withstanding the Concordat.

Now comes

Pius X., who in the ardor of his faith, or as the tool of a party bent on a new policy, upsets the Concordat and drives the French Government to take action.

In resolving to face the difficulty by completely cutting the connection with Rome, the Government has had with it the great majority of the Chamber of Deputies, and there is every reason to believe that the country will approve of what has been done. That the former is the case is seen in the voting, which at many stages of the Bill has averaged a majority of over one hundred, and the latter byeelections, which seem very favorable to the parties supporting the Separation affirm.

tary pro

cedure.

The Parliamentary procedure by which Parliamen this important measure has been successfully carried out strikes a blow at the oligarchical method prevailing in most Parliaments, by which two parties carry on the Government of a country to the exclusion of all who are not connected with either one or the other. In France this system has resulted in giving to the Conservatives, though in the minority, the power to arrest important progressive legislation. Now by the institution of the Bloc, the various Parties of the Left-the Democratic Union, Radicals, Radical Socialists, Extreme Left, Socialists, and Independent Socialistshave united to support this particular measure, each Party being represented on the

Briand chiefly responsible for the measure.

Commission deputed to draft the Bill and carry it through the Chamber. Nominated by lot in the eleven bureaus representing the various political Parties, the result has proved successful, the members of the Commission having shown singular unanimity in drawing the Bill, and patience, moderation, and willingness to listen to every criticism of it.

measure,

The reporter of the Commission, M. Aristide Briand, is chiefly responsible for the and it has been through his energy, address, wisdom, oratory and sympathetic understanding of his various opponents that the Bill has been piloted past the rocks and shoals which have endangered its course all through. He has had a devoted henchman in M. Jaurès, the celebrated Socialist leader and orator, and he has been well supported by M. Bienvenu-Martin, the Minister of Public Instruction and Worship, and by other Socialists. Some, however, in the various Parties of the Left have not been so well satisfied that the measure is really for the best, and about half the numerous amendments which have blocked its progress have come from them. They have undoubtedly had good reason to be dissatisfied, for as the discussion has advanced, Briand and Jaurès have betrayed signs of willingness to assuage the bitterness of the opposition of the Right and of the Centre by many concessions.

The Minister of Public Worship, speaking

on the Bill in the Chamber of Deputies, said: "After the Separation . . . the Church (Roman Catholic) will possess wealth to the amount of three hundred millions of francs. In addition to this it will have all the buildings in which it now carries on worship for an Church indefinite period, gratuitously, and the buildings in which its bishops and parochial clergy are lodged at a low rental on short leases."

Buildings

LEWIS AND CLARK EXPOSITION

T

(A.D. 1905)

RICHARD LLOYD JONES

HE main entrance to the Lewis and Clark Exposition is on the Missouri River. The real show of 1905 is the mighty, throbbing, earnest empire of our proud Northwest. President Jefferson gave to Lewis and Clark a higher commission than that of merely piercing the great wilderness to find out how the continental waterways took their course to the Western Seas. The expedition that started up the Missouri River in awkward, hand-made paddle craft, one hunImperial dred and two years ago, was born of imperial dreams. The mammoth errand was keystoned by something better than idle curiosity, and the ridiculously small Congressional subsidy of $2,500 for that vast enterprise was the greatest investment the United States ever made. Whosoever doubts it should in this Centennial year take the steel-railed trail, and in palacecar luxury traverse in three days the vast wonderland that engaged the pioneer explorers for more than two long years.

dreams.

The Louisiana Purchase Act excepted, the Lewis and Clark Expedition is the greatest

expansion act spread upon our national records. After a century of pioneering, the wild nation of Indian and elk has crystallized into a civilization that expresses one of the greatest industrial conquests known in the history A great of the world.

industrial conquest.

Where Lewis and Clark encountered only buffalo, grizzly, and hordes of savage men, mighty cities have been builded wherein are centred industries of world-wide consequence. Near Mandan, where the first hard winter was spent among the hostile redskins, now stands Bismarck, the capital city of the great The town of bread-producing commonwealth of North Dakota. The little remnants of the Mandan tribe have forgotten their fathers' resentment of the white man's invading three-board canoe, and the giant steam plow has erased the badger's path.

Bismarck.

of alfalfa.

Through the Yellowstone Valley, the arid lands, so depressing to the explorers, have been subdued by the culture of alfalfa, the The culture sacred grass of ancient Rome. King of forage plants, it has been forced by agricultural science to spread an emerald carpet over the level desert stretches where formerly only the knotty sagebrush grew. Supplying as it does the richest food for cattle, sheep, and horses, it has converted the desert waste into a prosperous community that puts the good old Hoosier farms to a severe competitive test. These ancient desert fields have borne palaces