The resignation of Postmaster-General Smith has been followed by reports of the intentions of other Cabinet officers to take similar stops at an early day. Secretary Gage has shown a disposition to be released from the Treasury service when it, will be agressble to the President, and Secretary Long, of the Navy Department, is believed to be ina like frame of mind.' There are also.some reports, which are more vague, that Secretary Hitchcock, of the Interior tment, would also be glad to retire.
reason exists for believing that a rious political or official friction underlies She inclination of several of the members tofthe McKinley Cabinet to go back to private life, although it is more than possible that some of them may not be in the same personal sympathy with Roosevelt as with Mr. McKin'ey.
It is entirely natural, however, that the President should not be in the warm and close relation to all of the advisers chosen by his predecessor as he would be to men selected by himself, and therefore the gradual retirement of some of them has not been unexpected.
This will not necessarily indicate any substantial change of policy on the part of
seeking to force or precipitate resignations he Frosdent, nor does it mean that inthe Gabines a Pwo days later Mr. Gage resigned. the course of an appreciative review of his services, the ' New York Times" says The chief work by which Mr. Gage's rule of the Treasury will be remembered will be the share of the Secretary in promoting the establishment of the gold standard, and this share has been in every way creditable to him. He had the full sympathy and support of the President, but oth d Mr. McKinley lacked the earnest and complete backing of some of the: most influential. leaders of their party in the Senate. Could that have been secured, the result would have been more satisfactory and securely stable. Mr. Gage and Mr, McKinley both urged the gradual conversion of the legal tenders into gold certificates, but this was too simple and honest to appeal to some of the Senators, who still nursed the illusion that there was political advantage in dickering over this. point. The Secretary never ceased to use all his influence in the direction of complete and permanent establishmen® his discernment, his judgment, his fairness of the gold standard, and unquestionably and his tact by united capital and labour, so that influence had much effect on intelli-far as represented at the Civic Federation's gent public opinion, if not among the conference. He has been chosen as the politicians of Congress. person most likely to succeed in transmut-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.