little sugar in the beet root then, some six per cent., and what he got out was dirty and bitter.  One of his pupils in 1801 set up a beet sugar factory near Breslau under the patronage of the King of Prussia, but the industry was not a success until Napoleon took it up and in 1810 offered a prize of a million francs for a practical process.  How the French did make fun of him for this crazy notion!  In a comic paper of that day you will find a cartoon of Napoleon in the nursery beside the cradle of his son and heir, the King of Rome—­known to the readers of Rostand as l’Aiglon.  The Emperor is squeezing the juice of a beet into his coffee and the nurse has put a beet into the mouth of the infant King, saying:  “Suck, dear, suck.  Your father says it’s sugar.”

In like manner did the wits ridicule Franklin for fooling with electricity, Rumford for trying to improve chimneys, Parmentier for thinking potatoes were fit to eat, and Jefferson for believing that something might be made of the country west of the Mississippi.  In all ages ridicule has been the chief weapon of conservatism.  If you want to know what line human progress will take in the future read the funny papers of today and see what they are fighting.  The satire of every century from Aristophanes to the latest vaudeville has been directed against those who are trying to make the world wiser or better, against the teacher and the preacher, the scientist and the reformer.

In spite of the ridicule showered upon it the despised beet year by year gained in sweetness of heart.  The percentage of sugar rose from six to eighteen and by improved methods of extraction became finally as pure and palatable as the sugar of the cane.  An acre of German beets produces more sugar than an acre of Louisiana cane.  Continental Europe waxed wealthy while the British West Indies sank into decay.  As the beets of Europe became sweeter the population of the islands became blacker.  Before the war England was paying out $125,000,000 for sugar, and more than two-thirds of this money was going to Germany and Austria-Hungary.  Fostered by scientific study, protected by tariff duties, and stimulated by export bounties, the beet sugar industry became one of the financial forces of the world.  The English at home, especially the marmalade-makers, at first rejoiced at the idea of getting sugar for less than cost at the expense of her continental rivals.  But the suffering colonies took another view of the situation.  In 1888 a conference of the powers called at London agreed to stop competing by the pernicious practice of export bounties, but France and the United States refused to enter, so the agreement fell through.  Another conference ten years later likewise failed, but when the parvenu beet sugar ventured to invade the historic home of the cane the limit of toleration had been reached.  The Council of India put on countervailing duties to protect their homegrown cane from the bounty-fed beet.  This forced the calling