In the Equitable Life Assurance Society war James H. Hyde, the First Vice-President, denies the charges made against him and retains Elihu Root, Samuel Untermeyer and others as counsel. He announces that if President Alexander wants a fight he can have it. The State Insurance Department of New York takes a hand in the case, and an investigation of the company’s affairs is ordered. The Alexander forces charge that loans have been made out of the association’s funds to Edward H. Harriman, of the U. P. R. R., that the dinner to French Ambassador Cambon was paid from the company’s money, and that Vice-President Hyde has usurped the President’s functions. Chairman John D. Crimmins, of the committee of policyholders for mutualizing the society, announces that the Hyde faction has conceded all the committee’s demands and that the Alexander people alone stood in the way. For this reason Mr. Crimmins, who was understood heretofore to stand with Alexander, refuses to go further in what he terms the personal fight on Hyde. President Samuel Gompers, of the American Federation of Labor, sends out a warning to the members that the Socialists are attempting to disrupt the organization. In the Gas Trust inquiry an official of the company admits that there is $12,000,000 watered stock in the corporation. At a meeting of the National Association of State Dairy and Food Departments being held in Chicago, J. M. Hurty, Secretary of the Indiana Board, states that 455,000 babies were killed last year by adulteration of milk and other infants’ foods. A threatened coal strike in Pennsylvania is averted by the granting of the wage scale of last year. April 2.—H. Rider Haggard, in an interview given to the New York _Journal_, says that the poor of America are as miserable as those of England. April 3.—Fifty men are entombed in a mine explosion at Zeigler, Ill. Most of them are believed to have been killed. April 4.—Vice-President Hyde, of the Equitable Life, accuses President Alexander of being in a conspiracy to ruin the company, and cites as one of his proofs the fact that Second Vice-President George E. Tarbell, one of Alexander’s supporters, disposed of his interests in the company before beginning the present fight. April 5.—J. G. Phelps Stokes, the New York millionaire philanthropist, announces that he is soon to marry a poor East Side settlement worker, the daughter of a Russian Jew. April 6.—In a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Equitable Life Assurance Society, Vice-President James H. Hyde wins a virtual victory at all points over President Alexander. The Hyde-Crimmins two-year mutualization plan is adopted and Hyde committees are appointed to investigate the affairs of the company.