THE WORLD IN 1907. The Public Service Commission created by the Legislature under the lead of Governor Hughes, sustained by public opinion, is the direct outgrowth of the relentless warfare waged by THE WORLD against the law-defying corporations holding invaluable franchises from the people to serve them the great utilities of city life, like light and transportation. In March, 1903, THE WORLD published the exposure of corruption in the surface railway manipulation, and one of the completed works of the Commission, led by its chief Inquisitor, William M. Ivins, is the entire substantiation of the charges made by THE WORLD nearly five years ago. On the heels of THE WORLD'S exposure the books of the Metropolitan were destroyed and much of the evidence of the high financiering by which the floating debt of that ancient "gold mine," the Third Avenue Railroad, was jumped in six years from $2,000,000 to $24,000,000, and the construction account padded with $15,000,000 partly to balance it, by which the Fulton Street line was exploited, the Twenty-eighth Street and the Twentyninth Street line bought for $25,000 and "capitalized" for $3,000,000, loaded with a bogus construction expense account, so as to make $5,000,000 in profits for the insiders, and bonds issued to "electrolize" East Side lines were sold and the price pocketed, while weary horses still drag the cars along the rails, was destroyed with them. The confession of Quigg revealed a state of things comparable to the revelations in insurance corruption; that he, Quigg, received $217,000 in four years from the company for lobbying at Albany for the Metropolitan, or rather for those who ruled the company to its ruin. The testimony of Anthony N. Brady, showed how he had sold the Cortlandt Street line, which never existed except "on paper," to the Metropolitan for nearly $1,000,000 and divided the proceeds among the "insiders," Whitney, Ryan, Dolan, Widener, and Elkins. As a result of this official corroboration of THE WORLD'S charges, the Metropolitan Street Railway went into the hands of a receiver, a confessed insolvent, and the "holding company," having nothing else to hold but watered securities, also went into the hands of a receiver. Under the Public Utilities bill there will be no more "holding companies;" no more watering of stocks in public utility corporations; for the consent of the Public Utilities Commission must first be obtained before new stock may be issued, and then it must be shown that the added capital is needed for, and to be used for, material improvements to the road, equipment or service, and not to create a false and fabulous profit for the manipulators, and the consent of the Commission must be first obtained before any railroad can assign, transfer, or lease its property or franchise. TEN UNANSWERED QUESTIONS. October 1, 1904, THE WORLD asked these ten questions: "1. How, much has the Beef Trust contributed to Mr. Cortelyou? "2. How much has the Paper Trust contributed? 9. How much have the National Banks contributed? "10. How much have the six great railroads contributed to Mr. Cortelyou?” Mr. Roosevelt's reply to these questions addressed to him was the appointment of Mr. Cortelyou to the post of Secretary of the Treasury, but, as a result of THE WORLD'S insistent demand in the Spring and Summer of 1905 for a legislative investigation of the life insurance companies, it was disclosed under oath that four of them had contributed $158,500 to the Roosevelt campaign fund in 1904. These contributions were: New York Life Insurance Company.. $48,500 | Mutual Life Insurance Company... $50,000 Equitable Life Assurance Society... 50,000 Prudential Life Insurance Company.. 10,000 On April 2, 1907, by its exclusive publication of the famous letter written by E. H. Harriman to his friend, Sidney Webster, a further contribution to the Roosevelt campaign fund of 1904 of $260,000 was also disclosed by THE WORLD. This fund of $260,000 was made up after a conference between Odell, Cortelyou, and Treasurer Cornelius N. Bliss, of the Republican National Committee, at which it was decided to call upon E. H. Harriman to "save the day." The contributions and their respective contributors were as follows: Edward H. Harriman... H. McK. Twombly (representing the Vanderbilt interests). James Hazen Hyde.. The Equitable Life Assurance Society J. Pierpont Morgan.. George W. Perkins (New York Life Insurance Company). H. H. Rogers and John D. Archbold (Standard Oil Company). Banking interests Cornelius N. Bliss (personal). Seven friends of Senator Depew ($5,000 each). Total $50,000 25,000 25.000 25,000 10,000 10,000 10,000 30,000 10,000 10,000 35,000 20,000 $260,000 Later on THE WORLD was able to show that Ryan, Dolan, Elkins, Whitney, Widener and the other Metropolitan Railway Company managers had contributed equally to a $600,000 fund "to remove obstacles and care for political obligations," and that they recouped the amounts given to the Republican campaign fund by the sale of the Cortlandt Street "paper rad" to the Metropolitan Securities Company for $965,607.19 by Anthony N. Brady. Brady returned to each of the contributors $111,652.78. TRAPPING A BOODLE ALDERMAN. THE WORLD, with the assistance of the detectives employed. in the District-Attorney's office, caught W. S. Clifford, a Municipal League Alderman from the Borough of Queens, red handed in the sale of the votes of eleven Aldermen for the election of a Recorder to fill the vacancy caused by the promotion of Recorder Goff to the Supreme Court bench. Alderman Clifford came to an appointed place and received $6,000 in marked bills. VICTORY FOR SUBWAY BRIDGE LOOP. The adoption by the old Board of Rapid Transit Commissioners and the confirmation by the Board of Estimate of THE WORLD'S plan for a four-track subway loop to connect the Brooklyn Bridge and the Williamsburg Bridge on the Manhattan side was a victory not only over the traction combine of the Interborough and Brooklyn Rapid Transit, but over the Legislature, which passed a bill providing for an elevated loop. The loop is now in course of construction by the city. Both the Brooklyn and Manhattan Companies, surface and underground, will be compelled to operate their trains and cars through it under a car mileage arrangement which will pay the cost of maintenance and provide a sinking fund to extinguish the debt incurred for construction. EXPOSURE OF WARD'S ISLAND CRUELTIES. One of the latest and one of the most important of the public services of THE WORLD during 1907 was the exposure of brutalities practised upon helpless patients in the Manhattan State Hospital for the pauper insane on Ward's Island. Reports had reached THE WORLD during the three months preceding October of the ill treatment of insane patients by the attendants in the institution. An agent was immediately employed to ascertain the truth. This agent was experienced in the treatment of the insane at Bellevue Hospital and the Bloomingdale Asylum, a physician equipped with the special learning necessary for his calling-Dr. John C. McCarthy. Dr. McCarthy secured employment as an attendant in the State Asylum and served for a whole month. He made a careful diary, describing what he witnessed during that month in one ward, and his report shows an amazing prevalence of brutality among the attendants. THE WORLD'S PUBLIC SCHOOL FIELD DAYS. Believing in the doctrine that a healthy mind is best developed in a healthy body, THE WORLD instituted in 1906 a grand competition in athletics among the grammar school boys. Two thousand medals of silver and bronze were offered for competition. twenty to each of the first 100 grammar schools in Greater New York that should hold field days. The medals were given through the Public School Athletic Association, of which General George W. Wingate, a member of the Board of Education, is President, and Luther Halsey Gulick, Director of Physical Training in the Public Schools, Secretary. The idea met instant favor, and competition was eager and earnest. The grammar school field days were enthusiastic events in the school life of the lads. A grand final grammar school meet was held in September, at which all the winners from their respective schools met in competition, the prizes given by THE WORLD being gold, silver and bronze medals. Comptroller Metz was so much impressed by the beneficial results of THE WORLD'S field days that he gave an athletic field to the school boys of Brooklyn Borough. Thirty-eight schools in Manhattan Borough, twelve in the Bronx, twenty-eight in Brooklyn, seventeen in Queens and five in Richmond Borough, held each a separate field day in 1907, and more than 20,000 grammar grade boys competed in the games, while upward of 100,000 school teachers and children witnessed the athletic combats. Two thousand medals given by THE WORLD were awa ded, 1,200 of silver and 800 of bronze, to the winners in the field day games. Six hundred principals of schools and teachers officiated at the meets as umpires, referees, judges, scorers and timekeepers, and at the field day of Manhattan No. 103, 520 boys participated in the sports. Eight city park playgrounds, fourteen athletic fields and eight National Guard armories were used by schools for THE WORLD games, and four meets were held on the roof gardens of the respective schools, while eight meets were in city streets. Two thousand grammar school boys participated in the grand final meet at Celtic Park, the prizes being gold, silver and bronze WORLD medals. The games effected mental and moral good to an extent which both parents and teachers commended. More enduring than the hour's glory of the games, however, was the quality of clean manliness among the young athletes, stimulated and developed by this competition. James E. Sullivan, President of the Amateur Athletic Union of America, declared the finals "the most remarkable athletic meeting ever attempted," and General Wingate, President of the Public Schools Athletic League, and Grammar School Principals Benjamin Veit, John D. Fruanf, Frederick A. Berghane, W. L. Ettinger, Charles C. Roberts, John D. Condon, Charles D. Raine, William J. Leary, Gustave A. Carls, N. J. Lowe, T. O. Baker, W. L. Sprague, George Millard Davison, J. D. Reardon and others declared enthusiastically that the beneficial influence of THE WORLD'S meets was felt in every branch of the work of their schools. THE WORLD'S PLATFORM. On the occasion of a dinner of the executive staff of THE WORLD in honor of the sixtieth birthday of Mr. Joseph Pulitzer, the following cablegram was received from him: "Express to the editors, managers and entire staff my warm appreciation of their excellent and successful work for an institution which should always fight for progress and reform, never tolerate injustice or corruption, always fight demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunder, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or by predatory poverty. "JOSEPH PULITZER." Said the "New York Commercial": It is easily possible-more than probable, indeedthat most of the members of the executive staff of THE NEW YORK WORLD, who were dined in this city in celebration of the sixtieth birthday of Mr. Joseph Pulitzer on April 10, know that publication and its proprietor only in the latter-day relation of both to the American public and American affairs. But there are men in plenty here in New York and in every section of the country who recall vividly and with satisfaction how this "Lochinvar" in journalism "came out of the West" in 1883-he was only thirty-six years old then-and within an astonishingly short time had practically revolutionized newspaper making here in the metropolis. He established new standards that had never been dreamed of in the old order of things, and set a new pace that all of his competitors were forced to recognize and "catch step" with, but with which not all of them were able to keep up. It is no exaggeration to say that every daily newspaper existent in New York twenty-four years ago is the better to-day for Mr. Pulitzer's coming, and in nowise discredits any one of them or of those later established to place with him and THE WORLD the initiative and the leadership in taking up abuses and wrongs and evils and injustices in every form-public or semi-public-great or small, political or social or industrial or what not, and by persistent and vigorous exploitation seeking to displace them with right and justice. His ideals have uniformly been high, his purpose unselfish, his method for the most part commendable, and the example of them all-inspiring. From "Life": Mr. Pulitzer's paper has been governed by those sentiments. The editorials in THE WORLD are squarely for morality, public and private. Not only excellent specimens of English literature, clean-cut and forcible and always to the pointthey display a persistent courage and a love of justice unique in modern journalism. It is not expected that all our contemporaries will agree with the statement so often made that "THE WORLD editorials are the best in town." The World Almanac and Encyclopedia, AN ANNUAL REFERENCE BOOK OF UNIVERSAL CONTEMPORANEOUS FACTS. THE WORLD ALMANAC, prior to the acquisition of THE WORLD by Mr. Pulitzer, was a thin pamphlet, published annually, containing, besides the customary astronomical calculations and monthly calendars, the election returns, a list of Federal and New York State officials, a necrology and record of important events, and sometimes statistical summaries of a few Government reports. This matter was usually embraced within a hundred pages, and served the needs of the times. The first issue appeared in 1866. With the initial number of the present series, appearing in 1886 under Mr. Pulitzer's proprietorship, THE WORLD ALMANAC took on the encyclopedic form. It ceased to be a political manual merely, and became an expositor of all current information about the universe; a reference book of facts concerning everything of contemporaneous human interest. In accomplishing this stupendous purpose THE WORLD ALMANAC has spared neither labor nor expense. It has employed the best brains in organizing, and the best expert knowledge in supplying information. The ablest specialists in the domains of science, literature, art, statistics, and political and social economics have been drawn upon yearly for service. Thousands of circulars, accompanying return blanks, are sent to original sources of information. The vast mass of material thus obtained has been collated and arranged for publication by a permanent office staff. In all, it is estimated that ten thousand persons contribute in some measure annually to the perfection and completion of THE WORLD ALMANAC. The distribution of THE WORLD ALMANAC is co-extensive with the planet. It will not only be found in the book shops of every principal city of the world, but it has its constant users at such extremes of human habitation as Iceland and New Zealand, Manchuria and Cape Colony, Alaska and the Argentine Republic. It has been equally weicomed in the study of a great European savant and the domestic circle of the Grand Turk, as an order from Sir Monier Monier-Williams, professor of Sanscrit at Oxford, and a larger one from the Ottoman Minister at Washington in the same mail testifies. A single order has come from Japan for as many as three thousand copies. An Arctic explorer departing for the North Pole has taken a score of bound almanacs on board for the entertainment of the ship's company during the long Winter nights. Copies will be found in the readingrooms of practically every library and clubhouse in the United States. The Government supplies the consulates abroad with the book annually. THE WORLD ALMANAC is used for reference yearly by two million inquirers after current facts, and it is permanently kept in half a million homes and business offices. And surely THE WORLD ALMANAC, in its own pages, may modestly call attention to its influence and growth. A publication with millions of readers who look upon it as final authority quite easily takes place among the "best sellers," even though it does not appear weekly in the list. It is in a class by itself, and has a marvellous record. TOKENS OF APPRECIATION FROM HIGH SOURCES. From many hundreds of appreciative communications received annually, the following have been selected for the wide range of personalities, vocations, and countries they rep resent: WALTER WELLMAN, after his first Polar voyage: "I embrace the first opportunity since my return to express my recognition of the service which THE WORLD ALMANAC has done me and my companions while we were in the Arctic Circle. During the long Winter nights, when we were encased in ice and forced to depend on indoor material for entertainment, it never failed to be the source of constant amusement, instruction and comfort. It did more to reconcile us to our surroundings than anything else we had with us.' WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN in The Commoner: The amount of valuable information crowded into THE WORLD ALMANAC is little short of marvellous, and it will repay its cost many times over during the year." OSCAR S. STRAUS, Secretary of Commerce and Labor: "I keep the ALMANAC on my desk for reference during the year, and I find it a most ready reference book." The late GEORGE WASHINGTON CHILDS, of Philadelphia: "Too much praise can hardly be lavished on this alinost invaluable annual compendium. It would be difficult to suggest any method by which the work could better fulfil its functions-that of being a handy and trustworthy guide for busy people of every class of life." WILLIAM T. HARRIS, Commissioner of Education: "As a book of ready reference, I consider the ALMANAC unsurpassed." The late MAYOR PINGREE, of Detroit: "I have thought so well of the book as to purchase and distribute a dozen or more of them among my friends." SENATOR TILLMAN, of South Carolina: "I regard THE WORLD ALMANAC as one of the most valuable and handy compilations I have ever seen." GOVERNOR CHAMBERLAIN of Oregon: "I have had frequent occasion to refer to THE WORLD ALMANAC, and I have never failed to find the information sought." T. M. MILLER, late Attorney-General of Mississippi: "Like the great paper with which THE WORLD ALMANAC may said to be connected, its worth cannot be overestimated. I have frequently consulted THE WORLD ALMANAC and have been astonished at the variety, extent and accuracy of the information it contains." GOVERNOR TOOLE of Montana: "I wish to testify to its general accuracy." AUGUSTUS VAN WYCK, Jurist, Democratic Candidate for Governor of New York in 1898: "Never was so much information of daily use crowded in so small a space." JOHN W. YERKES, United States Commissioner of Internal Revenue: "The amount of valuable information in the 1906 WORLD ALMANAC, and the ease with which this information can be reached, renders this publication of great value to a busy man's desk." CARROLL D. WRIGHT, late Commissioner of Labor: "I use this ALMANAC a great deal and find it very trustworthy and valuable." H. M. M'CRACKEN, D. D., LL. D., Chancellor of New York University: "THE WORLD ALMANAC is used by me as a constant reference book on educational and other matter, and is found worth many times its cost." THEODORE L. SEIP, D. D., President of Muhlenburg College: "It is a thesaurus of useful information." JAMES B. ANGELL, LL. D., President of the University of Michigan: "I have found it of great convenience. It is compiled with care and accuracy." DANIEL C. GILMAN, LL. D., late President of Johns Hopkins University: "Valuable alike for its accuracy and comprehensiveness." THOMAS S. GATCH, Ph. D., President of the University of the State of Washington: "It is used almost constantly by the members of our faculty, by our students in civics and political economy, as well as by those connected with the debating societies. It is the hest bureau of information of which we know.” W. J. BRIER, President of the Wisconsin State Normal School: "It answers more questions correctly than any other volume in the library, with the possible exception of the unabridged dictionary." JOHN M. VAN DYKE, Principal of the Blairstown (N. J.) Public School: "By its side lies an encyclopedia of eighteen volumes, and still another large book calling itself a book of facts.' Weeks will go by possibly without a glance at any of these, while THE WORLD ALMANAC is used almost every hour. I do not make an exaggerated statement when I say that I could get along without the others before I could the last." FRANCIS J. CHENEY, Principal of the New York State Normal and Training School: "There has been brought together in compact and systematic form a vast amount of |