One of the political problems with which we have been much concerned in late years has to do with the possibility of removing an elected official from office. We proceed to the accomplishment of that purpose in two ways, by the traditional method of impeachment or by the new device of the recall. They differ in the fact that the former is a judicial procedure, whereas a recall is brought about by the direct action of the voters. The Romans were a practical people and did not like to interfere with the orderly transaction of public business by removing an executive from office. Consequently we have no record of any attempt being made to remove a civil magistrate from office until we come to the stormy period of the second century before our era. In 169 B.C. one of the censors of that year was impeached and tried before the popular assembly, and in 133 B.C. the tribune Tiberius Gracchus secured the recall of his colleague Octavius by a popular vote. Both cases illustrate the application of the Roman doctrine of popular sovereignty in its extreme form. Neither method of procedure, however, found favor in later years. In fact the Romans did not have so much need of either process as we have today, because the tribune could veto an arbitrary or unscrupulous act of a magistrate. 5. PENSIONS, BONUSES, AND MILITARISM One of the important political and economic questions which countries have to settle in modern times at the close of a war is that of reinstating soldiers in civil pursuits and of granting them some material compensation for their services. After the Civil War in this country the question was solved by throwing open lands in the Middle West to settlement and by appropriating money liberally for pensions. At the moment of writing the needs of the soldier returning to civil life from the late war with the Central European powers have been met in part by a system of insurance, by the payment of a small sum on discharge, and by making provision for the disabled. It has been further proposed to compensate men honorably discharged from service by giving them either cash payments or homestead allotments. All of these plans were tried by the Romans. Down to the close of the second century before our era only the well-to-do were enrolled in the legions. Marius for the first time opened the ranks to the proletariat. When the term of service of his soldiers came to an end he had to make suitable provision for them. He did so by founding a colony and granting them allotments in it. This precedent was followed by Sulla, Pompey, and Caesar, and between 59 and 31 B.C. twenty-five or thirty colonies of veterans were thus established. Under the Empire a soldier received also a fixed sum of money on his discharge. The benefit societies which the Roman government encouraged among the soldiers served somewhat the same purpose as our system of war-insurance. The bonus system was adopted, in a formal way, for the first time by