is the bounty of poetry that a thousand anthologists might make entirely different selections if called upon to mention the six best lines in the language. There is no such thing as individual familiarity with all the treasures of our poetry. But if the task was difficult it was also pleasant. There was joy as well as gratification of curiosity in reading what others thought the best in verse. In the first place let me say that the selections submitted were of a remarkably high order of excellence. Only a very few competitors had pinned their faith to manifestly inferior work. The vast majority had a taste for poetic art in its finest forms, while one noted with keen satisfaction that a very large number showed a preference for poetry with a by considerations of verbal beauty, nor even intellectual power, but were impressed more by the higher force of noble inspiration. They most admired what appealed to them as the most ideal, and the ideal, no matter what form it takes, has within it something of the spiritual. There were devotees of beauty as there were also worshippers at the shrine of sentiment, but mere sentimentality was conspicuous by its absence. The competition was specially interesting as showing whether the new poetry had yielded many lines that were regarded as favorites. It has been said that we read the new verse but do not remember it, which is but another way of saying that we read but do not re-read it. The contest confirmed this opinion. Contemporary bards were quoted, but they were of the new poets who write mainly in the old verse forms. Nearly all the authors were familiar: Shakespeare, Milton, Gray, Goldsmith, Coleridge, Byron, Tennyson, Lowell, Longfellow, Whitman, Burns, Wordsworth, Stevenson, Alfred Noyes, Sara Teasdale, Joyce Kilmer, George Sterling-these are but some of the poets quoted more than once. Most pleasing thing of all was the circumstance that very little of the work submitted gave the impression of being taken from a published book of familiar quotations. The scrap book was evident, but Bartlett and his tribe seemed to find no favor. Another gratifying feature was the fact that many competitors misquoted their author-a proof that they were quoting from memory and not from a book. As Chesterton remarks: "Misquotation is proof not of a bad but a good memory." We misquote from memory-not from the printed page. In making the final selection it was the quotations and not the authors that decided the matter. In putting lines from Longfellow above lines from Shakespeare the judges were not pronouncing upon the rival merits of the poets. A superior selection from an inferior poet may show more merit than an inferior quotation from a superior poet. Awards follow: First Prize-Twenty Dollars Lines from Longfellow's "Evangeline," submitted by Dorothy M. Miller, Talk not of wasted affection, affection never was wasted Back to their springs like the rain, shall fill them full of refreshment; Second Prize-Fifteen Dollars Lines from James Russell Lowell, submitted by Annis Knowles, Then to side with truth is noble, when we share her wretched crust, And the multitude make virtue, of the faith they had denied. Third Prize-Ten Dollars Lines from Sara Teasdale, submitted by Ethel H. Dobson, Spend all you have for loveliness, Give all you have been, or could be. Fourth Prize-Five Dollars Lines from Tennyson, submitted by Marion Pryne, Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, That brings our friends, up from the under world, And sad as that which reddens over one, That sinks with all we love, below the verge, So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. Twenty Honorable Mention—Each a Year's Subscription to the Overland Monthly Henry Auban, 746 Second St., Santa Rosa, Calif.; Mrs. Elizabeth Vore, Camp Meeker, Calif.; J. E. R. Pierce, 91 High St., Florence, Mass.; Isadore Dubkin, 2417 Mozart St., Chicago; Belle Willey Gue, Ocean Beach, San Diego, Calif.; Ida M. Smith, Stockton Free Public Library; Donald G. O'Connor, 163 Joralemon St., Brooklyn, N. Y.; Helen M. Mann, Mill Valley; Miss Anna Benton, 2516 Fifty-second St., W. Seattle, Wash.; May Thomas Milam, 238 East Fourth St., Atlanta, Georgia; Fred W. Ohmes, 1565 Boulevard, Jersey City, N. J.; Frances L. Cooper, Stanford University, Calif; Edna Osborne Whitcomb, 3310 Harrison St., Kansas City, Missouri; Maurice Anderson, Route 1, Box 15, Hayward, Calif; George-Chalmers, 475 Fourteenth Ave., San Francisco; Katherine S. Jack, 1534 Sutter St., San Francisco; Leslie McCary, Winkler, Texas; Henry M. Williams, Santa Rosa, Calif.; W. McPatton, 401 College avenue, Northfield, Minn; H. E. Poehlman, 325 Sutter Street, San Francisco. By an error in the mechanical department of the Overland, last month, the name of Charles Horace Meiers was placed over the verse, "A Stranger Came," instead of that of the real author, F. M. Pierce. Poems by both writers happened to be on the same galley of type and the printer erred. In justice to two much-valued contributors we hasten to explain, and apologize. The Judges' Side of the Overland's Poetry Competition. By Stanton Coblentz [Mr. Stanton Coblentz, who consented to act with the editors of the Overland Monthly in judging the selections submitted in the Selected Verse Competition, has distinguished himself as a writer of verse. His contributions appear in numerous publications, including the Överland Monthly, New York Life and the New York Times, the most carefully edited newspaper of the metropolis. He has filled important positions on the principal journals of California. Mr. Coblentz holds a Master of Arts degree from the University of California.] T LAST the awards in the Overland A Monthly's Selected Verse Compe tition can be announced. The work of the judges was by no means an easy task. Had the quality of the selections submitted been chiefly poor, the elimination of those unworthy of consideration might have been rapid; but the standard was far from low. The uniformity of merit, and the great number of competitors, made it extremely difficult to agree on the selection of winners. It is gratifying to state that the high standard of the verses submitted was a convincing testimonial of the literary taste of the Overland's readers. In one way, a poetry contest is the most difficult thing in the world to decide. For poetry cannot be judged with mathematical precision, nor can it be marked, after the manner of butter or soap, as 97% or 96% pure. The ultimate judgment of poetry is a matter of individual opinion; beyond certain elementary essentials, upon which all (except the free versifiers) are agreed, there is no absolute criterion of poetic excellence. One may prefer Tennyson; another, Shelley; each may have good reasons for his choice, and the most discerning critic may be unable to say with certainty that one is right and the other wrong. And so, in the Overland's poetry contest, some preferred Byron, and some Browning; some Longfellow, and some Lowell; some quoted didactic passages, and some selected passages of extreme sentimentalism. All may have had good reasons for their choice and have been well able to support their views; yet it so happened that the judges, being no more than human, could not have the same standards of poetic appreciation as all the contributors, and therefore were compelled to favor those selections which seemed to them the best. A majority of the contributions were by standard authors. Shakespeare, Tennyson and Longfellow were represented most frequently; Browning, Burns, and Emerson ran them a close second. The judges were surprised to discover that Pope, perhaps the most quotable of the poets, was favored scarcely at all, and that our American poets were represented more often than the British. This pride in American literature was interesting. Scarcely any attention was paid to contemporary poets, and most of those quoted were newspaper poets rather than creators of literature. In making their awards, the judges tried to give the preference to those selections which not only were beautiful and expressive, but which were not too commonly known. In the latter respect, however, they found themselves confronted by almost insuperable obstacles, since most of the quotations were from celebrated passages, and those which were not celebrated, were too often inferior. And so at least most of the prizes were awarded for contributions from the better known poets. All differences of opinion, which the judges found difficult of reconciliation, were submitted to Mr. George Douglas, the well-known literary critic, whose experience and great fund of knowledge were found of invaluable aid. Acting as final arbiter, with absolute power, he set the seal of his approval on the list of awards which was finally agreed upon by the judges. The hardest task, of course, was to decide on the winner of the first prize. The successful competitor had been considered, from the first, as worthy of a prize. Which prize was the question. |